Tribe of Ephraim

Twelve Tribes of Israel

• Simeon
• Levi
• Judah
• Dan
• Naftali
• Gad
• Ash
• Issachar
• Zebulun
• Josef Manasseh
• Ephraim

Ephraim (even Ephraim, Hebrew אֶפְרַיִם ) is the younger of the two sons of Joseph, the second youngest son of Jacob, the ancestor of Israel in the Bible (Gen 46,20 EU). Ephraim was born in Egypt: His mother is the Egyptian Asenath, whose father Potifera was a priest there. His brother's name is Manasseh.

Ephraim gets - how many names - in the Bible an interpretation: " For God has let me grow in the land of my affliction ", Joseph is said to have at his birth (Gen. 41,52 EU). Ephraim means - from the Hebrew - literally as " doubly fruitful ".

The name was later synonym for a settlement of the Hebrews in Canaan, which was populated by the families of the tribe founded by Ephraim, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Twelve Tribes of Israel biblical appear as descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob - Israel. In fact, the tribe of Joseph is divided into two parts after Jacob shortly before his death the two sons of Joseph and Asenath, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born before his arrival in Egypt, as his descendants adopted. Israel, according to this division calculation from 13 tribes, twelve of which receive their own settlement area in Canaan, while the descendants of Levi, the Levites, when the priesthood of the people of Israel remain landless.

The settlement area of Ephraim belonged to the northern kingdom of Israel, the BC separated by 925 from the southern kingdom of Judah. Sometimes Ephraim is therefore used in the Bible as a nickname for the ten northern tribes of Israel during the time of division into a northern and southern kingdom ( eg often in the book of Hosea Hosea 6.4 EU).