Can You Claim an Ephraim?

A recent study of Joseph’s story hit me in a fresh and profound way, despite it being one of my favorites in the Bible. Though I have read the story countless times, this time God showed me a bit more of Joseph’s response to affliction that I had not seen before.

“And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.” (Genesis 41:52)

All of God’s children, sooner or later, will endure affliction. Some afflictions may be the result of nothing more than living in a fallen Creation. Other afflictions may be the direct result of our own disobedience to God. And some of us may be called upon to endure cruel affliction at the hand of others, through absolutely no fault of our own. How we move on from that affliction says much about our faith in God.

One of the most familiar Old Testament cases of someone enduring affliction well is Joseph.

I realize many of us are familiar with Joseph’s story and love it as one of the clearest examples of God working out something we see as “bad” for our ultimate good. Probably one of the most-repeated quotations from the whole story is one of Joseph’s to his brethren regarding his trial (at their hands): “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good…” (Genesis 50:20).

But have you ever really sat and considered the names Joseph chose for his sons born to him in the land where he had been enslaved for thirteen years?

First, recall what he suffered before reaching fatherhood.

Callously trafficked by his family

A seemingly carefree seventeen-year-old and favorite son of his father, Joseph was sent by his father Jacob to go check on his brothers. Before he even reached them, they conspired to kill him. A very weak attempt by his brother Reuben to “help him” turned the groups’ fratricidal plan into one only slightly less sinister: they stole his prized possession from his father, hurled him into a pit—ignoring his anguished cries beseeching them to reconsider (Genesis 42:21)—then sat down to enjoy a picnic lunch nearby.

After considering what to do with their human prey, the brothers decided over dessert that since there was no profit for them in simply killing Joseph, they would sell him into slavery, instead. One cannot help but wonder if they were recalling Joseph’s prophetic dreams of his family bowing down to him and deciding together that this would be his perfect comeuppance for such arrogant assumptions. He would be the one bowing and scraping to others, as a slave. He would be the one denigrated, rather than exalted above others.

Falsely accused by his assailant

After serving faithfully and well in his new master’s household and being elevated to a position of authority, Joseph caught the wandering eye of his master’s wife, through none of his own doing. He maintained his integrity and implemented safeguards against her attacks, but ultimately her wiles trapped him and cast him as guilty where he was not.

Wrongfully imprisoned by his authorities

Consequently, Joseph’s master threw him into prison. No trial is mentioned in the Scriptural account, no allusion made to a fair hearing or representation in court. Yet even in prison, Joseph served to the best of his ability and to the benefit of his authorities and peers.

Carelessly forgotten by his beneficiary

He interpreted the dreams of his distressed fellow prisoners accurately, requesting only that the butler he had helped simply bring his case before Pharaoh, in exchange. Two years went by. The butler in his restored status had completely forgotten about Joseph. He was living his secure life, serving Pharaoh, just happy to be alive and well…while thoughtlessly leaving Joseph confined in prison. Only when Pharaoh needed Joseph’s interpretation services was the butler’s memory jarred, and Joseph freed from prison.

Perhaps you breathe an imperceptible sigh of relief when you come to the turnaround point in Joseph’s story. I do. He is brought out of prison after spending two of his thirteen years in Egypt there, at minimum—it is possible he spent many more of them imprisoned. Pharaoh exalts him to second-in-command, and gives him a wife.

Joseph’s healing is reflected in his sons’ names.

Joseph’s troubles may be over, but getting over the trauma of what he has endured seems to take some time.

You can sense that Joseph is beginning to heal when he names his first son: Manasseh. “For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.” (Genesis 41:51) This is someone learning to stop dwelling on all the bitterness of others aimed at him, to move past the hateful actions, to block out the thoughts of vengeance which may creep up, from time to time. And that’s a start. But it requires daily—perhaps even hourly—re-committing of these wrongs to God, allowing Him to take the burdens of such affliction and comfort the brokenness one feels from enduring them.

Then Joseph’s second son comes along. And with his name, Ephraim, we get the picture: Joseph has healed beyond just “moving past” the hurts and wrongs. He is now abounding in God’s love, able to do more than just stand his ground against the struggle to let his past go. “For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.” (Genesis 41:52)

The truth is, all major afflictions in one’s life take some time to work through, even after the main problem has been “fixed.” Most of us, after coming through a trial, probably have had a season where the best we felt able to do was keep crying out to God for help, comfort, and healing, doing our utmost to just keep putting one spiritual foot in front of the other each day. We prayed, though we may not have felt like it. We read God’s Word each day, though we may not have come with warmth and eagerness. We continued to cast our burdens on God, though we may have felt numb for a while to His working. To our shame, we felt emotionally unavailable to those around us, and too weakened from our own recent affliction to feel capable of helping anyone else with theirs.

Eventually, though, we should be able to move past the phase of “surviving” into that of “thriving.” By God’s grace, we should be able at some point to look around and see how we can move forward and be useful once again to God in His service. And it is this phase Joseph seems to have reached when he names his son Ephraim. He is now able to claim that God has not only brought him through his affliction, and helped him to forget the pain, but has caused him to be fruitful, in the land of his affliction.

What about you—can you claim an Ephraim?

In my experience, Christians often try to help each other get through difficulties by trying to help the afflicted party to focus on either a) what is going well in life, or b) how much “harder” an affliction someone else is enduring. (I’m not personally convinced from Scripture that either of these approaches is helpful in revealing God’s desires for His children in affliction, but that could fill another entire blog post so I shall not attempt to expound on my thoughts, here.)

Perhaps the most encouraging part to me in Joseph’s naming of Ephraim is the way he states God’s working in his specific affliction. He could have said “God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of affliction,” and we could still have received a blessing from this lesson. But I love that he says “in the land of my affliction.” It’s personal. My affliction is mine, your affliction is yours, and God can cause each of us to become fruitful in our own afflictions, just as He did Joseph. What an encouraging and hopeful thought that is!