Genesis 41:50 and 46:20 name him as the younger son of Yoseph with Asnat, the daughter of Poti-Phera, the priest of On (Heliopolis). His elder brother is named Menasheh.
Genesis 48:1 ff describes their grandfather Ya'akov blessing the two boys, and making them Beney Yisra-Elim by adoption - a clear suggestion that, in whatever was the source-text, Yoseph was not a son of Ya'akov at all. In the blessing, as throughout the patriarchal tales, the younger supplants the elder, at least in our terms, precedes him being the understood terms of that people at that time (the technical name is "ultimogeniture").
The references to Ephrayim, either as the son of Yoseph, or as the tribe, or as the alternate name for the northern kingdom of Yisra-El after the civil war that followed the death of Shelomoh (Solomon), are too numerous to list in their entirety; some of the more important are:
The references to Ephrayim, either as the son of Yoseph, or as the tribe, or as the alternate name for the northern kingdom of Yisra-El after the civil war that followed the death of Shelomoh (Solomon), are too numerous to list in their entirety; some of the more important are:
Genesis 50:23 - the death of Yoseph.
Numbers 10:22/23 - in the desert.
Joshua 16:5 - the borders of their tribal territories.
Numbers 10:22/23 - in the desert.
Joshua 16:5 - the borders of their tribal territories.
Joshua 20:7 and 21:21 - Shechem on Mount Ephrayim as a refuge city.
Judges 2:9 - Yehoshu'a buried in his city on Mount Ephrayim, here called Timnat-Cheres (תמנת-חרס), where it was Timnat-Serach in Joshua 19:50. Only one of the two can be correct, so which is it?
Serach means either "to pour out", or "to spread", in which latter sense Ezekiel 17:6 has gephen sorachat (גפן סרחת) = "a spreading vine". This would make perfect sense for Timnat-Serach, allowing it to mean "the spreading palm trees".
On the other hand, Cheres is used in Job 9:7, Judges 8:13 and 14:18 as a poetic term for the sun itself, from the root charas = "heat"; Judges 8:13 has a particularly splendid metaphor for the sunrise - MI LE MA'ALEY HE CHARES (מִלְמַעֲלֵה הֶחָרֶס) - which sadly most English translations render literally, but erroneously, as a geographical location: "the ascent of Cheres".
Judges 2:9 - Yehoshu'a buried in his city on Mount Ephrayim, here called Timnat-Cheres (תמנת-חרס), where it was Timnat-Serach in Joshua 19:50. Only one of the two can be correct, so which is it?
Serach means either "to pour out", or "to spread", in which latter sense Ezekiel 17:6 has gephen sorachat (גפן סרחת) = "a spreading vine". This would make perfect sense for Timnat-Serach, allowing it to mean "the spreading palm trees".
On the other hand, Cheres is used in Job 9:7, Judges 8:13 and 14:18 as a poetic term for the sun itself, from the root charas = "heat"; Judges 8:13 has a particularly splendid metaphor for the sunrise - MI LE MA'ALEY HE CHARES (מִלְמַעֲלֵה הֶחָרֶס) - which sadly most English translations render literally, but erroneously, as a geographical location: "the ascent of Cheres".
A lengthy monograph in Gesenius (Lexicon page 306) suggests that the ancient Beney Yisra-El, like their Mitsri (Egyptian) counterparts from the era of Akhenaten, differentiated the sun's disc (cheres - חרס) from the sun's heat (chamah - חמה) and the sun-god (shemesh/Shimshon-Samson/Tammuz - שמשן), as though these were three entirely autonomous if integrated powers. Timnat-Cheres would thus become a palm-tree shrine to the sun-disc, known in Mitsrayim as Akhenaten.
Some more references to Ephrayim that are worth following:
Isaiah 9:9; 17:3; 28:3; and 7:2.
Hosea 4:17; 5:3 ff; 9:3 ff.
Hosea 4:17; 5:3 ff; 9:3 ff.
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Traditional non-Jewish scholarship tends to assume that Yoseph's son Ephraim was the eponymous ancestor of the Northern Kingdom of Ephrayim - click here for an example. There is no disagreement that the Beney Ephrayim were the tribe that occupied the key central area of Kena'an, where many of the main shrines were situated, particularly Shechem, Yehoshu'a's inheritance on Mount Ephrayim; though not the Wood of Ephrayim, where David's son Av-Shalom (Absalom) was defeated in 2 Samuel 18:6; that was on the eastern side of the river Yarden (Jordan).
However, traditional Jewish scholarship, now reinforced by secular scholarship, rejects this, reckoning that the naming of the Northern Kingdom as Ephrayim had to do with a later ruler named Ephrayim, and not the son of Yoseph; and this despite the fact that Yerav-Am (Jeroboam), who revolted against Shelomoh's son Rechav-Am (Rehoboam) and established the Northern Kingdom, was himself a member of the tribe of Ephrayim. That kingdom is also known as Yisra-El from that time, as opposed to the Southern Kingdom of Yehudah, whose capital was Yeru-Shala'im. For a full history of the Northern Kingdom, click here.
Given that Yoseph and Asnat have divine links through their respective priesthoods, and Ephrayim like Menasheh are their sons, which divinity is Ephrayim linked to? Aphar (אפר) means "ashes", and therefore gives us an obvious link to death and the underworld. Yoseph as Osher (Osiris) is the Underworld god, as Asnat as mother-goddess is linked to Death and the Underworld. Their child is thus, mythologically, the reborn corn-god - see my commentaries on the latter chapters of Genesis for an explanation of Yoseph's role as representative of the corn-god.
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