And to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of On, bore to him.
In the register of everyone who came into Egypt with Jacob, two names stand out: Joseph's sons were not born in Canaan, and their mother was not an Israelite. Their place in the list raises a question: how do children of Egypt belong in the house of Israel?
A Register Kept by God
Commentators treat this list as God's own count, and point out how the numbers work.
William KellyIt is God's register of Jacob and his house, "seventy" souls including Jacob, and Joseph with his two sons, "sixty-six" without these… The time was coming when they would stop living as a family — already grown in Genesis into twelve families — and live as a people… Scripture reveals the interest God took in recording things little in man's eyes. Nature revels in what it counts great in its own eyes and before the world.
Asenath, the Outsider
The verse names the mother by her own name and by her father's job. Both mark her as Egyptian.
Michael HardtAsenath is the Gentile, the stranger to the promises of Israel. She gives a picture of the church as the bride that has come from among the Gentile nations and not from Israel exclusively.
Her father served at On. One writer describes that city:
H. Forbes WitherbyOn, or the city of the sun, Heliopolis, was the great seat of learning in Egypt and the place of its first college. Potipherah, the prince-priest of the sun and the father of Joseph's wife, lived there in earlier days… On, as its name implies, was devoted to the sun, and so to its worship.
What the Two Names Say
Joseph chose both names. Each one records something God had done for him.
L. M. GrantDuring the seven years of plenty Asenath bore Joseph two sons. He named the first Manasseh, which means "forgetting," for, as he says, "God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house." This is typical of the truth of Christianity: it makes us forget the first creation with its natural relationships and its wearing trials. But this is because it brought in something better, the new creation, of which Christ is the Head. This is involved in the name of Joseph's second son, Ephraim, which means "fruitful," for only in new creation is there true fruitfulness for God. Manasseh therefore implies the negative side of the truth, Ephraim the positive.
Forgetting is not numbness. It is what happens when the heart finds something better:
W. T. TurpinNo one can truly say that he forgets "his father's house" until his heart has found a treasure in a brighter scene. Then the place where he lives in body becomes a land of exile to him. Yet he has no desire to return to the past — he forgets it.
Born While the Brothers Were Still Strangers
These sons arrive while Joseph is still cut off from his family. Writers see a picture of Christ and the church in that timing.
F. W. GrantBorn before the famine, and while Joseph's brothers are still strangers to his exaltation, he named the second son Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction." Here, clearly, is our place and relationship with our blessed Lord… For His Church, His heavenly bride, He has been content to be as if He did not remember His relationship with His people of old. The thread of prophecy lies unwoven on the shuttle of time, as if its wheel had stopped forever. What does this forgetfulness mean in Him who neither slumbers nor sleeps? Surely no change, but the carrying out of eternal purposes.
How They Became Sons of Israel
By law these two boys had no claim on Abraham's family. Jacob settles the matter himself.
J. G. BellettHe then adopts the sons of Joseph; for this was needed to give them the rights of children, since, in a very real legal sense, they were strangers to Abraham. Their mother was an Egyptian. They were a seed, therefore, whom the law would in its day have put away. But Jacob adopts them. He takes them into the family… He makes them part of the seed of Abraham and children of Jacob. Once that is done, Jacob at once sets them in the place of the firstborn.
That adoption explains why Joseph's line appears on the map of Israel under two names:
A. J. PollockWe can see why Joseph had two sons and only two — so that he might have the double portion of the firstborn. So in the dividing of territory, each of Israel's sons (Levi excluded for obvious reasons) had a single portion — one tribe each. Joseph had the double portion: two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh.
Summary
- Counted. God keeps the register Himself: seventy souls, and Joseph's two Egypt-born sons are in the count. A family is about to become a people.
- Foreign. Their mother Asenath was a stranger to the promises of Israel — the daughter of a priest of On, the city of the sun.
- Named. Manasseh means "forgetting," Ephraim "fruitful." The negative side comes first, then the positive. We forget only when we find something better.
- Timed. Both sons were born while Joseph's brothers still knew nothing of his rise. Writers see in that the present time of the church, while the thread of prophecy lies still.
- Adopted. The law counted them strangers to Abraham. Jacob made them his own sons and gave them the firstborn's double portion: two tribes instead of one.