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Bible Dictionaries
Ephraim
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
or Joseph and his Egyptian wife had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis 41:50-52). When the aged Jacob gave his parting blessings to his family, he gave the firstborn’s blessing to Joseph instead of to Reuben (because of Reuben’s immorality with Jacob’s concubine; Genesis 35:22; Genesis 49:3-4; 1 Chronicles 5:1-2). This meant that Joseph would father two tribes in Israel instead of one. Jacob therefore raised Joseph’s two sons to the same level as Jacob’s other sons, so that Joseph’s two sons would each have his own tribe (Genesis 48:5-6). The tribe of the younger son Ephraim was destined to become stronger than that of the older son Manasseh (Genesis 48:12-20).
Good territory
The tribe of Ephraim received as its inheritance possibly the best part of Canaan (cf. Genesis 49:22-26). This was the central highland region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (Joshua 16). (For information about its more important towns see BETHEL; JERICHO; JOPPA; SHECHEM; SHILOH.)
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