Ephraim and Manasseh:

Compiled by Robert Hyatt

 

Apr 2000

 

Twelve Tribes of Israel

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Gad, Asher, Dan, Naphtali, Joseph, and Benjamin,

 

Joseph son's Ephraim and Manasseh received his Land Inheritance and Ephraim received the birthright blessing with included the rights to the Highter Priesthood.

 

Joseph Fielding Smith, The Restoration of All Things, p.93

According to the word of the Lord to Joseph Smith the continent of America was given to Joseph and his posterity as an everlasting inheritance. That is what is meant by the branches running over the wall. The Book of Mormon professes to be the history, in large part, of these children of Joseph who were led out of Jerusalem six hundred years B.C. to this land fulfilling this patriarchal promise. Lehi, the founder of this colony, was a descendant of Manasseh, and the family of Ishmael who accompanied him were descendants of Ephraim, so that in them this promise was fulfilled. I cannot take time to present evidence that the Indians are Israelites with many Israelitish customs. I must let this point pass with the statement that many volumes have been written by people who did not follow Joseph Smith, showing from the evidence discovered among the Indian tribes that they practiced many of these ancient Israelite rites and customs. The mistake made by these writers is in declaring the Indians to be the lost ten tribes, but the Lord has revealed it, that they are the children of Joseph unto whom this land was given.

 

Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.3, p.212

There is strong presumptive evidence in the blessings given by Israel to his son Joseph, and his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh, as recorded in Genesis, that they were to inherit a land far from Jerusalem and become a multitude of nations. Joseph was promised that his inheritance should be to the "utmost bound of the everlasting hills"; that he was "a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall." Moreover, he was to receive a greater inheritance than his progenitors, who were given the land of Palestine.

 

Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.3, p.251

When Jacob blessed Joseph, he gave him a double portion, or an inheritance among his brethren in Palestine and also the blessing of the land of Zion—"the utmost bound of the everlasting hills." He also blessed him with the blessings of heaven above, of the deep which lieth under, and of posterity. Jacob also blessed the two sons of Joseph with the blessings of their father, which they inherited, and he placed Ephraim, the younger, before Manasseh, the elder, and by inspiration of the Lord conferred upon Ephraim the birthright in Israel.