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Ephraim Called God’s Firstborn
The restoration song widens to all the families of Israel. God declares everlasting love, promises to rebuild, gathers the remnant from the ends of the earth, and leads them beside rivers of waters. Ephraim is called His firstborn, and the LORD who scattered Israel is pictured as the shepherd who gathers and keeps the flock.
Genesis 48 deliberately sets the younger Ephraim before Manasseh. Jeremiah 31:9 later speaks of Ephraim as God’s “firstborn” in a restoration oracle, showing how Ephraim’s name came to carry covenantal prominence in Israel’s later story.
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