The numbers of the tribe did not at all times corre- spond with the promise of the blessing of Jacob. At the census in the wilderness of Sinai (Num. i, 32, 33; ii, 19) its numbers were 40,500, placing it at the head of the ciiildren of Rachel — ^Manasseh's number being 32,200, and Benjamin's 35,400. But forty years later, on the eve of the conquest (Num. xxvi, 37), witliout an}"- apparent cause, while Manasseh had advanced to 52,700, and Benjamin to 45,600, Ephraim had decreased to 32,500, the onh^ smaller number being that of Sim- eon, 22,200. At this period the families of both the brother tribes are enumerated, and Manasseh has pre- cedence over Ephraim in order of mention. It is verv ])Ossible that these great fluctuations in number may, in part at least, have been owing to the various standards under which the "mixed multitude" (2 j"), i. e. mongrel population of semi-Hebrew EgA-ptians that followed the emigrating host (Exod. xii, 38), ranged itself in its fickleness at different times (Meth. Quart. L'ev. April, 1863, p. 305 sq.). During the march through tlie wilderness the position of the sons of Jo- sejih and Benjamin was on the west side of the taber- nacle (Num. ii, 18-24), and the prince of Ephraim was Elishania, the son of Ammilnid (Num. i, 10).
It is at the time of the sending of the spies that we are first introduced to the great hero to whom the tribe owed nuich of its subsequent greatness. The repre- sentative of Ephraim on this occasion was " Oshea, the son of Nun," wliose name was at the termination of the affair changed bj' Closes to the more distinguished form in wliicli it is familiar to us. As among the founders of tlie nation Abrnm had acquired the name of Abraham, and Jacob of Israel, so Oshea, "help,"
EPHRATM
251
EPHRAIM
Map of the Ti ibe of Ephraim.
bscnme Jehoshiica or Joshua, "the help of Jehovah" (Ewiiin, ii, 30G).
According to the arrangement of the records of the book of Joshua — the " Domesday book of Palesthie" — the two great tribes of Jiidah and Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) first tooli their inheritance ; and after them the- seven other tribes entered on theirs (Josh. XV, xvi, xvii, xviii, 5). The boundaries of the poi"- tion of Ephraim are given in xvi, 1-10, and a part of it apparent!}' in duplicate in ver. 5, 7. The south boundary' was coincident for part of its length with the north boundarj' of Benjamin (q. v.), which latter, havvever, is somewliat more exactly stated in Josh, xviii, 12 sq. See Tkibk. Commencing at the Jor- dan, at the reach opposite Jericho (strictly Jordan of Jericho, in^T^ "^"^^i ^"^ expression that would lead us to locate the boundary at the point nearest that cit}', did not the necessity of including within Benja- min certain other pretty well identitied places compel us to carry it somewhat farther up the river), it ran to the '■'water of Jericho," proliably the vicinity of the lias el-Ain ; thence by one of the ravines, perhaps the vvady Samieh, it ascended through the wilderness — Midbar, the uncultivated waste liills — to Mount Bethel and Luz; and thence by Ataroth, "the Japhletite," Bethhoron the lower, and Gezer — [ilaces two of which are known — along the northern boundary of Dan (q. V.) to the Mediterranean, pr()l)al)l3' about Joppa. This agrees with the enumeration in 1 Cliron. vii, in which Bethel is given as the eastern, and Gezer — somewhere east of the present Eamleh — as the western limit. In Josh, xvi, 6, 8, we apparently have fragments of the northern boundary (compare xvii, 10), and as at least three of the points along tliat line (Asher, Tappuah, and Janohah) are pretty well identitied (see each name), we are tolerably safe in fixing the eastern ex- tremity on the Jordan at a1)out tlie mouth of wady Fasail, and the western, or the torrent Kanaii, at the modern Nahr Falaik, north of ApoUonia. But it is
possible that there never was a very definite subdivi- sion of the territorv assigned to the two brother tribes. Such an inference, at least, ma}' be drawn from Josh, xvii, lJr-18, in which the two are represented as com- plaining that only one portion had been allotted to them. Among the towns named as JManasseh's were Bethshean in the Jordan valley, Endor on the slopes of the "Little Hermon," Taanach on the north side of Carmel, and Dor on the sea-coast south of the same mountain. Ephraim thus occupied the very centre of Palestine, embracing an area about 40 miles in length from E. to W., and from G to 25 in breadth from N. to S. It extended from the Mediterranean on the W. to the Jordan on the E. : on the N. it had the half-tribe of Manasseh, and on the S. Benjamin and Dan (Josh. xvi, 5 sq. ; xvii, 7 sq.). This line country included most of what was afterwards called Samaria, as dis- tinguished from Judffia on the one hand, and from Galilee on the other. See Saji.vria.
The following is a list of all the Biblical localities within this tribe, with the probable modern sites; those not identified by any modern traveller are inclosed in brackets :
Antipatris.
Town.
Kefr-Saba.