People of the Bible

Ephraim and Manasseh

Joseph's two Egyptian-born sons, adopted by their grandfather and blessed with crossed hands, the younger set before the elder.

Also called The sons of Joseph; the two half-tribes of the house of Joseph

Manasseh and Ephraim are born to Joseph in Egypt during the seven years of plenty, by Asenath the daughter of the priest of On. Joseph names the first Manasseh, for God has made me forget all my toil and all my father's house, and the second Ephraim, for God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. They are the only grandsons of Jacob whose birth Genesis narrates, and they grow up as sons of the second man in Egypt, half Egyptian by blood.

When Jacob is dying, Joseph brings them to his bed. Jacob tells Joseph that the two boys are his: as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. He asks who they are, for his eyes are dim, kisses and embraces them, and says he had not thought to see Joseph's face, and God has shown him Joseph's seed also. Joseph places Manasseh at Jacob's right hand and Ephraim at his left, but Jacob crosses his arms, guiding his hands wittingly, and lays the right on Ephraim. Joseph is displeased and tries to move it. Jacob refuses: I know it, my son, I know it. Manasseh shall be great, but his younger brother shall be greater, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. He blesses them in the name of the God who fed him all his life long and the Angel who redeemed him from all evil, and sets Ephraim before Manasseh. Israel will bless by their names: God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh.

Where they appearGenesis 41 · Genesis 48

Genesis

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The movements, in the order the text gives them.

The Account of Ephraim and Manasseh

01
Genesis 41:50-52
Born before the famine
Two sons are born to Joseph before the years of famine come. He names the firstborn Manasseh, for God has made me forget my toil and my father's house, and the second Ephraim, for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.
Egypt has given Joseph a gold chain, a position beside Pharaoh, and a family. He still calls it the land of my affliction. That last phrase prevents the promotion from tidying away everything that came before it. Fruitfulness and affliction occupy the same address.
The names are Joseph's testimony before they are the sons' identities. Manasseh speaks of forgetting, yet Joseph explains the name by mentioning the very father's house he says God has made him forget. This is not a report of amnesia. Relief has come, but the old household is still present in his speech. Ephraim adds a different emphasis: not simply release from what hurt, but life growing in the place where it hurt. Neither name predicts the child's temperament. Both name what Joseph says God has done.
Verse by verse
1. 41:50
  Both sons are born before the famine begins. The passage names their mother and maternal grandfather, not just their famous father.
2. 41:51
  Manasseh is linked to forgetting. Joseph describes what God has done for him, not a command that his son must forget his relatives.
3. 41:52
  Ephraim is linked to fruitfulness. The description of Egypt as a land of affliction remains part of Joseph's own explanation.
Worth knowing
Genesis 41:45 gives Joseph an Egyptian name and an Egyptian wife, but the explanations of his sons' names turn on Hebrew wordplay about God's action. Their mother's priestly family is named without embarrassment or concealment. The passage preserves both sides of their ancestry; it does not supply an account of Asenath's religious convictions.
Genesis 41:50-52
King James Version · 3 verses
41:50And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Poti-pherah priest of On bare unto him.
41:51And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.
41:52And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.
02
Genesis 46:20
Counted among the seventy
In the list of the souls of the house of Jacob that came into Egypt, unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, which Asenath bare unto him.
These two names are on the family roll without having made the journey. The verse makes their Egyptian birth explicit, even while the surrounding list gathers the house of Jacob under the heading of those who came into Egypt. It is a genealogy, not a passenger manifest.
Nor does membership require the removal of their mother's name. Asenath and her father, the priest of On, remain in the sentence. The sons belong to Joseph's branch of Jacob's family with that ancestry intact. The little entry accomplishes something substantial: the relatives already in Egypt are not treated as an appendix to the family arriving from Canaan. They are counted inside it.
Verse by verse
1. 46:20
  The wording in the land of Egypt repeats their birthplace deliberately. It does not place the boys in the caravan from Canaan.
2. 46:20
  The maternal genealogy is retained here, as in 41:50. The verse gives no additional information about Asenath's beliefs or upbringing of the children.
Worth knowing
The KJV distinguishes sixty-six descendants who came with Jacob in Genesis 46:26 from the seventy of his household in 46:27. Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph's two Egyptian-born sons account for the difference of four. Ephraim and Manasseh therefore matter to the chapter's arithmetic as well as to its genealogy; the total is larger than the traveling party.
Genesis 46:20
King James Version · 1 verse
46:20And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, which Asenath the daughter of Poti-pherah priest of On bare unto him.
03
Genesis 48:1-7
They shall be mine
Told that his father is sick, Joseph takes his two sons to him. Jacob recalls God Almighty at Luz and the promise of the land, and says: thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in Egypt before I came, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. Any later sons will be Joseph's own.
Jacob has to gather his strength to sit up, but the words that follow are not frail. They shall be mine is a declaration about inheritance, not merely an affectionate grandfather claiming the resemblance. Joseph's two sons receive the standing of Jacob's own sons, alongside Reuben and Simeon. Egypt is their birthplace; Canaan is named as their inheritance.
The authority for that declaration comes before it. Jacob recalls what God Almighty promised at Luz, then places these two Egyptian-born descendants inside that promise. Even the order is already settled in his speech: Ephraim and Manasseh. Joseph brought them in the opposite order in verse 1. The crossed hands have not yet appeared, but the younger son's name has already moved forward.
Then Rachel enters the conversation. Jacob does not explain every connection between her roadside burial and this adoption. The text puts them together without supplying a private monologue. The woman who died on the journey is named while her grandchildren receive a place in the land.
Verse by verse
1. 48:3-4
  Luz is associated with Bethel in Genesis 35:6. Jacob grounds the inheritance in God's earlier promise, not in Joseph's authority in Egypt.
2. 48:5
  As Reuben and Simeon gives the grandsons the standing of sons. It does not mean Reuben and Simeon cease to belong to Jacob.
3. 48:6
  The provision for children born afterward describes their inheritance status. It is not a report that Joseph later had additional children.
4. 48:7
  Rachel is the boys' paternal grandmother. Her burial is recalled here; the verse does not state that adopting them compensates for her death.
Worth knowing
Joshua 14:4 explains a consequence of this adoption: Joseph's descendants form two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim, while Levi receives cities rather than a tribal land allotment. The familiar twelve territorial shares do not correspond one for one to Jacob's twelve sons. Joseph's double representation and Levi's different provision make the difference.
Genesis 48:1-7
King James Version · 7 verses
48:1And it came to pass after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick: and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
48:2And one told Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto thee: and Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed.
48:3And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me,
48:4And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.
48:5And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.
48:6And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine, and shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance.
48:7And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is Beth-lehem.
04
Genesis 48:8-12
Who are these?
Israel's eyes are dim with age and he cannot see. Joseph says they are the sons God has given him here. Jacob kisses and embraces them: I had not thought to see thy face, and lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed. Joseph brings them from between his knees and bows to the earth.
The question about who these sons are is immediately followed by an explanation of Jacob's eyesight. The Book of Genesis does not diagnose his memory. Nor does it say this is his first meeting with the boys. His eyes are dim; they are brought close enough to kiss and embrace. The scene is physical before it becomes ceremonial.
Jacob's next sentence measures the distance between what he expected and what stands in front of him. He had not expected to see Joseph's face at all. Now Joseph's descendants are within his arms. The added generation matters: God hath shewed me also thy seed. The son once counted dead has become the father of sons.
Joseph then bows with his face to the earth. The man before whom Egypt has been told to bow is not conducting this visit as governor. His office carries no deciding weight over the old man's blessing. Here he is the son.
Verse by verse
1. 48:8-10
  Jacob's dim sight is explicit. Claims of dementia, or of never having met these grandsons, go beyond the passage.
2. 48:9
  God hath given me echoes Jacob's description of his own children to Esau in Genesis 33:5. Father and son speak of their children as divine gifts.
3. 48:12
  Between his knees describes their position before they are brought forward again. The wording alone does not establish their age or allow a detailed reconstruction of an adoption ritual.
Worth knowing
The chronology rules out a scene with toddlers. Both sons were born before the famine in Genesis 41:50; two famine years had passed before Jacob's move in 45:6, and Jacob then lived seventeen years in Egypt according to 47:28. They would therefore be at least about nineteen at the blessing, although their exact birth dates are not given.
Genesis 48:8-12
King James Version · 5 verses
48:8And Israel beheld Joseph’s sons, and said, Who are these?
48:9And Joseph said unto his father, They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them.
48:10Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see. And he brought them near unto him; and he kissed them, and embraced them.
48:11And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face: and, lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed.
48:12And Joseph brought them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.
05
Genesis 48:13-16
Hands crossed
Joseph sets Ephraim toward Israel's left hand and Manasseh toward his right. Israel stretches out his right hand and lays it on Ephraim's head, who is the younger, and his left on Manasseh's, guiding his hands wittingly. He blesses Joseph: the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads, and let my name be named on them.
Joseph arranges the sons carefully. Jacob rearranges the hands. The care on both sides is worth noticing: this is not a muddle produced by an old man's poor sight. Guiding his hands wittingly makes the intention explicit. Unlike Isaac's blessing in Genesis 27, there is no disguise for the father to discover.
Then the passage says he blessed Joseph, although the prayer asks blessing upon the lads. The father's blessing reaches him through his children. Jacob joins three generations of ancestry to the two standing before him: Abraham, Isaac, his own name, and these sons born far from the land of promise. Their Egyptian birthplace does not interrupt the line.
The prayer also joins a whole lifetime to this one bedside moment. God has sustained Jacob until this day; the Angel has redeemed him from evil; the boys are to multiply after him. The hands distinguish the brothers. The prayer gathers them together.
Verse by verse
1. 48:13-14
  Joseph positions Manasseh for Jacob's right hand. Jacob knowingly places that hand on Ephraim instead; the text does not make the reversal accidental.
2. 48:15
  He blessed Joseph introduces words addressed to God on behalf of Joseph's sons. Blessing the children is presented as blessing their father.
3. 48:16
  The Angel is described as Jacob's redeemer. The relation between this figure and the God named in verse 15 has received different interpretations; the passage does not explain it systematically.
4. 48:16
  The verb translated grow into a multitude evokes the increase of fish, as the KJV margin notes. The unusual image concerns prolific descendants, not a change in the boys' identities.
Worth knowing
The Hebrew behind the God which fed me in Genesis 48:15 is the language of shepherding, ha-roeh. Jacob, who spent years tending Laban's flocks, describes his own life as a flock under God's care. Psalm 23:1 uses the same Hebrew root in its declaration that the LORD is my shepherd; the image is already present at this bedside.
Genesis 48:13-16
King James Version · 4 verses
48:13And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near unto him.
48:14And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn.
48:15And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day,
48:16The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
06
Genesis 48:17-20
I know it, my son
Joseph, displeased, lifts his father's hand to move it to Manasseh: not so, my father, for this is the firstborn. Jacob refuses: I know it, my son, I know it; he also shall be great, but his younger brother shall be greater. In thee shall Israel bless: God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh. And he sets Ephraim before Manasseh.
Joseph does more than notice the hand. He tries to move it. The son has arranged everything properly, and the father declines to cooperate. Yet the disagreement is not treated as a joke about age. I know it, my son, I know it is an answer to correction, not a confession of confusion.
The sentence that follows is easily crowded out by the younger brother's precedence. Manasseh also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. He is not thrown out of the blessing because Ephraim receives the first place. Both hands remain part of the scene; both sons become names in the formula by which Israel is to bless.
No quarrel between the brothers is recorded. Joseph protests; Jacob answers. The boys do not replay the rivalry of Jacob and Esau in speech supplied by the text. The blessing establishes an order without turning the older brother into an outsider.
Verse by verse
1. 48:17-18
  Joseph is displeased and attempts to redirect the right hand. The passage gives his action openly rather than smoothing away the disagreement.
2. 48:19
  Manasseh receives an explicit promise of greatness. Revelation 7:6 still names Manasseh among the tribes in its list of the sealed.
3. 48:19
  The Hebrew behind multitude of nations is literally fullness of nations, noted in the KJV margin. The wording alone does not identify particular modern nations.
4. 48:20
  The blessing formula names Ephraim first and Manasseh second. It preserves both names while making the younger son's precedence public.
Worth knowing
Hebrews 11:21 selects this blessing as an example of Jacob's faith and describes him blessing both the sons of Joseph. Its emphasis preserves what a fixation on the crossed hands can miss: the act embraces two sons, not one successful candidate and one rejected candidate. The unequal precedence does not cancel the shared blessing.
Genesis 48:17-20
King James Version · 4 verses
48:17And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s head.
48:18And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.
48:19And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
48:20And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
07
Genesis 48:21-22
One portion above thy brethren
Jacob tells Joseph he is dying, but God will be with them and bring them to the land of their fathers. He gives Joseph one portion above his brethren, which he took out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and his bow.
The man giving away a portion of Canaan is dying in Egypt. Jacob's sentence keeps those two places in view without confusing them. I die names his limit; God shall be with you names what does not end at that limit. Joseph's sons have been received into the family, and the family's future is still attached to the land of the fathers.
Then comes a difficulty that deserves to remain visible. Jacob speaks of taking the portion with my sword and with my bow. The Book of Genesis records his purchase of land near Shechem in 33:19 and his sons' violent attack there in chapter 34, but it does not narrate a separate battle in which Jacob personally wins this property. Readers connect the statement with those events or with the anticipated possession of the land in different ways. Turning the sword into a receipt would settle the difficulty only by changing the sentence. The gift is clear. Its precise military background is not.
Verse by verse
1. 48:21
  The return is to the land of your fathers. The promise outlasts Jacob; the verse does not say Joseph will establish permanent residence there during his own life.
2. 48:22
  One portion above thy brethren gives Joseph an additional share. This fits the special inheritance standing given to his two sons earlier in the chapter.
3. 48:22
  The sword and bow are explicit, but the exact event is not identified here. The land purchase in 33:19 should not simply be redescribed as a conquest.
Worth knowing
The Hebrew word translated portion in Genesis 48:22 is shechem, also the name of the city. John 4:5 refers to the ground Jacob gave Joseph near Sychar, and Joshua 24:32 places Joseph's burial in the purchased field at Shechem. The wording of the blessing therefore carries a geographical association as well as an inheritance claim.
Genesis 48:21-22
King James Version · 2 verses
48:21And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers.
48:22Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.
08
Genesis 50:23
Ephraim's grandchildren
Joseph lives to see Ephraim's children of the third generation, and the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, are brought up upon Joseph's knees.
The family has grown beyond the two sons Joseph once brought to Jacob's bed. Now Ephraim's descendants reach a third generation, and children from Manasseh's line are brought up upon Joseph's knees. The verse gives a family relationship in place of a court title. The governor's long life is measured here by descendants he lived to see.
The knees recall the earlier blessing, but the passage does not stage another adoption with the same legal terms. It names the generations and their closeness to Joseph, then stops. No household conversation needs to be invented to give this line weight. The children of the two Egyptian-born sons have become a family extending well beyond them.
Verse by verse
1. 50:23
  The expression third generation marks the extension of Ephraim's family. It should not be expanded into a list of named descendants that the verse does not provide.
2. 50:23
  Machir is Manasseh's son and Joseph's grandson. Machir's children therefore belong to the next generation beyond Joseph's grandchildren.
3. 50:23
  The Hebrew behind brought up is literally born, as the KJV margin records. Upon Joseph's knees suggests reception into the family, but does not establish a detailed physical childbirth procedure.
Worth knowing
Machir links this brief family notice to a later inheritance case. Numbers 27:1 traces Zelophehad through Hepher and Gilead back to Machir, Manasseh's son. Zelophehad's five daughters successfully petition for their father's inheritance, and Joshua 17:3-6 records their allotment. The line briefly named at Joseph's knees later includes women whose names and claim are carefully preserved.
Genesis 50:23
King James Version · 1 verse
50:23And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph’s knees.

The people, the places and the rest of Scripture.

Reading Ephraim and Manasseh closely

The people they dealt with

Joseph is their father and the reason they exist at all in Israel. He brings them to Jacob, arranges them by age, and objects when the blessing goes the wrong way, which is the only time in Genesis that Joseph is shown being wrong. The names he gives them are his own account in two words, forgetting and fruitfulness, and both were true of him in Egypt. Jacob is the grandfather who makes them sons. His blindness recalls Isaac's, but this time the old man knows exactly whose head is under each hand. His blessing of them is the fullest statement of his own faith: the God before whom his fathers walked, the God who fed him, the Angel who redeemed him. Asenath, their mother, is an Egyptian priest's daughter and is never heard to speak. Machir, Manasseh's son, is raised on Joseph's knees and becomes the father of Gilead, the clan that later takes the land east of the Jordan.

The crossed hands

Jacob's gesture is deliberate, and the text says so twice: guiding his hands wittingly, and I know it, my son, I know it. He has seen the pattern of his own life, and Isaac's, and Abraham's, and he sets it in the next generation on purpose. Readers have found in the crossed arms a shape that the church later made much of, and in the old man's insistence a picture of blessing that does not follow birth order. Ephraim's later history bears it out: Joshua, the tabernacle at Shiloh, and the leadership of the north all belong to the younger. Manasseh is not diminished; he also shall be great, and his tribe is the largest in territory of them all.

What came before and what followed

Behind them is the birthright Reuben lost when he went up to his father's bed, and the question of who among Jacob's sons would receive the firstborn's double share. Jacob answers it with these two boys. After them the tribes bear their names. Ephraim's inheritance is the hill country around Shechem and Shiloh, where the ark rests for centuries; Manasseh takes the north of Ephraim and, through Machir and Gilead, the Bashan and Gilead beyond Jordan. Joshua is an Ephraimite. Gideon and Jephthah are Manassites. Jeroboam the Ephraimite tears the ten tribes from David's house, and from then on Hosea speaks of Ephraim as the whole north, faithless and loved: how shall I give thee up, Ephraim? Both tribes fall to Assyria in 722 and are counted among the lost, yet Ezekiel and Revelation still name them, and the promise that Ephraim's seed would become a multitude of nations is one the prophets never let go of.

Where the rest of Scripture reaches back

Numbers counts them at Sinai and in Moab, and Ephraim's standard leads the western camp. Moses' blessing in Deuteronomy 33 gives Joseph the horns of a unicorn to push the people to the ends of the earth: they are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh, keeping Jacob's order. Joshua 16 and 17 record their inheritance, and the complaint of the house of Joseph that one lot is too small for so great a people. 1 Chronicles 5 explains the whole arrangement: Reuben's birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, though the genealogy is not reckoned by it. Psalm 78 says God refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, when the ark left Shiloh for Zion. Jeremiah calls Ephraim my dear son and promises his return. Hebrews 11:21 makes Jacob's blessing of these two boys his single recorded act of faith, and Revelation 7 seals twelve thousand of Manasseh and twelve thousand of Joseph.

Why it matters

The adoption in Genesis 48 is how Joseph receives the double portion of the firstborn. Reuben has forfeited it, and 1 Chronicles says plainly that the birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph. Jacob counts the two boys as his own sons, so that Joseph is represented in Israel by two tribes rather than one. That is why the tribal lists have thirteen names but always count twelve: Levi is set apart for the priesthood, and Ephraim and Manasseh fill the number. In the wilderness they camp together under the standard of Ephraim with Benjamin, Rachel's three.

The crossed hands are the last instance in Genesis of the younger chosen over the elder: Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Judah and Joseph over Reuben, and now Ephraim over Manasseh. Jacob, who took his own blessing by fraud, gives this one knowingly, and Hebrews 11 chooses that moment as his act of faith: by faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph. Ephraim becomes the leading tribe of the north, so that the prophets call the whole northern kingdom Ephraim, and Manasseh is the only tribe to hold land on both sides of the Jordan. The Jewish blessing over sons on the Sabbath eve still uses Jacob's words: God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh.

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Genesis 39:1-41:57
From Prison to the Throne
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Ephraim and Manasseh

The Account of Ephraim and Manasseh

Born before the famine

Verse by verse

Genesis 41:50-52

Counted among the seventy

Verse by verse

Genesis 46:20

They shall be mine

Verse by verse

Genesis 48:1-7

Who are these?

Verse by verse

Genesis 48:8-12

Hands crossed

Verse by verse

Genesis 48:13-16

I know it, my son

Verse by verse

Genesis 48:17-20

One portion above thy brethren

Verse by verse

Genesis 48:21-22

Ephraim's grandchildren

Verse by verse

Genesis 50:23

Reading Ephraim and Manasseh closely

The people they dealt with

The crossed hands

What came before and what followed

Where the rest of Scripture reaches back

Why it matters

The music

From Prison to the Throne

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