MANASSEH. The tribe of Joseph (⅛.v.), the northern and stronger half of the “sons of Rachel,” was divided into two branches, so considerable as themselves to bear the name of tribes, which referred their origin to Manasseh and Ephraim, the two sons of Joseph by his Egyptian wife Asenath. Of the two Manasseh was held to be the elder, but the patriarchal story relates how Jacob predicted the superiority of the younger branch (Gen. xlviii,), which in fact played far the greater part in history, occupying in the early days of the settlement in Canaan the part of the central mountain land (Mount Ephraim) where the headquarters of armed Israel and the sanctuary of the ark stood (at Shiloh), and in later times holding the kingship, and greatly excelling Manasseh in numerical strength (Deut, xxxiii. 17). During the conquest, perhaps, the separation of the two branches of Joseph was not so well marked as it afterwards became, for the ancient narrative of Josh, xvii. 14 sq. represents the whole house of Joseph as acting together, establishing itself in the uncleared forests of the central mountains till it had strength to contend with the iron chariots of the Canaanites about Bethshean, and in the cities of the rich plain of Jezreel. These cities probably were not all subdued till the days of David or Solomon (Jud. i. 27; 1 Sam. xxxi. 10; 1 Kings ix. 15); they ultimately fell to Manasseh, which held the northern part of the hill country of Joseph, overlooking the plain, and finally encroached on lands once reckoned to the less warlike tribes of Asher and Issachar (Josh. xvii. 11). But the line of division between Ephraim and Manasseh was not always the same, and in the time of Gideon, the great hero of Manasseh, and the man under whom the seniority of the tribe had a real ...meaning, Shechem itself was a Manassite dependency (Jud. viii. 31, ix.; comp. Num. xxvi. 31; Josh. xvii. 2). Besides their western settlements in the fertile glades of northern Samaria, running out into the great plain, the Manassites had broad territories east of the Jordan in the pasture land of Bashan and Gilead, mainly occupied by a clan named Machir, and reckoned as the first-born of Manasseh. On the probability that these territories were colonies from the west see vol. xiii. p. 401.
The outlying Manassites had many struggles with their foreign neighbours; 1 Chron. ii. 23 speaks of the loss of sixty cities to Geshur and the Aramaeans (A. V. mistranslates). After suffering much at the hands of Damascus, they were carried into captivity by Tiglath Pileser (734 b.c. ). The captivity of their brethren in the west followed some thirteen years later.
The name Manasseh he who causes to forget) is referred in Gen. xli. 51 to Joseph’s joy at the birth of the son who caused him to forget his sörrows and cease to long for his home. Unlike the other tribal names, it occurs as a personal name before the captivity, being that borne by the son and successor of Hezekiah, the godless king whose sins are designated as the decisive cause of the rejection of the kingdom of Judah.
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