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EPHRAIM
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EPHRABI
"Bentley's projected edition, and used by Wetstein in liis own Greek Test, of 1751-2. In 1843 Tischendorf |iul)lislied the N.-T. part fully, and the O. T. in 1845, ill a splendid and accurate form, page for page and line for line, in capital but not fac-simile letters, with valuable prolegomena, etc. — Tregelles, in Home's In- trod. iv, 1G6 sq. ; Christian licinembrancei; Oct. 1862 ; Tischendorf, Xoi: Test. Gr. 7th edit. p. cxlix sq. See Manuscripts, Biblical.
E'phraim (Heb. Ephra'yim, C';i'1SX, a dual form ; Gesenius suggests = ia'JK-land ; Fiirst derives from a sing. "^'^2N = '''nQ,//-(«{/'«^; Sept. 'E'/jpniV), the name of a man (including the tribe and tract named from him, -with other kindred objects), and of one or two other places. Our account of them is in a large meas- ure compiled from the articles in Kitto and Smith.
1. (Josephus Grfflcizes 'E(ppciijii]c, Ant. ii, 7, 4.) The second son of Joseph bj' Asenath, the daughter of Pot- i])!ierah (Gen. xlvi, 20), born during the seven years of plenteousness (B.C. cir. 1878), and an allusion to this is possibly latent in the name, though it maj' also allude to Joseph's increasing family : " The name of the second he called Ephraim (i. c. double fruitful- ncss), for God hath caused me to be fruitful ("'i'jS'l, h'phrani) in the land of my affliction" (Gen. xli, 52). Josephus (^Ant. ii, G, 1) gives the derivation of the name somewhat differently — "Restorer, because he was restored to the freedom of his forefathers" (a-o- iivov£ . . . cici TO (nroCoOrji'di). The first incident in his histoiy, as well as that of his elder brother Ma- nasseh, is the blessing of the grandchildren bj' Jacob, Gen. xlviii — a passage on the age and genuineness of which the severest criticism has cast no doubt (Tuch, Genesis, p. 548; Ewald, Gesch. Isr. i, 534, note). Like his own father, on an occasion not dissimilar, Jacob's eyes were dim so that he could not see (xlviii, 10 ; conip. xxvii, 1). The intention of Joseph was evi- dently that the right hand of Jacob should convey its ampler blessing to the head of Manasseh, his first-born, and he had so arranged the young men. But the re- sult was otherwise ordained. Jacolj had been him- self a younger brother, and his words show plainly that he had not forgotten this, and that his s^-mpa- thies were still with the j'ounger of his two grand- children. He recalls the time when he was flying with the birthright from the vengeance of Esau ; the day when, still a wanderer, God Almighty had ap- peared to him at "Luz in the land of Canaan," and blessed him in words which foreshadowed the name of Ephraim ("I will make thee fruitful," ^"1S"C, ma- phreka, Gen. xlviii, 4; "Be thou fruitful," iTIS, pc- reh, XXXV, 11 ; both from the same root as the name Eph-aini) ; the still later day when the name of Epln-ath (comp. Ewald, Gesch. i, 493, n.) became bound up with the sorest trial of his life (xlviii, 7 ; xxxv, 16). See Epiiraimite. Thus, notwithstanding the pre- arrangement and the remonstrance of Joseph, for the second time in that family, the younger brother was made greater than the elder — Ephraim was set before ^Manasseh (xlviii, 19, '20). Ephraim would appear at that time to have been about twenty-one j'ears old (comp. Gen. xlvii, 28). Before Joseph's death Ephra- ini's family had reached the third generation (Gen. 1, 23), and it may have been about this time that the af- fray' mentioned in 1 Cliron. vii, 2], occurred, when some of the sons were killed on a i)lundering expedi- tion along the sea-coast to rol) the cattle of the men of (iath, and when Ephraim named a son Beriah, to perpetuate the memory of the disaster which had fall- en on his house. See Bkriaii. Obscure as is the interpretation of this fragment, it enables us to catch our last i;lim])se of the patriarch, mourning inconsola- ble in tlie midst of the circle of bis brethren, and at last conimemoratin'j; his loss in tiie name of the new- child, who, unknown to him, was to be the progenitor
of the most illustrious of all his descendants — Jehosh- ua, or Joshua, tlie son of Nun (1 Chron. vii. 27: see Ewald, i, 491). To this earh- period, too, has been referred the circumstance alluded to in Psa. Ixxviii, 9, when the " children of Ephraim, armed bowmen ("^p'rij r'Cp~'^*31"l, A. V. "being armed [and] carrjdng bows," which Qesenius and others support, from the Sept. and Vulg. ; although Ewald strikinglj' renders "carrying slack bows"), turned back in the day of battle." Otiiers, however, assign this defection to the failure of the tribe (in common with the rest of the Israelites) to expel the Canaanites (Judg. i, 29).
1. Tribe of Ephraim. This tribe, although, in accordance with the ancient laws of primogeniture, inferior, as being the junior, yet received precedence over that descended from the elder Manasseh by vir- tue of the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xli, 52; xlviii, 1). That blessing was an adoptive act, whereby Ejihraim and his brother Manasseh were counted as sons of Ja- cob, in the place of their father ; the object being to give to Joseph, through his sons, a double portion in the brilliant prospects of his house. Thus the de- scendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas everj' other of Jacob's sons counted but as one. There were thus, in fact, thirteen tribes of Is- rael ; but the number twelve is usually preserved, either by excluding that of Levi (which had no terri- torv) when Ephraim and Manasseh are separately named, or by counting these two together as the tribe of Joseph when Levi is included in the account. The intentions of Jacob were fulfilled, and Ephraim and Manasseh were counted as trif)es of Israel at the de- parture from Egypt, and, as such, shared in the terri- torial distri'nution of the Promised Land (Num. i, 33; Josh, xvii, 14; 1 Chron. vii, 20). The precise posi- tion of the immediate descendants of Joseph in Egypt might form an interesting subject for speculation. Be- ing the sons of one in eminent place, and through their mother connected with high families in Egyjit, their condition could not at once have been identified with that of the sojourners in Goshen ; and perhaps thej' were not fully amalgamated with the rest of their countrymen until that king arose who knew not Joseph.