The twelve tribes of Israel

The Tribe of Joseph

Son of Jacob by Rachel · Name means The LORD shall add (Rachel said, the LORD shall add to me another son) · Settled no single tribe of his own; his portion given to his sons Ephraim and Manasseh

Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob, the first born to his beloved Rachel, and the most Christlike figure in the book of Genesis. Sold into slavery by his brothers, he rose to rule Egypt and saved his whole family from famine. Because Reuben forfeited the birthright, the double portion of the firstborn passed to Joseph, and so his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, each became a tribe. There is no single tribe of Joseph in the land; his inheritance is doubled in his sons.

Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:Genesis 49:22 (KJV)

Joseph the man, the beloved son

Joseph was the eleventh of Jacob's sons and the first child of Rachel, the wife Jacob loved most. When he was born Rachel said, The LORD shall add to me another son, and named him Joseph, which means may he add. He was his father's favorite, and Jacob gave him a coat of many colors, which stirred his brothers to jealousy and hatred.

The story of Joseph fills the last quarter of Genesis and is one of the greatest in all Scripture. His brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt; falsely accused, he was thrown into prison; but God was with him, and through his God-given gift of interpreting dreams he rose to become the ruler of all Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. When famine drove his brothers to Egypt for grain, Joseph revealed himself to them and forgave them with the words that ring through the ages: Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to save much people alive.

Jacob's blessing: a fruitful bough

Over Joseph, Jacob poured out one of the fullest of all his blessings. Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall. It is a picture of overflowing life and abundance, a tree so laden its branches spill over. Jacob recalled how the archers had grieved him and shot at him, yet his bow abode in strength, made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.

The blessing rises to a height reached for no other son: The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren. Joseph, the one separated from his brothers by their cruelty, receives the crowning blessing, the double portion of the firstborn.

Two tribes, not one: Ephraim and Manasseh

Here is one of the keys to how the twelve tribes are counted. Because Reuben, the actual firstborn, defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, as the Chronicler explains. The right of the firstborn was a double portion of the inheritance, and so Joseph received, through his two sons, a double share among the tribes.

Before he died, Jacob formally adopted Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own, saying, they shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon. So in the division of the land there is no tribe of Joseph as such; there is instead the tribe of Ephraim and the tribe of Manasseh, each with its own territory. This is why, when Levi is set apart for the priesthood and given no land, the number of the tribes with an inheritance still comes to twelve: Joseph's single place has become two.

This is the pattern behind every list of the tribes in the Bible, and why the lists do not always match. Sometimes Levi and Joseph are named, and the number is kept at twelve by leaving the two sons uncounted; sometimes Levi is left out and Joseph appears as Ephraim and Manasseh, and the number is twelve again. The sealed tribes of Revelation name Joseph and Manasseh but not Ephraim, and leave out Dan. Through all the variety, the number twelve endures as a sign of the whole and complete people of God, and Joseph, in his two sons, holds a double portion at the heart of it.

Joseph in God's plan: a picture of Christ

Of all the people in Genesis, Joseph most clearly foreshadows Jesus. He was the beloved son sent by his father to his brothers, and his brothers rejected him and handed him over out of envy. He was condemned though innocent, humbled to the place of a servant and a prisoner, and then raised to the right hand of the throne, given all authority. And from that high place he became the savior of the very brothers who had betrayed him, and of the whole world, in the famine, feeding all who came to him for bread.

Joseph forgave his brothers freely and provided for them, seeing the hand of God even in their sin: God meant it unto good. In all this he is a living portrait, drawn long beforehand, of the Lord Jesus, the beloved Son rejected by his own, humbled unto death, and exalted to be the Savior and the bread of life for all people. Joseph's story ends with a coffin in Egypt and a promise that God would surely visit his people and carry his bones to the land of promise, a hope of resurrection reaching toward the one who is himself the resurrection and the life.

A note on counting the twelve: Jacob had twelve sons, but the tribes are reckoned in more than one way in Scripture. The tribe of Levi was set apart for the priesthood and received no territory of its own, and Joseph, given the double portion of the firstborn, was counted as two tribes through his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. So when the land was divided the tribes still numbered twelve, with Levi outside the count. Different lists in the Bible reflect this: the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy leaves out Simeon, and the sealed tribes in Revelation 7 omit Dan and Ephraim while naming Levi, Joseph, and Manasseh. The number twelve is preserved as a sign of the whole people of God.

Related: The Tribe of Ephraim · The Tribe of Manasseh · Joseph in the Bible · Who is Jesus? · All twelve tribes