2 - Opening Revelation
2. What Happened to the Sons of Joseph, the Lost Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, Who Had the Blessings of God?
My name is Richard Gentry. I am a retired army officer with a 25 year interest in Biblical prophecy. I have written a book on the End Times, The End of the Anglo-Saxon Age And the Coming of the Anti-Christ, available on line from Amazon. Also available in E-book.
Were there really ten lost tribes of Israel with only Judah and Benjamin remaining behind? Probably not! There were indeed twelve tribes of Israel, but when Israel went to war, the priestly Levites could not go, and the tribe of Joseph became Ephraim and Manasseh so there would still be twelve tribes to go to war. Hence, there were actually thirteen tribes as America had 13 original colonies. In the distribution of the land after Israel entered Canaan circa 1406 BC, both Ephraim and Manasseh were given land in the new nation. The ten lost tribes come from 1 Kings 11 where God’s prophet Ahijah tore his garment into twelve pieces and gave ten to Jeroboam who separated Israel from Judah. Hence, there would appear to be the ten tribes of Israel subsequently carried off by Assyria about two centuries later. But it’s a little more complicated. Simeon was located within Judah’s lands. I suspect they were regarded as one by this time more than five centuries after the conquest of Canaan. Per 1 Kings 12:21 the tribe of Benjamin also remained behind. Hence, there were three tribes left behind, but since Joseph included Ephraim and Manasseh, Jeroboam still had ten tribes. One of these tribes, the priestly Levites, would have been dispersed throughout the kingdom with more in Israel. However, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel after they separated from Judah, Jeroboam, worried about losing power if the people of Israel continued to worship in Jerusalem’s temple. He set up golden calves in Dan and Bethel to worship instead. He made priests out of non-Levites. He changed the feasts from the seventh to the eighth month per 1 Kings 12. These changes are rather amazing as God gave him his kingdom. I suspect the vast majority of the Levites headed south to Judah, unable to bear these changes. Hence, there were four tribes left behind, leaving eight if Joseph is one tribe and nine if divided into Ephraim and Manasseh. It should be noted that some of the people in the tribes of the northern kingdom went south to worship in Jerusalem, giving up their family land, going back more than five centuries. To worship their God in His temple was more important to them.
One must recall that Abraham was the leader or king of his home. He was also the priest of his home. Finally, Abraham had the blessing of God. Both positions and the blessing passed to Isaac, and then on to Jacob. But Jacob divided them with Judah getting the position of king; Levi, the priesthood; and Joseph, the blessing. Great indeed would be the blessing of the Judeo-Christian God. It has been said these nations and peoples are lost to history, but are they?
In Genesis 17, God appeared to Abraham when he was 99, and told him, “My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.” Now this is not a problem as there were Israel and Judah. Also there are the Arab Muslim nations that Abraham fathered through Ishmael and grandfathered through Esau. After Sarah died, Abraham had an additional six sons through his new wife Keturah, who likely produced more nations. Further, Sarai became Sarah, a mother of nations. This is not a problem as it is plural and could represent just Israel and Judah as two separate nations.
In Genesis 35, God appears to Jacob and tells him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you…” This is certainly more than Israel and Judah. Who is the company of nations?
In Genesis 48, Joseph visits his father, Jacob. And Jacob was told, “Look, your son Joseph is coming to you”; and Israel strengthened himself and sat up on the bed. Then Jacob said to Joseph: “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.’ And now your two sons Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. (In effect, Jacob is adopting Joseph’s two sons as his own making thirteen tribes. This is certainly part of the blessing of God, but I suspect it goes far beyond that.)
Further in Genesis 48, Israel said to Joseph, “I had not thought to see your face; but in fact, God has shown me your offspring. So Joseph brought them from beside his knees, and he bowed down with his face to the earth. And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near him. Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the first born. (In essence, He crossed his arms making a sign of the cross indicating they would be Christian nations in God’s time.)
And he blessed Joseph, and said:
God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
The God who has fed me all my life long to this day,
The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil,
Bless the lads;
Let my name be named upon them (Note: his name was Israel!)
And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;
And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”
In linguistics, over centuries, the first letter of a name is often dropped. Saxon means son of Sax. Did it once mean son of Isaac? After all, per Genesis 21:12 God told Abraham, “In Isaac your seed will be called.”
Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.” But his father refused and said, “I know my son, I know. He also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.’ So he blessed them that day, saying, “By you Israel will bless saying, ‘May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!’” And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
So Ephraim must be a multitude of nations such as Great Britain with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and the British Empire. Manasseh would follow as America, a great nation also.
On to Israel’s prophecies given to Joseph in Genesis 49:
Joseph is a fruitful bough,
A fruitful bough by a well;
His branches run over the wall. (I translate this as Joseph will be by water, and his influence will go far beyond his nation’s borders.)
The archers have bitterly grieved him,
Shot at him and hated him. (Who are the three archers of Genesis? Ishmael, per Gen.21:20, who is felt to represent Islam; Esau, per Gen. 27:3, who better represents Islam, and curiously Jacob per Genesis 48:22. Many American Jews care little for the nation of Israel or the Judeo-Christian God, but only the liberal agenda.)
But his bow remained in strength
And the arms of his hands were made strong
By the hands of the mighty God of Jacob
(From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel).[Christ is the Shepherd and the Stone of Israel. This indicates to me that both Ephraim
and Manasseh will receive their blessings as Christian nations.]
By the God of your father who will help you,
And by the Almighty who will bless you
With blessings of heaven above
Blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
Blessings of the breasts and of the womb, (Joseph gets the blessings of strong families, a good supply of rain from heaven, and oil from
the deep as well as blessings from the sea.)
The blessings of your father
Have excelled the blessings of my ancestors,
Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills.
They shall be on the head of Joseph
And on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers. (Joseph was certainly separate from his brothers when they sold him into slavery in Egypt, but I believe this goes far beyond that. Israel separated from Judah circa 931 to 930 BC. In 732 BC per 1 Kings 15:29, the Assyrian army swept through the northern portion of Israel taking Gad and Reuben plus the half-tribe of Manasseh east of the Jordan River. They also took all the northern tribes save Ephraim and the remaining half-tribe of Manasseh. Ephraim and the remaining half-tribe of Manasseh were swept up by Assyria in 722 BC and lost to history thereafter.
In Deuteronomy 33:13-17, Moses prophesied about the tribe of Joseph:
Blessed of the LORD is his land,
With the precious things of heaven, with the dew,
And the deep lying beneath,
With the precious fruits of the sun,
With the precious produce of the months
With the best of the ancient mountains,
With the precious things of the everlasting hills,
With the precious things of the earth and its fullness,
And the favor of Him who dwelt in the bush (the burning bush)
Let the blessing come on the head of Joseph,
And on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers. (Joseph would get great material blessings from agriculture, mines, and the sea.)
His glory is like a firstborn bull,
And his horns like the horns of the wild ox. (The symbol of the tribe of Joseph was the ox; the symbol of Britain is John Bull.)
Together with them
He shall push the peoples to the ends of the earth. (The British Empire was the largest of all time encompassing a quarter of the Earth’s land surface and a quarter of the Earth’s population. The Empire went to the ends of the earth, as the sun never set on the British Empire. From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, Great Britain was the pre-eminent nation on the earth. When William Wilberforce went to Parliament in 1780, there were three members who were truly Christian. Fifty years later, there were almost 200. I believe the blessings of Joseph would only be delivered to Christian nations.)
They are the ten thousands of Ephraim,
And they are the thousands of Manasseh.
After attempting to offer Isaac on the altar in Genesis 22:17, Abraham is told that his descendants will possess the gates of their enemies. At its height, the British Empire controlled Hong Kong, Singapore, Bombay, Calcutta, the Khyber Pass, Cape Town, Suez, Malta, and Gibraltar, the gates of their enemies, and America, the Panama Canal.
The cockneys or common folk of England have problems pronouncing their h’s. In Judges 12:5-6 during a time of intertribal warfare within Israel, we are told: The Gileadites seized the fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites arrived, and when any Ephraimite who escaped said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” then they would say to him, “Then say ‘Shibboleth’!” And he would say, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they would take him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time 42,000 Ephraimites. (The Ephraimites, like the cockneys, had problems pronouncing h’s.)
Hosea 9:13: Just as I saw Ephraim like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place, so Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer. (Tyre became an island in the midst of the sea about 572 BC. I believe Ephraim represented the Anglo-Saxon nations who went to the British Isles. Over 50 million infants have been aborted in the United States since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. I suspect Britain does likewise. )
From Psalm 83, a psalm for our time?
Do not keep silent, O God!
Do not hold your peace,
And do not be still, O God!
For behold, Your enemies make a tumult;
And those who hate You have lifted up their head.
They have taken crafty counsel against Your people,
And consulted together against Your sheltered ones. (Your sheltered ones are the U.S. and Britain.)
They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation,
That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”
For they have consulted together with one consent;
They form a confederacy against You;
The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; (collectively Islam’s Arabs, especially through Esau)
Moab and the Hagrites (Egypt – from Hagar, Ishmael’s Egyptian mother)
Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek ;
Philistia (Gaza) with the inhabitants of Tyre (Lebanon)
Assyria (ISIS) also has joined with them;
They have helped the children of Lot (Jordan).
These points on Ephraim being Britain and America being Manasseh are well known. Is there anything new? In Ezekiel 4:5 the prophet is told to lie on his left side for 390 days with each day representing a year. The 390 years are the iniquity of the house of Israel which they must bear. In Leviticus 26, Israel was told if she rejected her punishment, then God would multiply it by seven. In 931-930 BC, Israel separated from Judah. Israel immediately incurred God’s wrath by setting up calf idols, making nonLevites priests, and changing the LORD’s feasts from the 7th to the 8th month. 390 multiplied by seven would mean 2,730 Biblical years of judgment on Israel. Now, in the original creation, there were 12 months of 30 days each, or Biblical years of 360 days, which is likely why a circle has 360 degrees from this old calendar. This changed around 701 BC to 365.2422 days per year. If we start with 931 BC and subtract 2,730 Biblical years, then 230 Biblical years removed would take us to 701 BC leaving 2500 Biblical years to multiply by 360 and divide by 365.2422. Then this must be subtracted from 701 BC which gives us the year 1764 AD. The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War as it was known in America, the Seven Years’ War in Europe in January of 1763. France lost the right to garrison troops in India, which would subsequently become the Jewel in Britain’s crown. Also Britain got all of Canada. The British was rising as a major world power thereafter.
Per Hosea 6:1: Come and let us return to the LORD;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
After two days, He will revive us;
On the third day, He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.
I believe the two days refer to two thousand years per 2 Peter 3:8. I believe this began circa 931-930 BC when Israel separated from Judah and immediately became apostate. Two millennia later would be about 1070 AD. Did anything important happen about this time? In 1066 AD, the Normans invaded England, the last successful invasion of the island. Thereafter, England rose to become a major world power.
In Revelation 7, 144,000 Israelites, 12,000 from each tribe are sealed by God for service. However, the tribe of Dan is not sealed though it will get land in Christ’s millennium. In verse 6, the tribe of Manasseh is sealed, and in verse 8, the tribe of Joseph is sealed. However, why is this presented in this fashion? Joseph’s sons were Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim has apparently lost favor for some reason. The British became the greatest nation on earth as a Christian nation, but gave it up to worship evolution instead. Now only about 5% attend church regularly. I suspect that is the reason it is presented in such a fashion.
In the seventh chapter of Daniel, the prophet related this dream:
7:2 Daniel spoke, saying, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea.
3 “and four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other.
4 “The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. (The winged lion represented the kingdom of Babylon, specifically Nebuchadnezzar, its king. His wings were removed when he was put out to pasture for seven years, and then his reason was returned to him along with his kingdom. And he was given a human heart of flesh. Nebuchadnezzar wrote the fourth chapter of Daniel describing his experience with Judah’s God.)
5 “And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’ (The bear represented the Medo-Persian Empire which became the Persian Empire, the reason it was lifted up on one side. The three ribs it devoured were Babylon, Lydia in Turkey, and Egypt.
6 “After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. (This beast represented the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great. Leopards are characterized by speed, especially if they have four wings. Persia was conquered rapidly. The four heads were the four generals who divided the empire after Alexander’s death.)
7 “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it. (This beast has been identified as the Roman Empire. Most empires last about 200 years. The Roman Empire lasted over 500 years with Byzantium going almost another millennium.)
However, JR Church saw the above beasts as double prophecies as follows: 1. The first beast also represented the British Empire whose symbol was a lion with America having an eagle as its symbol. The lion had to lose its eagle wings of America before William Wilberforce could transform it into a true Christian nation rather than a nominal one. He began his campaign against slavery in 1787. The slave trade was abolished in 1807, and slavery was ended within the Empire in 1833 as Wilberforce was on his death bed. The worship of evolution led to the demise of the British Empire, and eventually, it will seal America’s doom as well. 2. The bear was Russia, lifted up on one side as most of its population is in the west. The three ribs were Siberia, the Central Asian Muslim Republics, and Eastern Europe, with the latter two gaining their liberty with the fall of the Soviet Union. 3. The winged leopard was Germany, noted for blitzkrieg or lightning war with panzer or panther tanks. They conquered with astonishing speed, as did their ally Japan. The four heads also included Italy and a rump of nations- Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. 4. The final beast will be the Anti-Christ’s Europe. At the end of Daniel 7:7 are the words; and it had ten horns, which was never true of Rome. There will be an inner core of ten nations, represented by the ten horns, which the Anti-Christ will rule. Like Rome, this nation will be far worse than all its predecessors, and it will rule over the world.
Some authorities on the Bible say that believing in British Israelism denies the Jews of modern Israel their rightful place in God’s plans to which I respond, “Not at all!” In the last hundred years, America has forsaken the Judeo-Christian God whose name is NOT Allah for Darwin. The Judeo-Christian God made us the pre-eminent nation in the world today, as He had in the 19th century for the British Empire, but the British forgot their God and lost their empire, and we seem on the verge of losing our position as well. The day after the Islamic destruction of the World trade Center twin towers in New York, Tom Daschle, the highest elected government official in Congress by virtue of being Senate leader, quoted from Isaiah 9:10. I will begin a verse earlier:
The LORD sent a word against Jacob,
And it has fallen on Israel.
All the people will know-
Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria-
Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:
Now this is from what Senator Daschle quoted:
10 The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will replant with cedars.
Per Jonathan Cahn, the situation for the northern kingdom of Israel was this. They had forgotten God for over two centuries, and He had allowed the Assyrians to sweep through and take all the tribes east of the Jordan River and all the northern tribes above Ephraim and the half-tribe of Manasseh in 732 BC. God was merciful to Joseph, and the residua had responded in arrogance with Isaiah 9:10, in essence, saying they did not need God. They would go their own way. In 722 BC, the Assyrians returned taking Ephraim and the remaining half-tribe of Manasseh away as well. Now America through Senator Daschle emulated the pride of the long lost northern kingdom of Israel, indeed, using the same verses indicating we did not need God either. Unless we repent, our fate will be the same as theirs.
Senator Daschle missed God’s response to his cited verse, the next verse beginning with 11: Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him and spur his enemies on.
The Syrians before and the Philistines behind;
And they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.
Curiously, when 9/11 occurred, a sycamore tree was felled in front of a small church in New York City by the falling towers. The tree saved a small church, the same church that George Washington and the Congress retired to immediately after Washington took his first presidential oath of office to pray for his country. The church was unscathed. The Federal Building where Washington took the first oath of office suffered foundational damage. In Hebrew, the word for cedar is pinacea, an evergreen conifer. A pinacea tree was planted to replace the fallen sycamore, and it was named the Liberty Tree. On a Jonathan Cahn DVD, a year or so back, Cahn reported the Liberty Tree had died.
America briefly turned to God after 9/11, but only briefly, and then back to our own way, forgetting our Christian heritage and forgetting or ignoring the Judeo-Christian God who made the British Empire. When the British accepted Darwin and forgot God, they lost their Empire though it took almost a century. The Judeo-Christian God also made America. I suspect America will soon turn against Israel, and that will seal our fate. The Scriptures note that not just the Jews, but Ephraim and Manasseh must return to Israel per Ezekiel 37:15-22. Perhaps this is why we have so many problems with immigration.
I believe the earth is approaching 6,000 years since Creation. In fact, I believe we are a little over. Each millennium follows a day of Creation. The rise of Britain (Ephraim) and America (Manasseh) occurred in the last quarter of the sixth millennium analogous to the creation of man on the afternoon of the sixth day. God’s blessings were first poured on Ephraim and then Manasseh during that period. Britain rejected God first, and now America is following in Britain’s footsteps. I believe Daniel’s 70th and final week is soon to begin. It may have already begun. The period is known as Revelation with Armageddon near its end.
My name is Richard Gentry. I am a retired US Army Officer with a 25 year interest in Biblical prophecy. I have written a book on the End Times- The End of the Anglo-Saxon Age and the Coming of Anti-Christ available from Amazon. Also in Ebook. I did make an error with reference to Psalms 112 to 119. Psalms 116 to 122 fit better for Daniel’s final week to me.
