IVIANAS'SEK (Heb. JMnashsheh, of uncer tain etymology). According to Gen. xli. 51 the eldest son of Joseph and eponymous ancestor of the tribe of :Manasseh. Manasseh and Ephraim are thought by critics to represent two off shoots of a .Joseph clan, the parent branch of which (see JosErn) apparently disappeared in Egypt. Of the two, :Manasseh was the first to cut loose, and was therefore represented in tradi tion as the older; but the far more prominent part played in the history of the northern king dom by Ephraim is reflected in the forty-eighth chapter of Genetis, where Jacob, in blessing the two, intentionally mentions Ephraim first, al though the younger. Both Manasseh and Eph raim are represented as born in Egypt and sons of Joseph's Egyptian wife, which (if the tradi tion rests upon a genuine reminiscence) may he taken as an indication that the extension of the Joseph clan into several branches took place in that country. At the time of the conquest of Canaan, Manasseh and Ephraim appear as the most prominent of the tribes that afterwards formed the northern kingdom. The territory oc
cupied by Manasseh on the west of the Jordan lay to the north of Ephraim and reached west ward to the sea, including the plain of Sharon (Josh. xvii.), but the tribe continued to grow and a branch settled to the east of the Jordan, occupying part of Gilead, the rich pasture lands of Bashan and the country extending northward from a point above the River Jabbok to Mount Hermon (Josh. xiii. 29-31). The heroes Gideon and Jephthah (Judges vi. 15; xi. 1) belonged to Manasseh, but after the formation of the king dom Ephraim entirely eclipses Manasseh. of which we hear again only at the time of the invasion of Tiglathpileser 111. (me. 734), who carried off the eastern division of the tribe to Assyria (I. Chron. V. 26). The tribe also suf fered severely during the various wars with Aram (II. Kings x. 32-33; cf. Amos i. 3).