Lessons From Ephraim: the Man, the Tribe, and the Kingdom

First of all, the man named Ephraim was the second son of Joseph and his Gentile bride Asenath in Egypt after Joseph’s remarkable promotion from his prison years to become the second ruler after Pharaoh in that empire. His name means ‘fruitful’, and his older brother Manasseh’s name means ‘forgetting’. Joseph said after their birth that God had caused him to forget all his previous unjust affliction and to become fruitful again in Egypt, Gen. 41. 51, 52. So, the first lesson that we can learn from Ephraim is that God overrules all our afflictions and sufferings in this present life to produce much fruit of godly character and blessings both for ourselves and for many around us. The Lord’s pruning knife is unpleasant for all of us, but it always has a gracious purpose, and results in His greater glory.

Second, there is instruction in the way in which Jacob blessed both Manasseh and Ephraim when Joseph brought them to him, for Jacob purposely crossed his hands to bless Ephraim with the portion of the firstborn rather than Manasseh, his older brother, 48. 14. Jacob had at last learned the lesson which he should have learned in his youth, when he and his mother Rebekah conspired to deceive Isaac into blessing him rather than Esau, his older twin brother. God does not need our deceitful stratagems to bring His purposes of grace and blessing to pass; He can sovereignly overrule everything to achieve this in His own time and way. Often in scripture, the Lord blessed the younger, the youngest, or the weakest of people to accomplish His own will, since this brings most glory to Himself. Have we yet learned this lesson?

Next, the tribe that issued from Ephraim became one of the most prominent tribes of Israel. However, 1 Chronicles chapter 7 verses 20 to 23 record a tragedy that befell Ephraim’s immediate family, for the men of Gath attacked and killed some of them in order to steal their cattle. Ephraim mourned deeply for his lost sons, and named his next son Beriah, ‘because it went evil with his house’, v. 23. How do we react to such tragedies which sometimes inexplicably affect our own families? Do we become bitter or angry against God, or are we able to voice the patriarch Job’s initial calm reaction to his calamities, ‘the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’, Job 1. 21? May the Lord grant us the spiritual maturity to accept all His dealings with us in grace and humility, believing that He means them for our spiritual good and that which will most glorify His name.

Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant and successor in leading Israel in the initial conquest of their Promised Land, was undoubtedly the most faithful, godly, and able of the descendants of Ephraim recorded in scripture. Only he and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who represented Judah in the spying of the land, were courageous enough to bring back a positive report of that land, because they believed that the Lord would enable Israel to overcome all the strong enemies whom they had seen in it, Num. 14. 6-9. Therefore, they alone of all the adult wilderness generation were permitted to live long enough to enter their inheritance. Do we believe that nothing is impossible with God? How far have we entered today into our own spiritual inheritance in the heavenlies in Christ, as the Epistle to the Ephesians encourages us to do? We will enjoy many blessings there, but we will also need to conform our behaviour to live like our Lord did in this evil world, and engage in battle with many spiritual enemies around us in the strength that He alone can supply. Joshua only made a very few mistakes when he failed to consult the Lord about Ai and the deceitful Gibeonites, but fulfilled his ministry well, and was very humble and selfeffacing to its end, only accepting his own inheritance in Ephraim shortly before he died at 110 years of age. Do we, like the Apostle Paul, desire to finish our course of service in this world with joy, Acts 20. 24? Then we must, like Joshua, trust and obey the Lord consistently throughout our lives, whatever difficulties we face. ‘Whose faith follow’, Heb. 13. 7!

By contrast, sadly, the history of the Ephraimite tribe within their nation is not nearly so encouraging or faithful as the biography of Joshua. In the book of Joshua, the record of the inheritance of Ephraim in the land is closely linked with that of Manasseh as Joseph’s other son. Joseph had received the double portion of land as his birthright in place of Reuben, Jacob’s first child, because of Reuben’s sin with Bilhah, Gen. 49. 4. To a certain extent their inheritance was mingled, and neither tribe succeeded in driving out the Canaanites from it completely, as Israel had been commanded to do by Moses. Theirs was an incomplete obedience to the word of the Lord, which always leads the people of God into trouble later. In fact, in Joshua chapter 17, the children of Joseph began to complain that they had not received a large enough inheritance compared to some of the other tribes. They considered that they were a great people and should be favoured as such. Joshua, however, although he himself was an Ephraimite, did not support their complaint, but rebuked them severely, saying that, if they really were a great people, they should bestir themselves, and make an effort, with the Lord’s promised help, to conquer more of their inheritance. God will not do for us what we can easily do ourselves. Today, we also should not be proud like the Ephraimites were but think humbly and realistically both what we are gifted to do for God, and what we ourselves cannot do.

Then, in Judges chapter 12, the Ephraimites were involved in another sad incident with Jephthah, caused by their own inflated opinion of themselves. After Jephthah had returned from defeating the Ammonites without their help, they threatened to burn his house down. Jephthah pointed out that, when he had called them previously, they had failed to join him against Ammon, and proceeded to gather all the men of Gilead to fight the Ephraimites in revenge for their attitude, so that 42, 000 of the latter tribe died in the ensuing civil war. Pride and self-seeking are the cause of so much trouble and strife amongst the people of God. May the Lord keep us humble and usable in His service!

Idolatry entered the tribe of Ephraim during the days of the Judges and became a major problem both then and later during the monarchy. First, a young Ephraimite named Micah made an idol in his home, then met the Danites as they were migrating to the north of the land, probably contrary to the Lord’s will for them, Judg. 18, 19. The latter brought it into their tribe in their new settlement, and thus idolatry took root there until the captivity. However, it was Solomon who caused such idolatry to spread more widely within his kingdom, for, as a result of his apostasy during his later years, the Lord raised up several enemies against him, including an industrious young Ephraimite named Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Although he had to flee to Egypt from Solomon, 1 Kgs. 11. 40, after Solomon died he opposed his son Rehoboam when the latter came to the throne. The Lord’s prophet, Ahijah, had promised Jeroboam that the Lord was rending ten tribes from Solomon and giving them to him as chastisement for apostasy, 1 Kgs. 11. 29-39. Thus, in 931 BC, the monarchy became divided between Rehoboam in the south and Jeroboam in the north. The northern kingdom of Israel never recovered from idolatry after this, because Jeroboam created a counterfeit system of worship based at Bethel and Dan, to deter his subjects from being attracted back to the true worship of the Lord at Jerusalem. Complete apostasy marked the northern kingdom ever after this until their exile to Assyria in 722 BC. The northern kingdom was often known as Ephraim, because Ephraim was the most prominent tribe within it.

Thus, Ephraim has had a very sad history of idolatry, which may explain why both the tribes of Ephraim and Dan are omitted from the 144, 000 future Jewish evangelists in Revelation chapter 7. But the Lord in grace will include them in the arrangements for the millennial kingdom, see Ezekiel chapter 48. Also, the prophet Hosea predicted that in the end times Ephraim would be fully restored to the Lord, and decisively reject all idolatry, see Hosea chapter 14. God still loves Israel despite their waywardness and outright apostasy.

We need to beware of all forms of idolatry, which displaces God from our lives, destroys His rightful glory, and always leads downwards into degrading behaviour. Behind any idol stands a demonic spirit tempting us to sin. The Apostle John ended his first Epistle with the command, ‘Little children, keep [or guard] yourselves from idols’, 1 John 5. 21, so it must still be a great danger. The idol can be a person, perhaps one dearly loved, or a special place, or any inanimate object of value to us. Learning from Israel’s apostasy, we also see that any substitute, or counterfeit form of worship must be decisively rejected, in order to worship God alone in spirit and in truth. The day of Judaistic ceremony and ritual was ended at the cross of Christ, but sadly many professing Christians still practise it in Christendom around us. ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage’, Gal. 5. 1. May our meditation on Ephraim encourage us to do so!