Ephraim

Ephraim begins as the second son Joseph fathers in Egypt, becomes the leading tribe of the Joseph-house in the wilderness and the conquest, lends its name to the central hill country, and finally serves as the prophets' standard label for the breakaway northern kingdom. The same name therefore moves across registers — patriarch, tribe, territory, and political body — and the prophets exploit that range, sometimes pleading with Ephraim as a son and sometimes indicting him as a renegade kingdom.

Birth and adoption

Joseph names his second-born in exile: "And the name of the second he called Ephraim: For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction" (Ge 41:52). At the end of Jacob's life the patriarch elevates Joseph's two boys to the rank of his own sons — "Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, will be mine" (Ge 48:5) — and then, against Joseph's protest, deliberately crosses his hands so the right rests on the head of the younger: "And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it on Ephraim's head, who was the younger" (Ge 48:14). The blessing that follows fixes Ephraim in front of his older brother as a matter of prophecy. "And his father refused, and said, I know, my son, I know. He also will become a people, and he also will be great: nevertheless his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a multitude of nations" (Ge 48:19). The chapter closes with the formula that becomes Israel's standard benediction — "God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh" (Ge 48:20).

A single Chronicles notice preserves a private grief belonging to the man rather than the tribe. After his sons Ezer and Elead are killed by men of Gath, "Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to comfort him" (1Ch 7:21-22).

The wilderness tribe

Numbers tracks Ephraim from Sinai to Moab. At the first census the tribe's fighting men number forty thousand five hundred (Nu 1:33). On the march Ephraim takes the western standard with Manasseh and Benjamin under it: "On the west side will be the standard of the camp of Ephraim according to their hosts: and the prince of the sons of Ephraim will be Elishama the son of Ammihud" (Nu 2:18). At the second census, on the plains of Moab, the figure has dropped to thirty-two thousand five hundred (Nu 26:37) — and Numbers signs the tribe as part of the Joseph house: "These are the sons of Joseph after their families" (Nu 26:37). Moses' final blessing keeps the same Joseph framing while still distinguishing the two: "The firstborn of his herd, majesty is his; And his horns are the horns of the wild-ox: With them he will push the peoples all of them, [even] the ends of the earth: And they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, And they are the thousands of Manasseh" (De 33:17).

The hill country

The conquest gives Ephraim the spine of the central highlands. The tribal border runs "eastward… Ataroth-addar, to Beth-horon the upper" (Jos 16:5), and the Joseph-sons protest that one lot is too small: "If you are a great people, go up for yourself to the forest, and cut down for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim; since the hill-country of Ephraim is too narrow for you" (Jos 17:15). Joshua's answer becomes a charter for forest-clearing: "the hill-country will be yours; for though it is a forest, you will cut it down" (Jos 17:18). The conquest is incomplete, however: "they did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell in the midst of Ephraim to this day, and have become slave labor" (Jos 16:10).

The hill country becomes a fixed geographical reference for the rest of the historical books. Joshua himself is buried "in Timnath-heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim" (Jg 2:9). The Levite of Judges 17 wanders into "the hill-country of Ephraim to the house of Micah" (Jg 17:8). Saul's army hides in it during the Philistine campaign: "all the men of Israel who had hid themselves in the hill-country of Ephraim" (1Sa 14:22). Sheba ben Bichri, who lifts his hand against David, is identified as "a man of the hill-country of Ephraim" (2Sa 20:21). And in a more specific sense the heading "forest of Ephraim" names the killing-ground east of Jordan where Absalom's revolt collapses: "the battle was in the forest of Ephraim… the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured" (2Sa 18:6, 18:8).

Tribal politics under the judges and early monarchy

Ephraim is touchy about its leadership of the north and prone to pick fights with those it suspects of bypassing it. Even where the record reads simply "the house of Joseph, they also went up against Beth-el; and [the Speech of] Yahweh was with them" (Jg 1:22), the surrounding narratives show a tribe quick to take offense. With Gideon, the protest comes only after the fighting: "And Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill-country of Ephraim, saying, Come down against Midian, and take the waters before them, as far as Beth-barah, even the Jordan" (Jg 7:24); when the dust has settled they ask, "Why have you served us thus, that you didn't call us, when you went to fight with Midian?" (Jg 8:1). With Jephthah the same complaint — "Why did you pass over to fight against the sons of Ammon, and didn't call us to go with you? We will burn your house on you with fire" (Jg 12:1) — escalates into civil war. The Gileadites take the Jordan fords against the retreating Ephraimites: "Are you an Ephraimite? If he said, No; then they said to him, Now say, 'Shibboleth'; and he said 'Sibboleth'… And there fell at that time of Ephraim forty and two thousand" (Jg 12:5-6). Ephraim later sides with Saul's house at the death of the king — "and he made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel" (2Sa 2:9) — and the place name "Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim" (2Sa 13:23) marks the location where Absalom kills Amnon.

The schism and the calf cult

When the kingdom splits, Jeroboam plants the new northern capital and its sanctuary in Ephraimite territory: "Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and dwelt in it" (1Ki 12:25). The pretext is liturgical control: "if this people goes up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord… For this reason the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold… And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other he put in Dan" (1Ki 12:27-29). Sirach reads the sequel as a single moral arc — "So the people became two scepters, And from Ephraim [arose] a sinful kingdom" (Sir 47:21) — and lays the schism at Jeroboam's feet: "Until there arose, let there be no memorial of him, Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Who sinned, and made Israel to sin; And he put a stumbling-block [before] Ephraim, To drive them from their land; And their sin became very great, And they sold themselves to do all manner of evil" (Sir 47:23-24). On the southern side, Abijah of Judah retakes border territory in the early years of the rupture — "And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Beth-el with its towns, and Jeshanah with its towns, and Ephron with its towns" (2Ch 13:19) — and Asa later draws northerners home: "those who sojourned with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon: for they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, when they saw that Yahweh his God was with him" (2Ch 15:9). In the other direction, the north strikes south: "And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king's son, and Azrikam the leader of the house" (2Ch 28:7).

Hezekiah and Josiah reach across the line

Two southern reformers cross the border into Ephraim. At Hezekiah's reinstituted Passover, "a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise than it is written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, The good Yahweh pardon everyone" (2Ch 30:18). The follow-through is iconoclastic: "all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah, and broke in pieces the pillars… in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had destroyed them all" (2Ch 31:1). Josiah extends the reach further still: "And [so he did] in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even to Naphtali, he searched their houses round about. And he broke down the altars, and beat the Asherim and the graven images into powder" (2Ch 34:6-7).

Ephraim as the northern kingdom in the prophets

By Hosea's day "Ephraim" is the prophets' working name for the breakaway state. The equivalence is sometimes laid out flat: "the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son" (Is 7:9). In Chronicles a southern prophet uses the same shorthand: "don't let the army of Israel go with you; for Yahweh is not with Israel, [to wit,] with all the sons of Ephraim" (2Ch 25:7). And the indictment is specifically religious: "Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone" (Hos 4:17); "When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died" (Hos 13:1); "The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is laid up in store" (Hos 13:12). The same prophet's lament-and-judgment pattern repeats: "I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have whored, Israel is defiled" (Hos 5:3); "O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your⁺ goodness is as a morning cloud" (Hos 6:4). When Ephraim finally seeks an Assyrian patron Yahweh's verdict is decisive: "When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah [saw] his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king: but he is not able to heal you⁺… For [my Speech will be] to Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah" (Hos 5:13-14).

Isaiah extends the same vocabulary: "Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty" (Is 28:1); and the time-stamped sentence: "within threescore and five years will Ephraim be broken in pieces, so that it will not be a people" (Is 7:8). Jeremiah carries the verdict forward: "And I will cast you⁺ out of my sight, as I have cast out all your⁺ brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim" (Je 7:15).

Restoration

Across the same prophetic books, however, Ephraim is also the object of a return. Isaiah sees the long inter-tribal grudge dissolved: "The envy also of Ephraim will depart, and those who vex Judah will be cut off: Ephraim will not envy Judah, and Judah will not vex Ephraim" (Is 11:13). Jeremiah hears the north's repentance and Yahweh's answering tenderness: "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself [thus], You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed [to the yoke]: turn me, and I will be turned… Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child?… therefore my insides yearn for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says Yahweh" (Je 31:18, 31:20). A pilgrimage rises from the same hills that had hosted the calf-shrines: "there will be a day, that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim will cry, Arise⁺, and let us go up to Zion to Yahweh our God" (Je 31:6). The land itself is rehabilitated — "he will feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead" (Je 50:19) — and Ezekiel receives the iconic two-stick oracle: "take another stick, and write on it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and [for] all the house of Israel his partners: and join them for you one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand" (Eze 37:16-17). The restored land allotment in the closing chapters of Ezekiel keeps Ephraim explicitly: "by the border of Manasseh, from the east side to the west side, Ephraim, one [portion]" (Eze 48:5). Zechariah closes with disarmament and joy in the same name: "I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem… and he will speak peace to the nations" (Zec 9:10); "[they of] Ephraim will be like a mighty man, and their heart will rejoice as through wine… their heart will be glad in [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Zec 10:7).

Other places called Ephraim

Two more uses of the name belong to specific landscape features rather than the tribe. Jerusalem's north-facing wall holds a "gate of Ephraim" mentioned at the breach Jehoash makes in the city — "broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, four hundred cubits" (2Ki 14:13) — and again on Nehemiah's processional route: "and in the broad place of the gate of Ephraim" (Ne 8:16); "and above the gate of Ephraim, and by the old gate, and by the fish gate" (Ne 12:39). And at the close of Jesus' public ministry the Fourth Gospel names a town for it: "Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed from there into the country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there he stayed with the disciples" (Jn 11:54).

Renaming as Joseph

Revelation's roll-call of the sealed tribes uses the older patriarchal name in place of Ephraim's: "Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand; Of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand" (Re 7:8) — a quiet return to the framing in which Ephraim first stood, as one of the two Joseph-sons.