Yair

Yair Davidiy

Judah and Ephraim Need Each Other!

The Separate Tasks in One Verse.

The Two Halves of One Whole.

There were Twelve tribes of Israel who separated into two halves.
The two separate halves of Israel were the Jews (Judah) and the Lost Ten Tribes.
The Twelve Tribes of Israel were destined to split into two separate halves. Each section had it own task. Judah was expected to Keep the Law and learn the Torah; the Ten Tribes to reform the world.
Originally all the Tribes were supposed to be together. They should have all kept the Torah and worshipped the Almighty whose Temple was in Jerusalem. They were also supposed to teach the rest of the world how to behave. Together with the Torah they should have had a progressive society and very successful economy, a booming population, and powerful armed forces  along with the  will to bring everyone else into line. All this was to be too much for them. They were not up to it. They split in two. They divided their obligations between them. Judah was to keep and develop the Torah. Ephraim was to become a world power but lose his Israelite Identity.

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16 July 2012, 26 Tammuz 5772


1. The Two Halves of One Whole.
2. Historical Destiny.
3. The Verse. Hosea 10:11.
4. A Simplistic Preliminary Explanation.
5. Abarbanel.
6. Daat Mikra: Yehudah Kiel.
7. Rashi.
8. Mahari Kara and the Prophecy of Balaam.
9. Malbim.
10. RAMADO.


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Judah and Ephraim Need Each Other!

Judah (the Jews) and the Ten Tribes (Ephraim, amongst Western Peoples) need each other. Each has their own task to fulfill. By each one doing what their duty they will help the other.
Recognizing their Israelite Ancestry may be a pre-requisite for survival!
Duration 46 minutes.
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Historical Destiny.

Judah was also destined to be scattered amongst other nations. Judah was to suffer for the sake of humanity while developing its inner spiritual existence. Despite this Judah was to keep its identity whereas the other half, headed by Joseph, was to loose consciousness of their ancestry.

The Lost Ten Tribes (especially Joseph) were to forget where they came from and who they were. They were to become like the Gentiles amongst whom they settled. History shows that they eventually all coalesced in Western Europe. From there they were to settle other lands such as North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. They were to civilize a good portion of the rest of the world as the French, Dutch, and British did through their Empires and the USA after them. They at some time or other controlled most of the world. All values of Western Civilization that exist today emanate from them.
See:
Israelite Empires in the Recent Past

The Ten Tribes had become like the Gentiles in order to evolve upwards and drag all others with them.
There are numerous verses and significant portions of the Bible that all speak of this subject at length. We have discussed this briefly in other places.

See:

The Purpose of Exile and Loss of Identity.

A GREAT AND MIGHTY NATION.

A Blessing to Others

In the End Times these two separate sections of Israel (Judah and Joseph) will re-unite. The two aspects of their separate existences will become one. Judah today by re-asserting its place amongst the  peoples of the world and re-settling an important section of the Land of Israel is leading the way.

The Bible refers to this message several times.
The Verse. Hosea 10:11

At present instead of quoting all the other verses we have decided to show how the same conclusions may be reached from an in-depth study of only one of them.
At present we are interested in one verse.
All of this is captured in the meanings and interpretation of one verse. Do not misunderstand us.

In a recent discussion our friend, Aaron Menazzi,  said that there are verses indicating that in the End Times Judah will be helped by Ephraim.
See:
The Striped-Tie Triad.
Brit-Am Ephraimite Mini-Summit in Jerusalem
.

One such verse mentioned  by Menazzi is,

Hosea 10:
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
That loves to thresh grain;
But I harnessed her fair neck,
I will make Ephraim pull a plow.
Judah shall plow;
Jacob shall break his clods.

A similar verse recalled by Aaron is,

Zechariah 9:
13 For I have bent Judah, My bow,
Fitted the bow with Ephraim,
And raised up your sons, O Zion,
Against your sons, O Greece,
And made you like the sword of a mighty man.

We discussed this second verse in BAC quoting the Malbim who amongst other things said:

Fitted the bow with Ephraim... And made you like the sword of a mighty man.: At that time the Children of Ephraim shall kill with their bow and sword the hosts of Gog and Magog who will have come in armies against them.




A Simplistic Preliminary Explanation.

The simple meaning of the first verse (Hosea 10:11) indicates that Joseph (the Ten Tribes) will pull the plow whereas Judah will direct it.
This could be misinterpreted and for such a reason John Hulley, who together with Yair Davidiy, was also a party to the discussion, felt reservations about quoting it. We shall see that the verse has other meaning and other ways of being interpreted. Nevertheless even according to the simple meaning pulling the plow and doing what has to be done is something to be proud of.

Hosea 10: Summary
In a sense this chapter could have been the beginning of the Book of Hosea. Division amongst Israelite Tribes invites disaster. The cult of the Golden bull-calves at Beth-el and Beth-Aven will have corrupted Ephraim and this corruption will be responsible for terrible punishments. Ephraim will have acted similarly to the homosexual monsters who once inhabited Gibeah of Benjamin. Numerous foreign peoples will sense the weakness of Ephraim and attack him. Ephraim was nicknamed "Aegel" or "Angle" (as in "Anglo-Saxon" and Angle-land:England) meaning bull-calf but sometimes Ephraim acts like a little cow. If we repent and do as well as we can God will have mercy on us and redeem us.

The verse we are concerned with is,
Hosea 10:
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
That loves to thresh grain;
But I harnessed her fair neck,
I will make Ephraim pull a plow.
Judah shall plow;
Jacob shall break his clods.

This verse obviously is part of Hosea chapter 10 whose theme runs into chapter 11. A few lines summarizing chapters 10 and 11 may help us place this verse in its context.

Hosea 11: Summary.
Joseph will retain traits of his half-Egyptian origins. The mother of Ephraim and Manasseh was from Egypt. They will worship Baal as the Ancient British, Irish, and Gauls did. God raised them up like someone taking care of a baby but still they rejected HIM. The Lost Ten Tribes will repent and return from the West to the Land of Israel. Ephraim will have rejected the Almighty while Judah remained faithful.






Abarbanel.

Our preliminary notion that the verse implied that the Ephraim will pull the plow and Judah will drive it assumes that the two expressions "I will make Ephraim pull a plow" and "Judah shall plow" connect up to each other. Abarbanel however and others consider them to be disconnected. Abarbanel says that Ephraim and  Judah will each pull separate plows.  Ephraim will pull a plow in Exile that will have been occasioned by idolatry. Judah on the other hand will  also plow but after repenting will do so in an acceptable manner. The plowing of Judah will be according to the Torah and will enable Jacob (meaning the rest of Israel) to break the clods, i.e. know how to conduct themselves.

Yair Davidiy in the Brit-Am Commentary (BAC) to the Bible had already commented on the verse (Hosea 10:11) but somehow  we had overlooked the Ephraim-Judah interaction implied by it.
"HEIFER" (young female cow) in Hebrew is "Aeglah". The Hebrew term "Aegel" ("bull-calf") is a nickname for Ephraim (Jeremiah 31:18 cf. Rashi).
The same word was also a diminutive (nick-name) used on the Continent for "Angle" people who together with the Saxons invaded England. From the Angles came the name England. Even in Hebrew the term "aegel" could be pronounced close to "Angle" since the initial letter (transliterated as "a") is an "ayin" which can take an "an" sound, thus we have "aegel" or "angel" i.e. "angle".

This is the verse we are discussing:

Hosea 10:
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
That loves to thresh grain;
But I harnessed her fair neck,
I will make Ephraim pull a plow.
Judah shall plow;
Jacob shall break his clods.

Let us see what others have said about this verse. We should consider how the different explanations supplement each other.  They all connect to  confirm and round out our conception as to what the tasks of Judah and Joseph should be and their future re-unification.

Abarbanel quotes other Commentators who understood the expression, "Ephraim is a trained heifer; That loves to thresh grain",  as saying that God taught Ephraim to plow from its youth up i.e. Ephraim was trained. Ephraim however preferred to thresh and eat rather than work for its keep.  The word translated as "harnessed" in Hebrew is "avarti" which may also mean passed over. The Almighty passed over the fair neck of Ephraim, says the Abarbanel, and did not make demands of her as he did of Judah who was expected to keep the Law.  Judah also needs to pull itself into shape. If both Ephraim and Judah will do what they have to do and work together then all the nation represented by Jacob will "break the clods".  The clods are broken after the plowing when the ground is evened out as the final stage before sowing the seed and reaping the harvest.
Incidentally, this expression "break the clods" in Hebrew is "Yisaded" from the root SDH or SOD meaning clod, i.e. clump of earth.
We also have an English word that sounds the same and has a similar meaning:
Online Etymological Dictionary
sod (1)
"slice of earth with grass on it," early 15c., apparently from M.Du. sode "turf," M.L.G. sode, or O.Fris. satha "sod," all of uncertain origin. The (old) sod "Ireland" is from 1812.

Abarbanel goes on and offers other insights. Ephraim is described as an aeglah (heifer) who is used (trained) to worship bull calves (aegelim). Consequently the yoke will be placed on the neck of Ephraim and he would be taken into captivity in the Exile of Samaria.

We have to realize that the Bible is to be understood on several levels all of which are applicable. It is not a question of one explanation being correct at the expense of another. The Hebrew Bible is written in the Hebrew Language. This lends itself to several different interpretations all of which are legitimate and acceptable and that all complement each other. The Prophet Hosea wrote the Biblical Book of Hosea. He wrote it in such a way that it would be pertinent to his own generation. At the same time the message of Hosea would need to tell us something about the future especially the End Times. The Sages had a tradition that every prophecy had a message both for the era it was written in and for the future (Talmud Megillah 14a, Kaplan p.110 n.241).




Daat Mikra: Yehudah Kiel.

The Commentary Daat Mikra (Yehuydah Kiel on Hosea) is a modern production. Its method is to stress the applicability of the literal Hebrew to the generation of the Prophet himself.
This is how they understand the verse:

Hosea 10:
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
That loves to thresh grain;

Scripture compares Ephraim to a trained young heifer.
[A heifer is a female cow. We should note that in Hebrew an eaglah is the female equivalent of aegal (or egal) or bull calf. An aeglah is therefore a young female cow. On the other hand a full grown female cow in Hebrew is a parah].
Ephraim is likened to a young heifer (aegalh) that knowns how to to plow and loves to thresh. It stands to reason that this simile is a parable concerning the important role Ephraim played in the national existence during the Conquest of the Land (in the time of Joshua) and the Period of Judges. Moses had previously blessed Joseph (the father of Ephraim),

Deuteronomy 33:
17 His glory is like a firstborn bull,
And his horns like the horns of the wild raem [one-horned auroch, wild bull; editor.];
Together with them
He shall push the peoples
To the ends of the earth;
They are the ten thousands of Ephraim,
And they are the thousands of Manasseh.
 
Ephraim is referred to here (in Hosea 10:11) as an aeglah (translated heifer) which was a term of endearment. For example [Samson referred to his wife as a young heifer], # If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have solved my riddle! (Judges 14:18); and one of the wives of David was named after a  Young Heifer (Eglah, 2-Samuel 3:5).

So too, in expressions of anger Ephraim is referred to as a Parah (a female cow) Hosea 4:16 For Israel is stubborn, Like a stubborn female-cow".

[The verse, Hosea 10:11, in English translation says, "But I harnessed her fair neck". The word translated as "harnessed" in Hebrew is "avarti" which may also mean passed over.] I passed my hand over its neck as a sign of affection since its neck was full and fair, and fit for the plow. I said in my heart I will harness Ephraim so that he may pull the plow. So too, Judah will be plow his own land. If each one of the separate Kingdoms (Judah and Ephraim) will fulfill their duties so too will the whole of Israel be enabled to do so, as it says, "Jacob shall break his clods. ... Jacob here is a nickname for Judah. Iben Ezra however says that Jacob here represents all Israel. The plowing of the land and the breaking of the clods is an allegory for accepting the Torah and Commandments as explained in continuation of the passage.




Rashi.

Rashi (1040-1105 North France):
Hosea 10:
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
That loves to thresh grain;
But I harnessed her fair neck,
I will make Ephraim pull a plow.
Judah shall plow;
Jacob shall break his clods.

...I brought on Ephraim a great deal of tribulation yet she still did not submit. She always loved to thresh the grain and get fat on the eating of it. She did not submit herself sufficiently to pull the plow meaning that she did not surrender to the Torah but went after the stubbornness of her heart.
But I harnessed her fair neck. Consequently I placed over them monarchs who would weaken her strength.
"I will make Ephraim pull a plow. Judah shall plow; Jacob shall break his clods. If you want that I set Ephraim up to ride over the nations, Judah will need to plow and prepare the ground for the harvest of Jacob. Plowing means doing good deeds as explained in the next verse,
Hosea 10:
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness;
Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

We see here that Judah and Ephraim clearly have separate roiles to play. The task of Judah is to follow the Law. Ephraim is to rule over the Gentile Nations.




Mahari Kara and the Prophecy of Balaam.

Mahari Kara (Yosef Kara c. 1060-70 North France) explained the verse as referring to the situation before Judah and Ephraim sinned with idolatry and prior tot he Exile of the Ten Tribes.
Hosea 10:
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer
That loves to thresh ..;
Israel were used (trained) to thresh the Gentile Nations underneath them. All the Heathens submitted to them.
But I harnessed [passed over] her fair neck. She was like a young female calf with myself passing before her like the drover who leads his young female calf and walks before her. So, I went before them to conquer the Nations in front of them. I will make Ephraim pull a plow. Explanation: I shall cause Ephraim to ride over and rule over the heights of the heathens, conquering and trampling over them.
Judah shall plow; Jacob shall break his clods. Judah and Ephraim use to ride over the heathen nations like someone who plows and breaks up the soil in his field.#
Mahari Kara goes on to explain that after Ephraim and Judah sinned they lost their supremacy over other peoples.
The commentary of Mahari Kara fits the Hebrew passage. Mahari has decided to apply it to the situation before the exile of the Ten Tribes but in line with other commentaries we may apply it to the situation in the End Times concerning the Ten Tribes.
The same situation had been prophesied by Balaam concerning Israel in the End Times. This prophecy came to fruition in the Lost Ten Tribes. See BAC to Numbers chs. 23 and 24.

Balaam prophesied that in the End Times the Israelites would be extremely prosperous (Numbers 23:10   24:5-6).
This blessing was irreversible and unconditional. It would have to be fulfilled at some time (Numbers 23:19, 20), and so it would be in our own Era which is that leading up to the End Times.
They would be represented by a coming out of Egypt and by a lion and unicorn (Numbers 23:22, 24;  24:8-9). They would be in many waters meaning several oceans (Numbers 23:25; 24;7).
Their Kingdom would be the most powerful one in the world and they would defeat the most powerful nations of the Gentiles (Numbers 24:7-9). They who bless them will be blessed and those who curse them will be cursed (Numbers 24:9). The Kenites from Jethro who went into exile with the Ten Tribes will return together with them (Numbers 24:21-22).




The Malbim.

The Malbim (Meir Leibush ben Jehiel Michel Weiser, 1809-1879, Lithuania, Ukraine) explains the verse to at first describe the desire of Ephraim to copy Egyptian customs before the Assyrian Exile. In the End Times Ephraim will join on to Judah and begin to learn from him. Judah will prepare the way for the Ten Tribes.




RAMADO.

We stumbled across a Commentary that is sometimes referred to as RAMADO.
It was written by Rabbi Moshe David Walli (Vally; Vali) (1697-1777 Padua, Italy).  This commentary uses esoteric Kabbalistic terminology much of which we do not understand even though it does not look that difficult. We simply lack the learning needed to do it justice.
Nevertheless we may paraphrase the general gist of his message concerning this verse. This will be found to be consistent with the rest of the Book of Hosea.

# Due to the sins of Ephraim they shall be obliged to overcome difficult conditions and hardship in order to liberate aspects of existence from the captivity of negative external forces. Ephraim will rejoice in this since they will realize that such is their destiny and that the need to overcome these difficulties is of their own making.  This is what it means when to says, # Ephraim is a trained heifer
That loves to thresh # [The NKJV translation says "thresh grain" but in the Hebrew the word for "grain" is not there. The translator has added it according to his own understanding.].
It will be impossible to release the sparks that have been captured by the external oppressors other than by smashing  and threshing... The Almighty will give them [Ephraim] sufficient power to complete the task of cutting into pieces [i.e. destruction] that is necessary to clarify truth and reality. This is what is means by  # But I harnessed her fair neck #:
cf
Micah 4:
13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion;
For I will make your horn iron,
And I will make your hooves bronze;
You shall beat in pieces many peoples;
I will consecrate their gain to the Lord,
And their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.

Ramado says this hints at the powers of strength giving them the ability to thresh and trample down the enthroned pride of the external forces.
Ephraim may be symbolized by the male bearing seed. The Tribe of Judah represents royalty that receives the seed [from Ephraim] and brings it to fruition through work and effort. Judah has a brazen forehead to face down the brazeness of the external forces that come against her.
This is what it means by,
# I will make Ephraim pull a plow.
Judah shall plow #
Nevertheless it would be impossible for both Judah and Ephraim to keep going and to fulfill their tasks if they did not align themselves with and join on to the source of their strength: This is the Glory of Jacob their forefather. This principle [of recognizing their ancestry] gives both of them the strength to complete their tasks. This is what it means by,
# Jacob shall break his clods #. The power of Jacob [of recognizing their ancestry and all that this entails] elevates the acheivements to their rightful source.

We see from these different commentaries written by Rabbis over the space of more than a thousand years, each with their own perspective, an overall general consensus.
Ephraim needs Judah to keep the Law. Judah needs Ephraim. They have separate tasks but in the end times they shall re-unite.

You may see from these commentaries that the understanding of Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations concerning the separate tasks but mutual destiny of Ephraim and Judah is based on the sources.
This explanation is what the Bible says. It is the only acceptable explanation of Prophecy.



See Also:
Awareness of Israelite Origins and National Survival.


Greater Israel








The Tribes - 4th Edition Full Cover Spread.





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All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).



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