Why was there no tribe named after Joseph as there was with his brothers. It appears the honour fell straight to his two sons ..

Submitted by messianicrabbi on Sat, 09/05/2009 - 15:42

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BOB DOTY answers

Joseph died several years before the Exodus. When the tribes were officially organized for the Exodus, his two sons were made the head of two tribes in honor of him.

RABBI JOSEPH KRESEFSKY answers

This stems from Ya’akov’s blessing of Yosef’s two children, adopting them into his blood-line as though he, Ya’akov, had bore them as his own, rather than they being his grandchildren. As such, Ya’akov carries the new tradition, initiated between him and his father, Yitz’chak, and places the first born blessing upon Yosef’s youngest, Manasseh, first – almost as if to reverse what had been done when he received the blessing from his dad. The ancient text confirms a type of adoption, showing the Scriptures to be accurate and trustworthy. We see the faithful Son, Yosef, receiving a double blessing. Yosef is a type of Messiah and points us to Y’shua (Jesus) who had no “true” physical descendants on this earth, but whose spiritual offspring are too numerous to count as He received his Father’s blessing for accomplishing all he had been sent to do. It’s also important to note that in Revelation 7, Yosef does make his reappearance once again, being named as part o the Twelve Tribes.

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