Ephriam

1767 BC/1536 BC -   Submit Photo / Document

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• Name	, Ephriam
  Birth	1767 BC/1536 BC
  Gender	Male
  Person ID	I42376	Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith
  Last Modified	19 Aug 2021

  
  

  Father	Joseph ,   b. 1801 BC/1792 BC   d. 1691 BC/1536 BC
  Mother	Asenath
  Family ID	F21648	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  The Priesthood Birthright Tribe - Israel's dying blessing, "and he set Ephraim before Manasseh." Gen. 48:20. More than a thousand years after the conferring of the blessing by Jacob, the Prophet Jeremiah makes this record: "For thus saith the Lord... I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn" (Jeremiah 31: 7, 9,) The Children of Ephriam By Archibald F. Bennett One of the marvelous developments of the latter days, to which all members of the Church are looking forward with high anticipation, will be the coming of the time when the native races of America, the Indians or Lamanites, will learn of the noble forefathers from whom they are descended, and of the blessings they inherit because of that lineage. The Prophet Joseph Lehi, glimpsing down the vista of many centuries, foretold this time: "And at that day shall the remnant of our seed know that they are of the house of Israel, and that they are the covenant people of the Lord; and then shall they know and come to the knowledge of their forefathers." The period cannot new be far distant when these tribes will discover with joy that they are indeed descended from Abraham and Jacob and Joseph; and that they shall assist in the fulfilment of the covenant the Lord made with these fathers of old that in their seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. For this covenant, we are told, "should be fulfilled in the latter days." (I Nephi 15:18.) Many Latter-day Saints not of Lamanite descent, however, in looking forward to these dramatic discoveries, lose sight of the fact that equally wonderful predictions have been made concerning them and their own lineage; and that they too are destined, if they prove faithful in obeying the commands of God, to learn of the long lines of their progenitors and find that the chain of life extends back from them to the noblest and choicest men and women who have ever lived. How aptly the words of Mormon apply to us, as well as to the descendants of father Lehi: "Know ye that ye are of the house of Israel....Know ye that ye must come to the knowledge of your fathers....and if ye believe this, ye will know concerning your fathers, and also the marvelous works which were wrought by the power of God among them; And ye will also know that ye are a remnant of the seed of Jacob; therefore ye are numbered among the people of the first covenant." Mormon 7, 2, 5, 9, 10. We have long boldly proclaimed to the world that the members of this Church are of the chosen seed of Israel. For this we have no less authority than the revelations of the Lord himself. He has said, "For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham." (Doc. and Cov. 103:17.) The Prophet Joseph Smith was declared to be of the loins of Abraham, a descendant of Joseph who was sold into Egypt, and "a pure Ephriamite." Brigham Young once taught: "You have heard Joseph say that the people did not know him; he had his eyes on the relation to blood-relations. Some have supposed that he meant spirit, but it was the blood-relation. This is it that he referred to. His descent from Joseph that was sold into Egypt was direct, and the blood was pure in him. That is why the Lord chose him and we are pure when this blood strain from Ephriam comes down pure. The decrees of the Almighty will be exalted--that blood which was in him was pure and he had the sole right and lawful power, as he was the legal heir to the blood that has been on the earth and has come down through a pure lineage. The union of various ancestors kept that blood pure." (Gen. Mag. Vol 2, pg. 107.) Joseph Smith declared that wherever the Church was established there should be a Patriarch chosen, "even the oldest man of the blood of Joseph or the seed of Abraham," to bestow patriarchal blessings upon the Saints and among other things, make known their true lineage. Joseph Smith, Sr., was the first Patriarch of the church, which position was his by right of birth. From him the birthright and the office of Patriarch passed to his eldest surviving son, Yr Smith. In blessing him, Joseph Smith Sr. used these words. "I now ask my Heavenly Father to bless thee with the same blessings with which Jacob blessed his son Joseph, for thou art his true descendant, and thy posterity shall be numbered with the house of Ephriam." The right of patriarchal seniority is now vested in Patriarch Yr G. Smith, great-grandson of Yr Smith. In a recent sermon he said: "It is the policy and order of the Church at the present time to have at least one patriarch in each stake, who is authorized to bless the members of the stake, and declare their lineage in a similar way to the manner in which Jacob blessed his grandsons, and his own sons. At the present time in the Church the great majority of those receiving their blessings are declared to be of the house and lineage of Ephriam, while many others are designated as members of the house of Manasseh; but up to the present time we have discovered that those who are leaders in Israel, no matter from where they come, no matter out of what nation they have come, are of Ephriam; while the blood of Manasseh is found in the tribes and nations of the Indians of North and South America. They are great, they are wonderfully blessed, but Ephriam seems to prevail in the greater blessings, in the greater responsibilities, and in faithfulness to the Lord's work." (Quoted from "The Day of Ephriam," Gen. Mag., Vol 30, pg.. 124:) Ephriam Mixed Among the Nations Those members of the Church pronounced as mostly of the lineage of Ephriam, have been gathered from many different nations and from all parts of the world. This is in accord with the prediction of the Prophet Hosea, who looked into the future and declared, "Ephriam he had mixed himself among the people." (Hosea 7:8.) On this point President Brigham Young explained: "Israel is dispersed among all the nations of the earth, the blood of Ephriam is mixed with the blood of all the earth. Abraham's seed is mingled with the rebellious seed through the whole world of mankind." (Discourses, pg 669.) "We are now gathering the children of Abraham who have come through the loins of Joseph and his sons, more especially through Ephriam, whose children are mixed among all the nations of the earth. (The sons of Ephriam are wild and uncultivated, unruly, ungovernable. The spirit in them is turbulent and resolute; they are the Anglo-Saxon race, and they are upon the face of the whole earth, bearing the spirit of rule and dictation, to go forth from conquering to conquer.) They search wide creation and scan every nook and corner of this earth to find out what is upon and within it. I see a congregation of them before me today. No hardship will discourage these men; they will penetrate the deepest wilds and overcome almost insurmountable difficulties to develop the treasures of the earth, to further their indomitable spirit of adventure." (Discourses, pg. 670.) "Ephriam has become mixed with all the nations of the earth, and it is Ephriam that is gathering together, it is Ephriam that I have been searching for all the days of my preaching, and that is the blood which ran in my veins when I embraced the gospel." (Journal of Discourses, 2:268-269.) Truth Will Prevail These straightforward declarations once provoked in the world only merriment and ridicule. Today the idea that the Anglo-Saxon is descended from Israel has many prominent champions, and volumes of evidence have been produced in support of it. It is proposed to show, in the light of present day knowledge, that the foregoing statements of our leaders were not imaginary and farfetched, but in entire agreement with facts now recognized as well established. The plan will be to trace the story of the children of Ephriam down through the captivity to the point where their history merges with that of the tribes which settled northern Europe and became the progenitors of the people of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Germany, France, etc. Then through some of the older existing pedigrees the chain of life will be followed from descendants of these tribes down to individuals living in typical nations of Europe; from these persons the various lines will be traced till they unite in a Puritan emigrant who sailed for New England, there to become a progenitor of numerous families among us. Prophetic History of Ephriam "Prophecy is but history reversed." Hence a scrutiny of the prophecies made pertaining to Ephriam will enable us to reconstruct much of the history of that tribe. Unto Jacob, grandfather of Ephriam, many things were made known concerning the later history of the sons of Joseph. He predicted that they should "grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." Of Manasseh he said, "He also shall become a people, and he also shall become great;" while of Ephriam he predicted, "but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations." (Gen. 48:16, 19.) But there was to come a time when all but a remnant of the seed of Joseph should be destroyed. "Let us remember the words of Jacob, before his death; for behold, he saw that a remnant of the coat of Joseph was preserved, and had not decayed. And he said, Even as this remnant of garment of my son's hath been preserved, so shall a remnant of the seed of my son's be preserved by the hand of God, and be taken unto himself, while the remainder of the seed of Joseph shall perish, even as the remnant of his garment." (Alma 46:24-26.) With Joseph the Lord made a covenant that he would preserve his seed forever; and that from among his descendants the Lord would raise up a righteous branch unto the house of Israel, which was to be broken off, but to be remembered in the covenants of the Lord in the latter days. Joseph was further promised by the Lord that in time one of his posterity would be raised up as a choice seer, who would bring to the children of Joseph a knowledge of the covenants made with their fathers in the latter days. "And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father. And he shall be like unto me; for the thing which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand, by the power of the Lord shall bring my people unto salvation. (11 Nephi 3:5-8, 11-16.) Many other prophecies were recorded by Joseph of old, and these are yet to be made known. When that time comes we shall certainly learn much concerning his posterity. "And now, I, Nephi, speak concerning the prophecies of which my father hath spoken, concerning Joseph, who was carried into Egypt. For behold, he truly prophesied concerning all his seed. And the prophecies which he wrote, there are not many greater. And he prophesied concerning us, and our future generations; and they are written upon the plates of brass." (11 Nephi 4: 1-2. These plates of brass, brought by Lehi from Jerusalem contained also a record of the genealogy of the ancestors of Laban and Lehi back to Joseph. Lehi himself predicted "That these plates of brass should go forth unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people who were of his seed. Wherefore, he said that these plates of brass should never perish; neither should they be dimmed any more by age." (1 Nephi 5:18, 19.) When Joseph died at the age of 110 years, he had lived to see Ephriam's children of the third generation. The eldest son of Ephriam was Shuthelah, and other sons were Bered and Tahan. Some of Ephriam's family were slain by the men of Gath in Egypt who came to steal their cattle out of the land of Goshen. "And Ephriam their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him. At the first enumeration taken of the Israelites by tribes, in the wilderness of Sinai after the exodus from Egypt, in the days of Moses, the tribe of Ephriam contained 40,500 males over twenty years of age able to bear arms. But at a census forty years later their number had decreased to 32,500. At the first count Elishama, son of Ammihud, the son of Laadan, who was descended from Shuthelah, represented the tribe of Ephriam. Elishama was father to Nun, whose son Joshua became leader of all Israel after Moses. From the day of Joshua the tribe of Ephriam occupied a prominent place in Israel, especially after the separation of the northern tribes from Judah and Benjamin. At times the term Ephriam is used by the prophets to indicate the whole of the ten tribe of Israel. But even where the name is used in the more inclusive sense, it must of necessity refer also to the tribe of Ephriam which was a part of that nation. "From the time of the revolt, the history of Ephriam is in two senses the history of the kingdom of Israel, since not only did the tribe become a kingdom, but the kingdom embraced little besides the tribe....There are few things more important in the sacred story than the descent of this haughty and jealous tribe from the culminating point at which it stood when it entered on the fairest portion of the Land of Promise - the chief sanctuary and the chief settlement of the nation within its limits, its leader, the leader of the whole people, down to the sudden captivity and total oblivion which closed its career." (Smith: Bible Dictionary, pg. 283.) While the Ten Tribes ripened in iniquity, heedless of the repeated warnings of the prophets, nation after nation was falling before the military power of Assyria. In B. C. 745 the Assyrian crown was seized by a military adventurer named Pul or Pula, who then assumed the name of Tiglath-pileser 1V He marched against Menshem, King of Israel, wrested part of his dominions from him, and compelled the Israelites to pay tribute. Later, "in the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria." and took a number of cities including some of the strongholds of Ephriam and all the land of Naphtali and carried off other captives," even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and unto Habor, and Hora, and to the river Gozan, unto this day." (11 Kings 15:19, 29; 1 Chron. 5:26.) He chronicles his achievements in these words: "The distant land of Beth-Khumri....the whole of its inhabitants I carried away." (Ragozin: Story of Assyria, pg. 232.) Tiglath-pileser died in December, B.C. 727 and was succeeded by a certain Ulula, who took the name of Shalmanser 1V. Hoshea was then king of Israel. "Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria;....and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years." During the siege he died or was murdered in December of the year 722, and the throne was seized by another general, Sargon. "In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assuria took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor by the river of Gozan,and in the cities of the Medes." (11 Kings 17:6.) In the district which was formerly the ancient kingdom of the Medes there is but one important river, and today it is known as the river Ozen or Ousan. A map of the period about 1000 A.D. shows this same river as Gozen, Uzen, thus identifying it with the river Gozan of the captivity. Near this river are the towns Abhar and Haru, doubtless the Habor (which in the Septuagint is spelled Abor) and Hara of the Bible. Finally Halah (to the Septuagint Ala-e) is possibly the town of Alamut on a tributary of the Ozen. (Milner: Israel's Wanderings, pp 42, 43.) So the general scene of the captivity was an area southwest of the Caspian Sea, to the east of the river Aras (formerly the Araxes.) Excavators have found amid the ruins of Sargon's palace the annals of his conquests. One of the first entries is that: "In the beginning of my reign I besieged, I took by the help of the god Shamash, who gives me victory over my enemies, the city of Samaria (ir-Samirina). 27,280 of its inhabitants I carried away....I took them to Assyria and put into their places people whom my hand had conquered." (Ragozin, pg. 247; Sayce: "Ancient Civilizations and Their Vanished Glories." in Book of History, pg. 1575, Carpenter, pg. 30.) The punishment the captives were now forced to undergo had been vividly portrayed. Prophets had declared they should be oppressed and spoiled and crushed evermore; serving their enemies in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in want of all things; with a yoke of iron upon their necks. Their lives should hang in doubt; their children should go into captivity; they should fear day and night. Their rulers should hate them. They should perish among the heathen, and the lands of their enemies should eat them up. And they that were left alive should pine away in the lands of their enemies (Deut. 28; Levi 26:17, 38.) Yet to those who survived this terrible ordeal, deliverance from bondage was promised, when they should be humbled sufficiently to accept the punishment for their iniquity--then would the Lord remember his covenants with their fathers. "Oh my people that dwellest in Zion, he not afraid of the Assyrian; he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt. For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction...And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing." (Isaiah 10:24, 25, 27.) On the Nineveh marbles the story can be read that a people called Esak-ska (cf. Sakai, Saki-suna, Saxons) rebelled against the Assyrians about 670 B.C. or nearly fifty years after the captivity. As the enemies of Assyria gathered against her, doubtless many of the captives made their escape. Then the cruel oppressor fell. Cyaxeres of Media led his legions against doomed Nineveh. After a lengthy siege the city was taken, in B.C. 606, its ruler was slain, its people carried into captivity, and its palaces and temples burned. "Assyria and its empire had passed forever from the stage of history." The fall of Nineveh, and the confusion of the times, afforded an opportunity of escape. We can imagine how the captive Israelites gathered in their homes between the Araxes and Gozan rivers, and in Armenia. The story of that escape is told in the oft-quoted passage from Esdras or Ezra: "They took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt, that there they might keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered in at the narrow passages of the Euphrates. For the Most High then showed signs for them, and held still the flood till they were passed over. For through that country there was a great way to go, even of a year and a half. And the same region is called Arsareth. (11 Esdras 13:40-46.) The path they followed seems indicated by certain names even today. A natural route for them to take from their home east of the Araxes would lead them around the north-eastern end of Lake Van, and through a pass in the mountains to the eastern branch of the Euphrates. After following about fifty miles along its right bank they would be obliged to cross this river, at a point accurately corresponding to the "Narrow Passage" spoken of by Esdras. Another fifty miles and they would cross the Araxes. Further on the route is a river named on some maps Israel-su (Israel river). Northward, in the Caucasus mountains, there is an important pass known to this day as "the Gates of Israel." (Milner: Israel's Wanderings, pg.. 54; Weldon: Origin of the English, pg.. 50.) The greater portion of this migration was complete by the latter part of the 6th century B. C. for Nephi declares that "there are many who are already lost from the knowledge of those who are at Jerusalem. Yea, the more part of all the tribes have been led away; and they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of sea." (1 Nephi 22:3-4.) END --------------------------- Ref: House of Isreal - A Royal Seed pp 292-294 - One of the miracles of this dispensation, the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, is that which is working among the descendents of Ephriam scattered throughout the world. No story, however fabulous, could be fabricated by the mind of man to equal in fantasy the movements of the seed of Ephraim in the earth. So marvelous are the works of God in planning and executing the destiny of Ephraim that we stand amazed at what has occurred. It is with no desire to minimize the significance of the office of other tribes of Israel that the seed of Ephraim is singled out, and the nation in which they have been found in most abundance is given precedence, for all have contributed much and brought great blessings to the Gentiles with whom they have mingled. One cannot help but recognize the authority established in the "height of Israel" in the British Isles through the princes of the Northern Kingdom, and the heritage of David given them through the "tender twig" of the House of Zedekiah, Tea Tephi. These two have combined to make the British race a dominant and capable leader in world affairs, a fact we must recognize. No discussion of Israel would be complete, therefore, without some careful consideration of the people who inhabit the British Isles, for their history, both ancient and modern, is inextricably woven into the pattern of Israel's destiny. From the cities and colonies of this great empire thousands of the seed of Ephraim have been gathered into the Church, almost surpassing in numbers the combined gatherings from all other Teutonic lands and colonies. Britain, the "poor" land incapable of sustaining her growing population, is truly the lodestone of Israel, having received that honor through the numerous and extensive migrations of the tribes to that land. In it rests the power and strength of Ephraim, the governing tribe of the Northern Kingdom. The Keys of Gathering - Justification for singling out Britain from the other Teutonic nations is found in the blessings which were given to her people during the past centuries. In these keys of authority and heritage are to be found the reasons for her magnificent and progressive history, they are the secret of the power and privileges which have been granted unto her. The primary authority vested in Britain came with the first Cimmerian migration to Ireland in the seventh century B.C., when the princes and people of the first migration set up their capital at Tara, having come from Spain in an invasion of Ireland during the times of the Danaan overlordship. In reality this was the reestablishment of the capital of the Northern Kingdom. In their hands rested the promise given to Jeroboam by the hand of Ahijah the prophet who said: "Take these ten pieces (tribes): for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee...But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel." (I Kings 11:31, 35, 37.) From that date until the Assyrian invasions the kings descended from Jeroboam who ruled the northern tribes, and held the keys of authority over Israel. When they were dispersed to the land beyond the Causasus the authority sent with them and continued in their possession from that time forward, for we find no statement to the effect that the Lord withdrew this authority. Ezekiel understood the rights and privileges of the Northern Kingdom for he refers to it as the "height of Israel," and "high mountain and eminent," a "dry tree" which would be made "green" when the "green" tree, "Judah," was dried up. The power that once was vested in the Southern Kingdom of Judah through the House of David became the property of Israel in Britain through the marriage of Tea Tephi, daughter of the last ruling king of Judah. Through her marriage to King Heremon of Ireland the authority appertaining to the gathering of the tribes by the descendants of Judah became also the possession of the Northern tribes to be combined with the authority given to the sons of Joseph, the "horns of the Unicorn," Ephraim and Manasseh. At the time of the death of the males of Zedekiah's family and the marriage of his daughter in Ireland, Judah became "dried," and was brought "low," and Israel became "green" and eminent. When these facts are understood we can see more fully the position of Britain as sponsor and protector of the gatherings now taking place in this dispensation. We are witnessing the movement of the tribes of Ephraim and Judah to their lands of inheritance in Zion and Jerusalem, a reality which could not have come to pass had not the kings of Britain held the authority for its consummation, not as the holders of the Priesthood which is vested only in the hands of the gathered Ephraimites, but as the recognized heirs of the king of Israel into whose hands the Lord gave the tribes of Israel in the days of Solomon's unrightousness. (See pp. 295-307 for a full discussion of the British Coat of Arms in "House of the Lord.") The influence which Britain has exercised both in Europe and in the world has been very great, but especially in the contribution she has made to the ruling heads of the nations. In her strategic geographical and political location she has lent her blood to all nations through inter-marriage with those of like origin on the continent of Europe. She has been the leader of European affairs through the relationship thus created, and has done much to further the cause of freedom during the past century. From the first migration of the Princes of Ephraim to Ireland until the present time she has held the office of leadership in the tribes associated on the continent of Europe. The blood of her royalty has become mixed with that of the Frankish kings descended from Antenor, chief prince of Ephraim (443 B.C.) and with that of the Scandinavian royalty descended from Odin of Scythian origin. Thus all royal and most of the families of lower rank and station in Europe can be traced back to one or all of these three Israelitish sources. Truly the promise made to Jacob that "kings shall come out of thee," has been fulfilled in the Britons. (Identified with Cronos and Saturn of Crete by Sanchoniatho, an ancient Phoeneician author, who writes of "Kronos, whom the Phoenicians call Isreal.' Kronos (Saturn) had a special son Jehud (cf. Judah and Jupiter). "Baetylos, the Stone swallowed by Kronos, the sacred stone of Zeus," corresponds to "Bethel-El, the stone carried by Israel." See "Ancient Fragments of Sanchoniatho, etc.," by I. P. Cory. Brit. Mus. 800 g. 10) quoted by Milner: The Royal House of Britain" pp. 12-13. The Stone of Scone, sometimes called the Stone of Destiny, measures 10 x 16 x 26 inches and weighs about 340 pounds. On each end is an iron ring. This was the stone (we are told) which Jacob used as a pillow when he had his famous dream. He called the stone "Bethel" -- God's House. Again at the same place, God spoke to Jacob saying, "I am the God of Bethel." Thus God associated himself with the stone. Jacob carried the stone to Egypt. (Perhaps this was when the iron rings were put in the ends to make the carrying easier). In the exodus from Egypt the Israelites carried the stone during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness. When they needed water, the Lord told Moses to smite the rock. He did so and out came water. It is believed this stone was the rock, and it was then that the rock received the crack which it now has. At last the stone was placed in the Temple at Jerusalem where it was used as the Coronation Seat for the kings of Israel, the last king being Zedekiah. In 578 B.C., Zedekiah and all of his people were captured except his beautiful daughter who was spirited away by a small group of people led by the prophet, Jeremiah, who carried with them a bell, an ark, David's harp and the Stone. They sought refuge in Ulster, Ireland, at the Court of a King who was their kinsman. This king, their kinsman, was a descendant of Joseph's younger son, Ephraim to whom the Stone and God's Covenant had descended. Ephriam's descendant, Gatholus(Milesius) was a prince and he had married Scota (for whom Scotland was later named) the daughter of Pharoah Rameses, II. (This Pharoah had several names). Gatholus became a great explorer, his son, Iber, finally reaching the part of Ireland now known as Ulster. It was Iber that Jeremiah took the daughter of the last king of Palestine and the Stone of Destiny. King Iber married his beautiful guest, so David's house which then had the stone, and Joseph's house to whom it had been bequeathed, were united. To both, the Lord had made great promises. The Stone was taken from Ulster, Ireland, to Scone, Scotland, where it continued to be used as a coronation seat. There was a prophecy that wherever that Stone was, there the descendants of Jacob (now the kings of Scotland) would reign. In 1296 it was taken by King Edward to England and used as the coronation seat for English kings, but in time a Scottish king (James) was sitting on the English throne. Ref: The Stone of Scone Ancestry of Edgar Aetheling 929.273 C844e pg. 336 according to "A Short History England" by Edward Cheyney, pg. 121. (See Milesius/Gatholus.) The House of Isreal - by E. L. Whitehead So from Adam to Enoch, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Israel, and through Israel to Joseph Smith through Ephraim, the rights of the appointment of God to the Chosen Seed have continued to this day, and have emerged finally among the descendants of Ephraim. It is the right of the appointment possessed by the Patriarchs and handed down from generation to generation through posterity to our time. Ephraim Takes Over - Seventeen hundred years before Christ the House of Judah received the Sceptre of authority in the house of Israel, by which power she administered the government and religious activities of Israel. During that time she flourished and failed alternately, but not to the extent that the power of authority was ever withdrawn completely from her. For six of those seventeen centuries before Christ, and for an additional eighteen centuries after Christ, Ephraim as a body remained lost to the knowledge of the world in general, without power, unity, priesthood, or identification (except the short period following the visit of Christ among the Nephites, Tahitians, British and Scandinavians). But today, as the result of the reinstitution of the principles of the Gospel, and the restoration of the authority of the priesthood, Ephraim has arisen to take their place in the earth as the administrators and promulgators of the Gospel of Christ in all the world. In this dispensation Judah has not been the leader in the affairs of the Church because of hIs rejection of Jesus Christ. One wonders what the course of Judah would have been, and to what stage of development the earth would have reached, had the Jews not rejected Christ, but had accepted Him and held as tenanciously to His Gospel as they have to the Law. Jesus and His disciples foresaw the ultimate rejection of the Gospel by the Jews, and the eventual rise of Ephraim in the last days. Paul condemned the rebellious Jews for their action in opposing Christ, saying: "He came upon his own, and his own received him not." Peter also declared: "But glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." Thus to the Jews was given the blessing of first receiving the Gospel at the hands of Christ, but their rejection lost it to them, bringing the Savior's curt and final denunciation: "So the last shall be first, and the first shall be last." The Gentile, who was last in the Meridian of Time to receive the Gospel, should be first to receive it in the Fullness of Times, and the first, the Jews, were to be the last to receive it in this dispensation. To the Gentiles now has come the "glory, honor, and peace" of the Gospel. Ephraim, some of whose family were slain by he men Gath who came to steal their cattle out of the land of Goshen "and Ephriam their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him." His known sons are in this database. ------------------------------ A Family Tree: From Adam to Jesus By. C. Himmelman, Jerusalem Produced by Palphot Ltd. Printed in Isreal Distributor: The three Arches County Ltd. P. O. Box 214, Bethlehem, Israel (This chart is structured as tribes and not necessarily father to son but the descent by generation leaders is from the tribe of Ephraim to the Anglo Saxons found described in God's Covenant Race from Patriarchal Times to the Present - A selection of addresses by Elder James H. Anderson Deseret News Press, Salt Lake City, Utah 1944.) -------------------------------- The Indians were declared to be direct descendants of the first dynasty Mayans, who are considered by some archeologists to have been an Aryan white Aztecs. If Mendel's law is not operative in human beings why should a white child appear among brown Indians after perhaps fifty or more generations have passed away? As spiritual evidence of this law of heredity we have the interesting comment of President Brigham Young, who himself, was an observer of some of the interesting changes noted in plants and animals. Concerning the house of Ephraim, he said: "We want the blood of Jacob, and that of his father Isaac and Abraham which runs in the veins of the people. There is a particle of it here, and another there, blessing the nations as predicted. "Take a family of ten children, for instance, and you may find nine of them purely of the Gentile stock, and one son or one daughter in that family who is purely of the blood of Ephraim. It was in the veins of the father or the mother and was produced in the son or daughter, while all the rest of the family are Gentiles. You may think that is singular, but it is true. It is the house of Israel we are north or the south; from China, Russia, England, California, North or South America, or some other locality; and it is the very lad on whom father Jacob laid his hands, that will save the house of Israel. The Book of Mormon came to Ephraim, for Joseph Smith was a pure Ephraimite, and the Book of Mormon was revealed to him, and while he lived he made it his business to search for those who believed the Gospel." From the scientific demonstration of the laws of inheritance we can conclude that it is possible for Joseph Smith to be actually descended from Judah and Ephraim, and yet retain the characteristics of a pure Ephraimite as much as the white Indians of Darien were declared to be pure "descendants of the first Dynasty Mayans," even though for fifty generations they had descended from the Lamanite people. --------------------------------------- Blood Line of Ephraim REF: The House of Israel by E. L. Whitehead The Day of Ephraim This is the day of Ephraim, the day when the power of God is made manifest unto the children of men for the last time. It is the day when the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah are to be brought back to the land of their inheritance. The question has often been asked: "Why do we not find more of the other tribes of Israel in our missionary work?" The answer is given by the former patriarch, Yr G. Smith: "At the present time in the church the great majority of those receiving their blessings are declared to be of the house and lineage of Ephraim, while many others are designated as members of the house of Manasseh; but up to the present time we have discovered that those who are leaders in Israel, no matter from whence they come, no matter out of what nation they have come, are of Ephraim; while the blood of Manasseh is found in the tribes and nations of the Indians of North and South America. They are great, they are wonderfully blessed, but Ephraim seems to prevail in the greater blessings, in the greater responsibilities, and in faithfulness to the Lord's work. And so people have wondered about it. Why do the patriarchs declare that most of us are of Ephraim? "It is my testimony that 'today' is the day of Ephraim. It is the day which the Lord has set to fulfill his promises made in the times of the ancient patriarchs, when he said that he would scatter Israel to the four corners of the world and that Ephraim should be scattered in all the nations, and then in the 'last days' be gathered out again. Many are being gathered out by our missionaries as 'one of a city and two of a family'; and they are found here, gathered into a place appointed by the Lord, and they are receiving his blessings. This is why so many of us are declared to be of Ephraim. The Prophet Joseph Smith was declared to be of the house of Joseph, a chosen vessel....We also may discover our lineage and where we stand in Israel." To this testimony we can add that of President Brigham Young: "Take the elders who are now in this house, and you can scarcely find one of a hundred but what is of the house of Israel. It has been remarked that the Gentiles have been cut off, and I doubt whether another Gentile ever comes into the Church....It is Ephraim that I have been searching for all the days of my preaching....Do you understand who we are; we are of Israel, of the royal seed, of the royal blood." Who is This Royal Seed? Who are they who compose the royal seed of whom President Young and Patriarch Smith speak? They are the descendants of those ancient tribes descended from Jacob. They are the people that produced the leaders of ancient Israel that led the tribes of the Northern Kingdom. They are the same as the body that predominated among the Cimmerians and among the Scythians and over whom the "princes of Ephraim" ruled. They are the same people that were led by the princes over the mountains and plains of Europe to Britain and northern Europe. They are that wild and roving horde that thundered out of the north and poured across the Baltic in the persons of the Vikings--who became known later as the Angles and Saxons, who established themselves as the predominant race in Britain, and that became mixed with the others of Israelite origin already dwelling in that land. They are the descendants of those hardy Anglo-Saxon people who lived and multiplied in the security of Britain, and in other regions whither they had wandered among the nations of Europe and the world, marrying into royal families of other nations of Europe and the world. They are the descendants of those early voyagers who leaving their homelands emigrated to the far reaches of the world, to Australia, Canada, the United States, and all the other island and continental possessions controlled by the Teutonic nations. They are they who in this dispensation have been found by the activities of the missionaries in Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of the world. ------------------- Ephraim, some of whose family were slain by the men of Gath who who came to steal their cttle out of the land of Goshen. "and Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him."