Joseph's two sons by Asenath, born in Egypt before the famine, and both named for what exile had done to him. MANASSEH (Menashsheh) puns on nashani — 'God has made me FORGET all my toil and all my father's house' (41:51), a startling thing to say aloud about the family that is about to walk back into his life. EPHRAIM puns on hiphrani — 'God has made me FRUITFUL in the land of my affliction' (41:52); he calls Egypt, where he governs, the land of his affliction. Jacob later adopts both as his own and crosses his hands to put the younger first (48:5, 14) — one more overturned birthright — and their names become two of Israel's tribes; 'Ephraim' eventually stands for the whole northern kingdom in the prophets. ⚠ MANASSEH'S tribe is the only one to end up on BOTH sides of the Jordan — half of it takes Gilead and Bashan (Numbers 32:39-42, already on these pages), half crosses into Canaan. Its line runs Manasseh → Machir → Gilead → Hepher → Zelophehad, which is why the whole Zelophehad case is a Manasseh family matter from end to end: his daughters petition for their father's share in Numbers 27, and in Numbers 36 it is Manasseh's own clan heads who appeal against the ruling — so that the land stays inside the tribe, which at Numbers 36:12 it does. Deuteronomy 3:13 is where the eastern half's own grant stops being merely conquered and becomes LAW — Moses assigns 'all Bashan, the kingdom of Og' to the half tribe by name, formalizing what Numbers 32:39-42 had only narrated as Machir's clan going and taking it.