This was the territory of Ephraim, according to its clans: The boundary of their inheritance went from Ataroth Addar in the east to Upper Beth Horon … - Joshua 16:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 12, 2019): Joshua 16

The Greek storyteller Aesop argued that we should “be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.” It is something that we need to understand about ourselves. None of us are good at everything, we do not know everything nor do we need to know everything. And when we meet someone who knows more than anybody else and is better than everyone else, this attitude should be a warning to us and caution should be exercised. Because the person that we are dealing with is someone who either does not have the sense to know their limitations or is so insecure that they are unwilling to admit what it is that they do not know.

Joshua 16:4 gets the birth order right for the sons of Joseph; Manasseh was older than Ephraim and in ancient times, that meant something. The firstborn son was responsible for the care of the family. He would receive a double portion of the inheritance of his father, not because he was better, but because of the responsibilities of the father would be downloaded to him. Care for the land and the family business and debts incurred were all bestowed upon to the firstborn son. And because of this, the firstborn son also received a special blessing.

But Jacob, on his deathbed, had reversed all of these traditions of the firstborn when it came to his grandsons, born to the house of Joseph. Jacob, over the objections of the children’s father, had given the blessing and the double portion to Ephraim, the younger son. Cynically we might argue that this was because Jacob, the younger son of Isaac, had stolen both the birthright and the blessing from his older brother, Esau. He was not content with his lot as the younger son and fought with deception to change his standing in the family politics. Maybe he wanted to give to his grandson the benefit that he had claimed for himself in his family. And our reality is that none of this should have mattered. Manasseh could still, without the blessing, have been the one to work harder and longer and make something out of himself and his family, even though the title of firstborn was no longer his to claim.

But that was not Manasseh’s reality. The tribe of the firstborn son at the time of Israel’s invasion into Canaan was the larger of the two tribes fathered by the oldest sons of Joseph. According to Numbers 26, the population of Manasseh was 52,700, and the population of Ephraim was 32,500. Yet, even though Manasseh was the older son and his descendants were larger in number than his younger brother’s descendants, here, it is Ephraim that is mentioned first.

Of course, probably part of that is that Joseph was a descendant of Ephraim and not Manasseh. Joseph gave his family first mention as he begins to discuss the inheritance of the sons of Joseph. But even that is a fulfillment of the blessing that Jacob gave to his younger grandson. As Israel took the Promised Land, they were led by a descendant of Ephraim, and as time marched forward, the ten Northern tribes of Israel would become known by the name of this one tribal name, Ephraim.  

And none of that would matter, as the nation of Ephraim would lose sight of their God and disappear from the pages of history in the Assyrian captivity, leaving only Judah and Benjamin to carry on the story of God. Maybe they should have struggled harder to do what was right, then to be content at being first.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Joshua 17