[QUOTE=Walrus;92186]Well, Joseph had Ephraim and Man***eh and Joseph's father Jacob adopted them as his own. Genesis 48:16-19 and there we find the blessing that each tribe received at the hand of Israel their father..
Lets examine the difference between the blessings
To Judah he gave this blessing
Gen 49:8-12
Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee.
Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ***'s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
To Ephraim and Man***eh he gave this blessing:
Gen 48:15-16,20
And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day,
The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a mul***ude in the midst of the earth.
...In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Man***eh...
To the remainder of the house of Joseph this blessing:
Gen 49:22-26
Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:
The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:
But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)
Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.
The blessings promised to Ephraim and Man***eh are huge. Duet. 33:13-17..Joseph gets the big blessing by Moses.
To Judah Moses' blessing came:
Deut 33:7
Hear, LORD, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people: let his hands be sufficient for him; and be thou an help to him from his enemies.
To Joseph he this blessing came:
Deut 33:13-16
Blessed of the LORD be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath,
And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon,
And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills,
And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush: let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.
I am not seeing that the blessing of any of Joseph is greater than the kingship not p***ing from Judah. Judah's blessing was pretty COOL!!
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Then you know Ezekial right? Pretty cool...I wonder when you would suppose that promise would be fulfilled.
Ezekiel 37 is about two separate nations being recombined as one.. I know what mormonism makes of that but their interpretation can't be supported by the text. For within the text there is an interpretation of that test (Ezk 37:18-23) There is nothing there about records or books.. Just two sticks one with Judah written on it and one with Israel written on it. The prophet puts them in one hand uniting them saying that the divided kingdoms will be no more. That they will be one nation again.
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...if Ephraim is the one to push all the House of Israel together, in the last days, then perhaps the Stick of Ephraim, which is meant, by God, to come forth and be combined with the stick of Judah, to be made One in God's hand...and in our hand.
The prophecy that is given here that the nation will be united some say will not occur until the Lord comes again.. I think that it happened when Israel again became a nation in 1947. Remember Israel was taken captive by ***yria and never came out.. With the UN forming the nation of Israel I would say that Joseph was represented in that body that fulfilled the prophecy.. Of course, I could be wrong and the prophecy still awaits fulfillment..
A scroll of scripture is never called anything but a scroll. Even books of secular information were never called sticks. They were always called scrolls. Your teaching of mormonism to the contrary is a man invented interpretation of the text. Since it was interpreted in the text by God that is the ONLY interpretation that should be considered not what some man has taught.. IHS jim