Manasseh, the Firstborn of Joseph

Who he is

Manasseh (מְנַשֶּׁה) is the son of Joseph and Asenath, brother of Ephraim, and the man from whom the tribe of Manasseh takes its name. The dossier places him in the era of the patriarchs. Its chronology line, however, reads "reigned 698 BC to 643 BC" (Ussher, Annals of the World, 1650), and a reign in the seventh century cannot belong to a son of Joseph; it is the sort of note that attaches to the later king who bore the same name. So for the man himself we have no dates, only his place in a family. He first appears in Genesis 41:51 and is named again in Genesis 46:20 and Genesis 48:13-14. According to the family record in the dossier, his partner is called an Aramitess and his sons are Machir and Asriel (1 Chronicles 7:14).

Mentions rather than scenes

An honest reading has to say this plainly: Manasseh son of Joseph is one of those men whose name fills more than a hundred verses while he himself barely acts. The dossier notes that this name also carries a people, a tribe and a land, so most of the places where it appears are not about the person at all. Of his own life we have birth and naming (Genesis 41:51), a listing among Joseph's household (Genesis 46:20), and a moment in Genesis 48:13-14 whose text is not before us here. Not one recorded word of his own. No account of his death.

What Scripture does at length is trace what came out of him. Joshua 17:1-3 sets it out with unusual care: "This was the lot for the tribe of Manasseh, for he was the firstborn of Joseph. As for Machir the firstborn of Manasseh, the father of Gilead, because he was a man of war, therefore he had Gilead and Bashan." Then the families are counted, "for the children of Abiezer, for the children of Helek, for the children of Asriel, for the children of Shechem, for the children of Hepher, and for the children of Shemida." And then a line that refuses to disappear: "But Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons, but daughters. These are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah."

Land on both sides of the Jordan

The inheritance of this house lies unusually split. "Ten parts fell to Manasseh, in addition to the land of Gilead and Bashan, which is beyond the Jordan; because the daughters of Manasseh had an inheritance among his sons" (Joshua 17:5-12). The border runs "from Asher to Michmethath, which is before Shechem," past "the inhabitants of En Tappuah," down "to the brook of Kanah," and it "ended at the sea." Even there the lines interlock with the brother tribe: "Tappuah on the border of Manasseh belonged to the children of Ephraim. ... These cities belonged to Ephraim among the cities of Manasseh."

The eastern half is won by force. "The children of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead, took it, and dispossessed the Amorites who were therein. Moses gave Gilead to Machir the son of Manasseh; and he lived therein. Jair the son of Manasseh went and took its villages, and called them Havvoth Jair" (Numbers 32:39-41).

And the land is not kept for itself. Levites are settled in it: "out of the half-tribe, the half of Manasseh, ten cities," and "out of the tribe of Manasseh in Bashan, thirteen cities" (1 Chronicles 6:61-62), including "Aner with its pasture lands, and Bileam with its pasture lands," and "Golan in Bashan with its pasture lands, and Ashtaroth with its pasture lands" (1 Chronicles 6:70-71).

A house on the edge

The dossier records no sin of Manasseh himself. What it does record is a crisis that came upon the half-tribe carrying his name, and it is worth naming rather than passing over. "The children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead," and "built an altar there by the Jordan, a great altar to look at." The report that reached the rest was blunt: they "have built an altar along the border of the land of Canaan" (Joshua 22:9-11). The episode continues at Joshua 22:30-31, whose words are not quoted here. A tribe living half in and half out of the land is a tribe whose loyalty gets questioned.

What we do not know

We do not know how long Manasseh lived, where he died, or anything he said. We have no account of his character. The dossier gives no dates for him at all, and the one chronology line it carries does not fit him. Even the family list is thin: a partner named only as an Aramitess, and two sons.

The line into the New Testament

The name reaches one place in the New Testament, and only one: Revelation 7:6. The dossier does not quote it, so nothing may be built on it here beyond the fact itself. A man who says nothing in Scripture, whose story is almost entirely the story of his descendants and their land, is still named when the last book of the Bible names the tribes. That is the whole of the line, and it is enough to notice.