brethren. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of the wild-ox: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh ... (Deut 33:16-17; see D&C 110:9) I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, as a shepherd doth his flock ... (Jer 31:9-10) Joseph is a father to Ephraim and to all Israel in these last days ... (latter-day prophet Brigham Young, 9 Apr 1837) According to LDS doctrine, the Twelve Tribes of Israel descended from the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob (who was later named Israel) and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Jacob was the last of a line of ancient biblical patriarchs who held the full power of the 'blessings of the firstborn,' of bechor. But Jacob's firstborn by first wife Leah — Reuben — forfeited by transgression his spiritual inheritance, and it passed instead to the Patriarch's newly sanctioned 'firstborn' son by favored but second wife, Rachel. This son's name was Joseph — a name signifying 'fruitful'. Leah's second and third sons — Simeon and Levi — likewise, because of murder, forfeited any birthright they may have had, and the 'covenant bloodline' blessing and inheritance of the royal scepter went to Leah's fourth, but Jacob's first righteous son, Judah. In Genesis, Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, are taken to see their dying grandfather, who has 'adopted' them as his own. As with each of his own sons, Israel (Jacob) laid his hands upon the heads of his grandsons to bless them. But when the aged patriarch laid his left hand upon the elder grandson Manasseh's head and his right hand on the younger Ephraim's head, Joseph, seeing that his father had made a mistake, switched his hands. But Israel refused and said: I know it, my son, I know it: he [Manasseh] also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed them that day, saying, In