GOD IS BUILDING HIS NATION WHILE THE NATIONS RAGE 

Today we’ll look at the tribes of Israel as described in Genesis 29, 39, and 35. These are the 12 tribes of Israel according to their order of birth and mother: Leah’s sons are: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah. Then Rachel had Dan and Naphtali with her handmaid Bilhah. Then Leah had Gad and Asher with her handmaid Zilpah. Leah then has Issachar and Zebulon with Jacob followed by Rachel having her first born, Joseph. Later, Rachel will birth Benjamin and die in child birth.

Leah has Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon for a total of six.

Rachel has Dan and Naphtali through her handmaid Bilhah making the total eight.

Leah has Gad and Asher through Zilpah the handmaid totaling ten.

Rachel has Joseph and Benjamin for a grand total of twelve. When Jacob blesses his sons in Genesis 49 these twelve are the ones he blesses. Genesis 49.28 proclaims them the twelve tribes of Israel—this is very important. These are the original twelve tribes.

In Genesis 48.8-22 Jacob blesses the two sons of Joseph before blessing the original twelve, which include Joseph. In verse 16 Jacob says, “Let my name be named upon them, and the name of my father’s Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the earth.”

Jacob reverses the order of blessing on Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim. He blesses Ephraim the youngest with the first born blessing and Manasseh the oldest with the lesser blessing.

In summary: The twelve sons of Jacob are the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph’s sons are grafted into Jacob/Israel. Later the tribe of Levi is designated to be the priesthood without a land inheritance and Joseph gets the “double blessing” of his sons becoming grafted in.

From this point on Biblically, when Joseph is mentioned it also means Ephraim and Manasseh.

Just for some extra information, if you look at how the tribes are located around the Miskan, or Tabernacle in the Wilderness, they are grouped according to birth mothers. This is very interesting but not the subject of this post. Ask yourself why they are grouped this way and what it means.

The blessings on Ephraim and Manasseh

Joseph protested his father blessing Ephraim first telling his father to bless Manasseh first. Here is Jacob’s reply and blessings on the two boys:

And Joseph said unto his father, not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he (Manasseh) also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother (Ephraim) shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And 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. Genesis 48.18-20

Did you catch all of that? Manasseh shall be great, but his brother Ephraim shall become a multitude of nations. That is multitude of Nations. Not just Jewish, but multitude of nations.

I was puzzled by this for a long period of time. What does this mean? I prayed and searched for answers and over time through various sources and teachers I came to believe that Manasseh prophetically represents the United States and Ephraim is Great Britain.

Think about this. We are letting the Bible interpret itself. In Genesis 49 when Jacob blesses the twelve tribes he says, “I am telling you what will befall you in the last days.” That would indicate the same for Ephraim and Manasseh. We’ll come back to this in a bit.

Ephraim and Manasseh are grafted in

We know that Joseph was sold by his brothers and became the second most powerful man in Egypt. Pharaoh gave Joseph Asenath the daughter of the high priest of On, the pagan god of Egypt, for a wife (Gen 41:45). Joseph’s sons were half Gentile and their mother was a pagan worshipper.

Do you think she spent a lot of time teaching her sons about her gods? I would think so as later Ephraim would lead the northern kingdom of Israel into Idolatry. Jeroboam, the first king of Israel was from the tribe of Ephraim (1 Kings 11.26).

Ephraim and Manasseh then are being grafted into Jacob/Israel in Genesis 48 when Jacob puts his name on them—Yahweh changed Jacob’s name to Israel. Therefore Ephraim and Manasseh are a type and shadow of the Gentiles being grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel (Romans 11 and Ephesians 2-3).

We will look deeper into this in the next post when the nation splits into Judah and Israel.

Great Britain and the United States

Briefly, without too much detail, we see that Great Britain and the United States will rise in the latter days and become the two most blessed and powerful nations on earth. Not only are they powerful, but they take the Gospel to the ends of the earth through their missionary work. In Deuteronomy 33 Moses blesses the original twelve tribes blessing Joseph and including Ephraim and Manasseh in Joseph’s “double portion” blessing:

And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that couches beneath, and for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills  and for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.  His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh. Deuteronomy 33.13-17

There is an incredible amount of information in this blessing on Joseph. Note how his offspring are like horns (power) that push the people together to the ends of the earth. Great Britain and the United States are the two end time nations that did this through political and religious means. Also read the list of the 144,000 in Revelation 7. Two tribes are missing. Do you know why?

The name British is a combination of two Hebrew words Brit = Covenant and Ish = Man; Covenant Man. Each tribe had a banner when they encamped around the tabernacle in the wilderness. Ephraim’s was a bull. The British mascot is a character named John Bull. Check into this concerning the English coronation ceremony: http://burningbush647.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-bible-in-theenglish-coronation.html

Great Britain eventually became the British Commonwealth which included Australia, New Zealand, and other colonized nations. Britain was not a perfect nation, but they were blessed as an Israelite nation and they always had missionaries bring the word of God to the nations. At one point in her history the British Empire controlled a fourth of the land mass of the world.

Manasseh is technically grafted into Israel as the 13^th tribe when we take Joseph out. The United States was thirteen colonies when they rebelled from Britain. Thirteen is the number of rebellion in the Bible (Gen 14.4). The flag of the USA has thirteen stripes. The Eagle in the US emblem has thirteen arrows clucked in her claws.

America became the bastion of freedom and in her early days was quite religious. Both Britain and the USA based their society on Biblical laws and Judaea Christian values. These days we have strayed from our roots and it is difficult to call us Christian nations.

In Genesis 22.17 God blesses Abraham and says his offspring will possess the gates to their enemies. Great Britain, until recently, controlled all of the world’s sea gates, which included the Panama Canal, Suez, and Gibraltar.

When the ancient nations of Judah and Israel turned away from Yahweh, He chastised them through powerful pagan nations. This is exactly what is happening to the Israelite nations of Great Britain and the United States at this time in world history. Our power is waning as we turn from God and great powers are rising in the East. The Father is going to chastise the nations, including the Israelite nations of Britain, USA, and Israel prior to the second coming of King Yeshua.

Lost Identities

Other European nations can be identified in the prophecies in Genesis 49. This is what is going to befall the once great Christian nations. Check out the July/August 2017 postings on this blog describing the Christian history of European nations.