thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh ... (Gen 48:19-20). Jacob went on to further elevate the status of the descendants of Joseph's sons to that of full tribes in their own right (Gen 41:50). To the mighty prince Joseph himself the patriarch declared: Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the Stone of Israel:) Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: 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 ... (Gen 49:22-26 KJV) Thus, before he died, the old patriarch blessed his fourth son Judah with the kingly scepter and his eleventh (yet 'anointed') son Joseph — or rather Joseph's second and youngest son, Ephraim, to whom it passed — with the priestly 'firstborn' birthright (Gen 49:10, 22-26). This divided the blessings of God's children into two parts — with 'kingship' going to the House of Judah, and the firstborn 'priesthood' inheritance going to the House of Joseph — leading to an eventual breach between the children of Judah and those of Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh. That critical breach — which widened again later with divisions between Levi and the sons of Aaron — would only be healed in a far-distant, future day, after Israel's 'scattering' (722-586 BC) and centuries-long apostate captivity among Gentile nations. Josephite prophecy Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us ... Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it... to take deep root,