Ephraim Series

Ephraim

Ephraim is the second son of Joseph and Asenath. The name Ephraim, then, means "fruitfulness." Asenath was an Egyptian woman whom Pharaoh gave to Joseph as a wife and the daughter of Potipherah, a priest of On. Ephraim was born in Egypt before the arrival of the children of Israel from Canaan.

Ephraim

Born: Egypt

Children: Sheerah, Shuthelah, Elead, Beker, Tahan, Ezer

Parents: Joseph, Asenath

Siblings: Manasseh

The Book of Genesis related the name "Ephraim" to a Hebrew word for "being fruitful," referring to Joseph's ability to produce children, specifically while in Egypt (termed by the Torah as the land of his affliction).

In the biblical account, Joseph's other son is Manasseh, and Joseph himself is one of the two children of Rachel and Jacob, the other being Benjamin. Biblical scholars regard it as evidence, from their geographic overlap and their treatment in older passages, that Ephraim and Manasseh were initially considered one tribe – that of Joseph. According to several biblical scholars, Benjamin was initially part of the suggested Ephraim-Manasseh single "Joseph" tribe, but the biblical account of Joseph as his Father became lost. Many biblical scholars suspect that the distinction of the Joseph tribes (including Benjamin) is that they were the only Israelites who went to Egypt and returned. In contrast, the main Israelite tribes emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout. According to this view, the story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife originated as a metaphor for this migration, with the property and family which were gained from Laban representing the gains of the Joseph tribes by the time they returned from Egypt; according to textual scholars, the *Jahwist version of the Laban narrative only mentions the Joseph tribes, and Rachel, and does not mention the other tribal matriarchs at all. In the Torah, the eventual superiority of the Tribe of Ephraim is argued to derive from Jacob, blind and on his deathbed, blessing Ephraim before Manasseh. The text describing this blessing features a *hapax legomenon – the word which classical rabbinical literature has interpreted in obscure manners; some rabbinical sources connect the term with sekel, meaning mind/wisdom, and view it as indicating that Jacob was entirely aware of who he was blessing; other rabbinical sources connect the term with shikkel, viewing it as signifying that Jacob was despoiling (robbing) Manasseh in favor of Ephraim; yet other rabbinical sources argue that it refers to the power of Jacob to instruct and guide the holy spirit. In classical rabbinical sources, Ephraim is described as modest and not selfish. These rabbinical sources allege that it was on account of modesty and selflessness and a prophetic vision of Joshua that Jacob gave Ephraim superiority over Manasseh, the elder of the two; in these sources, Jacob is regarded as being sufficiently just that God upholds the blessing in his honor, and makes Ephraim the leading tribe.

*hapax legomenon is a transcription of Greek meaning "being said once."

*The Jahwist is so named because of its characteristic use of the term Yahweh

The Bible records that from Joshua to the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel, the Tribe of Ephraim was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. No central government existed, and in times of crisis, the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges (see the Book of Judges).

With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form a solid centralized monarchy to meet the challenge. The Tribe of Ephraim joined the new kingdom with Saul as the first king. The widely accepted date for Saul's reign is approximately 1025–1005 BCE. Some scholars dispute this date range and place Saul later, perhaps as late as "the second half of the tenth century B.C.E."

After the death of Ishbosheth, Saul's son and successor to the throne of Israel, the Tribe of Ephraim joined the other northern Israelite tribes in making David, who was then the king of Judah, the king of a reunited Kingdom of Israel. The sequence preserved in the Bible, in which David follows Saul as king of Israel, may not be historically accurate. According to archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, there is doubt about whether the biblical ordering for the reigns of the early monarchs is reliable.

However, on the accession of Rehoboam, David's grandson, in c. 930 BCE, the northern tribes split from the House of David to form the northern Kingdom of Israel. The northern kingdom's first king was an Ephraimite, Jeroboam, who likely ruled in 931–909 BCE.

The accents of the tribes were distinctive enough even at the time of the confederacy so that when the Israelites of Gilead, under the leadership of Jephthah, fought the Tribe of Ephraim, their pronunciation of shibboleth as sibboleth was considered sufficient evidence to single out individuals from Ephraim, so that they could be subjected to immediate death by the Israelites of Gilead.