Levi when Ephraim and Manasseh are mentioned separately (Numbers
1:32-34; Joshua 17:14, 17; 1 Chronicles 7:20).
Territory of. At the time of the first census in the wilderness this tribe
numbered 40,500 (Numbers 1:32, 33); forty years later, when about to
take possession of the Promised Land, it numbered only 32,500. During
the march (see CAMP) Ephraim’s place was on the west side of the
tabernacle (Numbers 2:18-24). When the spies were sent out to spy the
land, “Oshea the son of Nun” of this tribe signalized himself.
The boundaries of the portion of the land assigned to Ephraim are given in
Joshua 16:1-10. It included most of what was afterwards called Samaria as
distinguished from Judea and Galilee. It thus lay in the centre of all traffic,
from north to south, and from Jordan to the sea, and was about 55 miles
long and 30 broad. The tabernacle and the ark were deposited within its
limits at Shiloh, where it remained for four hundred years. During the time
of the judges and the first stage of the monarchy this tribe manifested a
domineering and haughty and discontented spirit. “For more than five
hundred years, a period equal to that which elapsed between the Norman
Conquest and the War of the Roses, Ephraim, with its two dependent
tribes of Manasseh and Benjamin, exercised undisputed pre-eminence.
Joshua the first conqueror, Gideon the greatest of the judges, and Saul the
first king, belonged to one or other of the three tribes. It was not till the
close of the first period of Jewish history that God ‘refused the tabernacle
of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of
Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved’ (Psalm 78:67, 68). When the ark
was removed from Shiloh to Zion the power of Ephraim was humbled.”
Among the causes which operated to bring about the disruption of Israel
was Ephraim’s jealousy of the growing power of Judah. From the
settlement of Canaan till the time of David and Solomon, Ephraim had held
the place of honour among the tribes. It occupied the central and fairest
portions of the land, and had Shiloh and Shechem within its borders. But
now when Jerusalem became the capital of the kingdom, and the centre of
power and worship for the whole nation of Israel, Ephraim declined in
influence. The discontent came to a crisis by Rehoboam’s refusal to grant
certain redresses that were demanded (1 Kings 12).
- EPHRAIM, WOOD OF a forest in which a fatal battle was fought
between the army of David and that of Absalom, who was killed there (2