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According to the Hebrew Bible , the Tribe of Ephraim ( Hebrew : אֶפְרַיִם , ʾEp̄rayīm, in pausa: אֶפְרָיִם, ʾEp̄rāyīm ) was one of the tribes of Israel . The Tribe of Manasseh together with Ephraim formed the House of Joseph . It is one of the ten lost tribes . The etymology of the name is disputed.

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56-516: Ephraimite may refer to : a member of the Tribe of Ephraim Ephraimite (coin) , debased coinage issued by Frederick the Great Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Ephraimite . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to

112-627: A human being to Him as a burnt-offering, for His acceptance. Such offerings were common to heathen nations at that time, but it is noteworthy that Israel stands out among them with this great peculiarity, that human sacrifices were unknown in Israel. However, in the Hebrew Bible, the same word for 'burnt offering' (Hebrew, ʿōlāh ) used in reference to Jephthah and his daughter in Judges 11:31 is also used in other Biblical stories alluding to human sacrifice, such as

168-484: A man named Ephraim, who is recorded as the son of Joseph, the son of Jacob, and Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera. The descendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas the other sons of Jacob were the founders of one tribe each. The Bible records that the Tribe of Ephraim entered the land of Canaan during its conquest by Joshua , a descendant of Ephraim himself. However, many archeologists have abandoned

224-527: Is also given as Gilead, and, as his mother is described as a prostitute, this may indicate that his father might have been any of the men of that area. Jephthah led the Israelites in battle against Ammon and, in exchange for defeating the Ammonites, made a vow to sacrifice whatever would come out of the door of his house first. When his daughter was the first to come out of the house, he immediately regretted

280-503: Is also sometimes compared to that of Agamemnon 's daughter Iphigenia . In his play Jephthas sive votum – Jeptha or the Vow , the Scottish scholar and dramatist George Buchanan (1506–1582) called Jephthah's daughter "Iphis", obviously alluding to Iphigenia, and Handel 's 1751 oratorio , Jephtha , based on Buchanan's play, uses the same name. According to an early Jewish tradition, Jephthah

336-505: Is blamed by the Bible on the jealousy of Ephraim over the growing power of Judah. In the Book of Chronicles , Ephraim's act of splintering from Judah is denounced as forsaking God, and Ephraim is portrayed as becoming highly irreligious, particularly in their resistance to the reforms enacted by Hezekiah and Josiah . It was not until the close of the first period of Jewish history that God 'refused

392-461: Is doubt about whether the biblical ordering for the reigns of the early monarchs is reliable, and that the sequence preserved in the Bible, in which David follows Saul as king of Israel, may not be historically accurate. However, on the accession of Rehoboam , David's grandson, in c. 930 BCE the northern tribes split from the House of David to form the northern Kingdom of Israel . The first king of

448-408: Is elaborated and emphasized; "the author has done his utmost to put this woman on the same level as the patriarchs, in this case especially Isaac." John Chrysostom held that God allowed Jephthah to kill his daughter in order to prevent similar rash vows being made in the future and that it was for that purpose that the annual bewailing of the event took place as a constant reminder. Ambrose cited

504-670: Is remembered for the killing of the fugitive Ephraimites who were identified by their accent; they said the Hebrew word shibboleth as sibboleth . "At that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell" ( Judges 12:5–6 ). Jephthah is referenced once in the Epistle to the Hebrews 11:32. Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter stands in stark contrast to the Binding of Isaac in the Book of Genesis , in which Abraham

560-535: Is the tribe that embodies the Kingdom of Judah and provided its royal family). In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. Kenneth Kitchen, a well-known conservative biblical scholar, dates this event to slightly after 1200 BC. However, the consensus of modern scholars is that the conquest of Joshua as described in

616-477: The Book of Judges ). With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form a strong centralised monarchy to meet the challenge. The Tribe of Ephraim joined the new kingdom with Saul as the first king. The widely accepted date for Saul's reign is approximately 1025–1005 BCE. Some scholars dispute this date range and place Saul later, perhaps as late as "the second half of

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672-517: The Telugu Jews claim descent from Ephraim, and call themselves Bene Ephraim , relating similar traditions to those of the Mizo Jews , whom the modern state of Israel regards as descendants of Manasseh. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that a significant portion of its members are descended from or adopted into the tribe of Ephraim, believing that they are charged with restoring

728-488: The blessing of Jacob : "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall", interpreting the "wall" as the ocean). Jephthah Jephthah (pronounced / ˈ dʒ ɛ f θ ə / ; Hebrew : יִפְתָּח , Yīftāḥ ) appears in the Book of Judges as a judge who presided over Israel for a period of six years ( Judges 12:7 ). According to Judges, he lived in Gilead . His father's name

784-459: The 14th century and continues to be propounded today, as by Solomon Landers, who considers it most likely that the fate of Jephthah's daughter was perpetual virginity or solitary confinement. Ethelbert William Bullinger , looks at the word "and" in Jephthah's vow (Judges 11:31: "whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be

840-511: The 8th century BCE, when the Northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria) began to collect its heroic tales, royal stories, and foundation myths. Finkelstein has also suggested that the story of Jephthah's vow may have been added into the story as late as the Hellenistic period. Some observers have noted the similarities between Jephthah and the mythical Cretan general, Idomeneus , as related by Servius

896-596: The Book of Joshua never occurred. As recorded in the Book of Joshua , the territory allocated to the Tribe of Ephraim was at the center of Canaan, west of the Jordan , south of the territory of Manasseh, and north of the Tribe of Benjamin . The region later named Samaria (as distinguished from Judea or Galilee ) consisted mostly of Ephraim's territory. The area was mountainous, giving it protection, and also highly fertile, giving prosperity, The territory of Ephraim contained

952-685: The Exodus , and on arrival in Canaan was subjected to a disastrous battle with the Philistines ; in the Midrashic Jasher this is portrayed as a rebellion of Ephraim against God, resulting in the slaying of all but 10, and the bleached bones of the slaughtered being strewn across the roads, so much so that the circuitous route of the Exodus was simply an attempt by God to prevent the Israelites from having to suffer

1008-507: The Grammarian in his Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil . Idomeneus had asked the gods to calm a storm, promising in return that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw upon his return, which turned out to be his son. The similarity has caused some to wonder if they share a common ancestor. A similar story about Meander is given by Pseudo-Plutarch . The story of Jephthah's daughter

1064-517: The Israelite confederation. In the Biblical account, Joseph is one of the two children of Rachel and Jacob , a brother to Benjamin , and father to both Ephraim, and his first son, Manasseh ; although Manasseh was the eldest, Jacob foresaw that Ephraim's descendants would be greater than his brother's. Though the biblical descriptions of the geographic boundary of the House of Joseph are fairly consistent,

1120-533: The Israelites of Gilead. Ephraim was a member of the Northern Kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c. 723 BCE and the population deported. From that time, the Tribe of Ephraim has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Ephraim is often seen as the tribe that embodies the entire Northern Kingdom and the royal house resided in the tribe's territory (just as Judah

1176-654: The Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and incorporated within it the cities of Bethel (now Beitin ), ʻAtarot, Beth-Ḥoron the Nether (now Bayt ʻUr), extending as far as Gezer (now Abu Shûsheh , formerly known as Tell el Jezer ) and the Mediterranean Sea. Gezer was said to have been inhabited by Canaanites long after Joshua had either killed or expelled the other Canaanites. According to French archaeologist, Charles Clermont-Ganneau , who identified

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1232-456: The Lord's, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering"). As he explains the Hebrew prefix "ו" that is translated in the above passage as "and" is often used as a disjunctive, and means "or", when there is a second proposition. Indeed, this rendering is suggested in the margin of the A.V. Bullinger goes on to give examples from the Bible where the same word has been translated as "or". According to him,

1288-621: The Philistines, which was mourned by Ephraim and his brethren. This Ephraim was believed to be different from the more famous Ephraim and his brethren were believed to be the heads of other Israelite tribes. Professor Nili Wazana connects this with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion 's argument for why the Jews were indigenous to Canaan, which was affirmed in the Israeli Declaration of Independence . Ben-Gurion argued that Abraham's migration to Canaan

1344-457: The campaign against the Ammonites, but he holds out for a more permanent and a broader position, and the elders agree that, provided Jephthah succeeds in defeating Ammon, he will be their permanent chieftain. On behalf of Israel as a whole and in reliance on the might of God the Judge, Jephthah challenges the Ammonites. Jephthah swears an oath: ". . . and whatever [footnote: Or whoever ] comes out from

1400-592: The descriptions of the boundaries between Manasseh and Ephraim are not, and each is portrayed as having exclaves within the territory of the other. Furthermore, in the Blessing of Jacob , and elsewhere ascribed by textual scholars to a similar or earlier time period, Ephraim and Manasseh are treated as a single tribe, with Joseph appearing in their place. From this it is regarded as probable that originally Ephraim and Manasseh were considered one tribe — that of Joseph. According to several biblical scholars , Benjamin

1456-499: The doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the L ORD 's, and I will offer it [footnote: Or him ] up for a burnt offering . The victorious Jephthah is met on his return by his only child, a daughter . Jephthah tears his clothes and cries, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low!" but is bound by his vow: "I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow". The girl asks for two months' grace, "...that I may go up and down on

1512-403: The early centers of Israelite religion - Shechem and Shiloh . These factors contributed to making Ephraim the most dominant of the tribes in the Kingdom of Israel , and led to Ephraim becoming a synonym for the entire kingdom. Joshua 16:1-4 outlines the borders of the lands allocated to the "children of Joseph", i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh combined, and Joshua 16:5-8 defines the borders of

1568-429: The high priesthood was taken from him and temporarily given to the offspring of Ithamar , essentially Eli and his sons. Since at least the 12th or 13th century, Jewish scholars, among them the compiler and summarizer David Kimhi (1160–1235) and Levi Ben Gershon (1288–1344), have taken fulfilment of Jephthah's vow as meaning that he only kept her in seclusion. This view is put forward also by Christian scholars from

1624-458: The idea that Joshua carried out a conquest of Canaan similar to that described in the Book of Joshua, seeing Jews instead as indigenous Canaanites who developed a monotheistic religion over time. From Joshua to the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel , the Tribe of Ephraim was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. No central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges (see

1680-401: The intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ephraimite&oldid=1098350095 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Tribe of Ephraim According to the Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim is descended from

1736-456: The land allocated to the tribe of Ephraim in more detail. Bethel was allocated by Joshua to the Tribe of Benjamin. However, even by the time of the prophetess Deborah , Bethel is described as being in the land of the Tribe of Ephraim. Some twenty years after the breakup of the United Monarchy , Abijah , the second king of Kingdom of Judah , defeated Jeroboam of Israel and took back

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1792-401: The lost tribes in the latter days , as prophesied by Isaiah . Along with members of the tribe of Judah , members of the tribe of Ephraim are believed to be playing an important leadership roles for covenant Israel in the last days. They also believe that the main groups of the Book of Mormon ( Nephites and Lamanites ) were parts of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, as part fulfilment of

1848-507: The mountains and weep for my virginity". And so Jephthah "did with her according to his vow that he had made". The story ends by recounting how "the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah, the Gileadite, four days in the year". Later, Jephthah was forced to fight against the Ephraimites , who refused to aid him in his struggle against the Ammonites. The story

1904-462: The northern kingdom was an Ephraimite, Jeroboam , who likely ruled in 931–909 BCE. The accents of the tribes were distinctive enough even at the time of the confederacy so that when the Israelites of Gilead , under the leadership of Jephthah , fought the Tribe of Ephraim, their pronunciation of shibboleth as sibboleth was considered sufficient evidence to single out individuals from Ephraim, so that they could be subjected to immediate death by

1960-433: The right translation of this passage is: "whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer it up as a burnt offering." Jephthah's daughter, being the first that came out of the house, was thus, according to Bullinger, dedicated to God. He also says: In any case, it should have been unlawful, and repugnant to Jehovah, to offer

2016-461: The shedding of his limbs, which are buried in numerous places, as is learned from Jud. 12:7: 'Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and he was buried in the towns of Gilead.' One limb would slough away and be buried in one location, and then another would fall off somewhere else and be buried there." Rashi also quotes the Midrash Rabba saying that he was punished for not going to the high priest to get

2072-402: The sight of the remains. Though from the point of view of an increasing majority of archaeologists, there were always two distinct cultures in Canaan, a strong and prosperous northern kingdom and a weaker and poorer southern one, in the Biblical account the Israelite tribes were initially united in a single kingdom, and only later fractured into the northern and southern kingdoms; this fracture

2128-463: The site in 1871 and later carried out excavations there, Gezer marked the extreme western point of the territory of Ephraim, and was "situated at the actual intersection of the boundaries of Ephraim, Dan and Judah." This view, however, does not seem to be supported by the Scriptures themselves which place the extent of Ephraim's border at the sea. Spanish-Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela wrote that

2184-466: The southernmost bounds of the territory of Ephraim extended in a south-westerly direction as far as the town of Ibelin or Jabney . According to the Torah , the tribe consisted of descendants of Ephraim a son of Joseph , from whom it took its name; however some critical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in

2240-580: The story as an example of how it is "sometimes contrary to duty to fulfill a promise, or to keep an oath". One midrash characterizes Yiftach (Jephthah) as a person of poor judgment, who makes "unfitting" vows without proper consideration for consequences ( B'reishit Rabbah , 60:3). Another midrash (Tanhuma Bechukotai 7) asserts that if Jephthah had read the laws of vows in the Torah, he would not have lost his daughter. The rabbis also ascribe Jephthah's death to his actions, as punishment: "Jephthah’s penalty consists of

2296-425: The story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22) and Mesha of Moab and his son (2 Kings 3:27). Moreover, an ʿōlāh in the Hebrew Bible exemplifies a pure gift to the deity. Thus, Jephthah is not stating an alternative between dedicating something to God and offering it up as a burnt offering, but clearly linking the two. Adam Clarke 's Commentary has an exposition of the issues at stake in this passage and contends that

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2352-531: The story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife began as a metaphor for the second migration, with Jacob's new family, possessions, and livestock, obtained from Laban, being representations of the new wave of migrants; Professor David Frankel believes that ancient traditions regarding pre-conquest Ephraimite settlement in Canaan were unintentionally preserved in biblical passages such as 1 Chronicles 7:20-24. In 1 Chronicles 7:20-24, Ephraim's descendants, Ezer and Elead, were Canaanite residents who were killed by

2408-499: The story was an integral part of the Deuteronomist picture of moral decline through adoption of non-Israelitic practices such as child sacrifice. Solomon Landers believed that the absence of express judgement implies that the sacrifice was not acceptable to God, notwithstanding the fact that the sacrifice nevertheless happened. Pseudo-Philo 's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum gives a name for Jephthah's daughter, Seila. Her character

2464-588: The tabernacle of Joseph (Hebrew Bible), and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved'. When the Ark was removed from Shiloh to Zion the power of Ephraim was sequestered. As part of the Kingdom of Israel , the territory of Ephraim was conquered by the Assyrians , and the tribe was mostly exiled; some in the tribe managed to flee to the Kingdom of Judah , which lay just south of

2520-437: The tenth century B.C.E." After the death of Saul, the Bible records all the tribes other than Judah remained loyal to the House of Saul. After the death of Ishbosheth , Saul's son and successor to the throne of Israel, the Tribe of Ephraim joined the other northern Israelite tribes in making David , who was then the king of Judah, the king of a reunited Kingdom of Israel . According to archaeologist Israel Finkelstein , there

2576-449: The territory of Ephraim. In any case, the manner of their exile and/or dispersal led to their further history being lost . However, several modern day groups claim descent, with varying levels of academic and rabbinical support. The Samaritans claim that some of their adherents are descended from this tribe, and many Persian Jews claim to be descendants of Ephraim. Further afield, in India

2632-521: The towns of Bethel , Jeshanah and Ephron , with their surrounding villages. Ephron is believed to be the Ophrah that was also allocated to the Tribe of Benjamin by Joshua. The riverine gulch , naḥal Ḳanah (Joshua 17:9) , divided Ephraim's territory to the south, and Manasseh's territory to the north. The modern Israeli town of Karnei Shomron is built near this gulch, which runs in an easterly-westerly direction. The border of Ephraim extended from

2688-567: The vow Jephthah made was not as rash as it sounds. The Order of the Eastern Star refers to her as Adah. Israel Finkelstein has suggested that behind multiple and large-scale Deuteronomistic and post-Deuteronomistic additions and redactions, there may lie an oral story which reflects a conflict on the boundary between Israelite and Ammonite settlements in Transjordan, around the towns of Gilead and Mizpah. It may have been first written down in

2744-421: The vow annulled and was afflicted with an illness that caused his limbs to decompose off of his body at which point it would be buried where it fell thereby explaining the verse that said he was buried in the cities as opposed to city of Gilead. According to some rabbinical commentators, Phineas also sinned by failing to address the needs of relieving Jephthah of his vow to sacrifice his daughter. As consequence,

2800-443: The vow, which bound him to sacrifice his daughter to God . Jephthah carried out his vow. Traditionally, Jephthah ranks among the major judges because of the length of the biblical narrative referring to him, but his story also shares features with those of the minor judges, such as his short tenure—only six years—in office. The story of Jephthah is found in the Book of Judges , chapters 11 – 12 . The Israelites "again did what

2856-435: Was a "renuion with indigenous Hebrews who shared his theological belief" and that not all Hebrews joined Jacob's family when they migrated to Egypt. In the account of the deuteronomic history , Ephraim is portrayed as domineering, haughty, discontented, and jealous, but in classical rabbinical literature , the biblical founder of the tribe is described as being modest and not selfish. These rabbinical sources allege that it

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2912-415: Was about to perform a divinely ordered sacrifice of his son, when an angel of God directly intervened and stopped the sacrifice. Some writers have observed that the Israelites of the time widely disrespected Mosaic law , which forbade human sacrifice; and that there are several other examples of rash vows , some with similarly terrible consequences (for instance 2 Samuel 21:6–9 ). David Janzen argued that

2968-480: Was also originally part of the House of Joseph , but the biblical account of this became lost; Benjamin being differentiated by being that part of Ephraim (House of Joseph) which joined the Kingdom of Judah rather than that of Israel . A number of biblical scholars suspect that the Joseph tribes (including Benjamin) represent a second migration of Israelites to Israel, later than the main tribes, specifically that it

3024-574: Was evil in the sight of the Lord ... they forsook the Lord and did not serve him. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites ...". Jephthah, having been born illegitimately, is driven out by his half-brothers and takes up his dwelling in Tob , east of Gilead. "Outlaws collected around Jephthah and went raiding with him." The elders of Gilead ask him to be their leader in

3080-479: Was on account of modesty and selflessness, and a prophetic vision of Joshua, that Jacob gave Ephraim precedence over Manasseh, the elder of the two; in these sources, Jacob is regarded as sufficiently just that God upholds the blessing in his honour, and makes Ephraim the leading tribe. Nevertheless, other classical rabbinical texts mock the tribe for the character it has in the deuteronomic history, claiming that Ephraim, being headstrong, left Egypt 30 years prior to

3136-505: Was only the Joseph tribes which went to Egypt and returned , while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout; in the narrative in the Book of Joshua , which concerns the arrival in (and conquest of) Canaan by the Israelites from Egypt, the leader is Joshua , who was a member of the Ephraim tribe. According to this view,

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