Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Joshua 16

Okay, the sermon scripture is Joshua 16. Topic is putting the Canaanites under tribute, the disobedience of Ephraim. Joshua 16. And a lot of the children of Joseph fell from Jordan by Jericho under the water of Jericho on the east to the wilderness that goeth up from Jericho throughout Mount Bethel, and goeth out from Bethel to Lo, and passeth along into the borders of Ataroth to Ataroth, and goeth down westward to the coast of Beth-horon.

Under the coast of Beth-horon and the Nether, and to Gezer, and the goings out thereof are at the sea. So the children of Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim took their inheritance. And the border of the children of Ephraim, according to their families, was thus, even the border of their inheritance on the east side was Ataroth, unto Beth-horon, the upper. And the border went out toward the sea, to Michmethah, on the north side.

And the border went about eastward unto Taanath-shiloh, and passed by it on the east to Gannoa. And it went down from Gannoa to Ataroth and to Narah and came to Jericho and went out at Jordan. The border went out from Tappuah westward under the river Kanah. And the goings out thereof were at the sea. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Ephraim by their families. And the separate cities for the children of Ephraim were among the inheritance of the children of Manasseh, all the cities with their villages.

And they drove not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer. But the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute.

Well, we’re up to chapter 16, the book of Joshua. This is the 16th sermon that I’ve done going through this book. We’re in the middle of the inheritance portion of the book. It starts with the conquest, then it has the inheritance, and there’s a couple of chapters at the end that are really not quite related to inheritance, but rather talk about the future and renewing covenant with God and pledging to serve him in our households and in our communities.

So this inheritance chapter—rather, chapter 16 is in the context of the inheritance section—and we have here a summation statement in the first few verses of the borders, the area that Joseph and his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, would have received. And then the rest of chapter 16 is concerned with the inheritance of Ephraim.

Now in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, we read the following:

“When the most high divided to the nations their inheritance when he separated to the sons of Adam. He set the bounds of the people according to the number of children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

God creates the earth to be inhabited by Israel, those who would rule for him. That’s what Israel means. And those who are in covenant with Jesus Christ—to the ones the inheritance of the earth is given out to.

So God sets the boundaries of the earth relative to the people that are his people. And so the tribal inheritance in the land of Canaan is a picture of the greater world as well for us, that God divides out and gives us specific geographic territories and specific communities, political entities as well, that we are to see around us as eventually flourishing as communities and as geographic areas that are under obedience and submission and thankfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the future of the world we’re talking about.

And this glimpse at the inheritance of the promised land to the tribes has relevance then for all of history. It’s a snapshot of a particular point in time of the progression of history which moves in relationship of God to his people and their establishment in all the earth. And they do his job then—as the tribes of Israel were to do in driving out those who would not rule for God, who would not use the geography of God and who would not have communities established in submission and thankfulness to God.

So that’s the context of what we’re talking about. And you’ll of course recognize from my title that we have in verse 10 of this chapter a bad prefiguring of what’s to come. I’m going to try to talk somewhat in this talk about the long line of the tribe of Ephraim and the one of the long lines of a biblical theme throughout the scriptures in terms of his people. And by long line, I’m using a phrase there that James B. Jordan used in one of his tapes where he talked about the Bible as music and how, you know, in concert music, for instance classical music, you have a long line.

The scriptures can be seen as one big song really, and there are themes that play throughout it that really you can trace throughout them. One of the problems of our day and age as a culture is the failure to see things in terms of a long line—just little snapshots in terms of the election, for instance. It’s a pretty sad thing when you can probably predict who’s going to win a presidential election just simply based upon what the economy is doing for the six months prior to the election.

I mean, ultimately of course civil government is not there to provide a good economy. They’re there to provide safety so that people can work hard and therefore the economy grows. But the point is that we’re looking at these little snapshots and that’s what our lives are really kind of focused at—is the short-term picture—and certainly not the long line. As a Christian culture that’s particularly influenced us as well.

I think the predominance of churches that emphasize the New Testament—never really get into the Old Testament much—who walk around with what Judge Beers used to call a short Bible: the New Testament alone and without the Old Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament omitting the 39 books of the Old Testament. You get to the end of a concert or a classical piece of music, for instance, and you see all these pieces of music going out at the end of a concert or end of a classical piece, and you’re not going to understand it unless you came in at the beginning because many of the lines that you see developed and coming together in fruition at the end of a piece of music begin early on and are set up by the earlier portions of it.

So we get to the New Testament—Christians do—without reading the Old Testament, and we don’t know what we’re reading anymore because we don’t know what these lines are.

I’ve talked before about how in the New Testament, for instance, you’ll see these quotes relative to a particular scripture passage from the Old Testament. It’ll just be a line or two. And what I’ve tried to say is I think that what God wants us to do normally there is to recognize he’s bringing in a whole perspective. He quotes a couple of lines of the song. He plays a few bars, but he wants us to know the whole song.

It’s like if I was to use a reference to “A Mighty Fortress” in a sermon, I’d want you not just to think about a mighty fortress at this time of the year—what a big castle might be or whatever—but I’d want to have you bring in the whole emotional context, intellectual understanding of Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” Or if I, for instance, was to go, “God of Our Fathers”—some of you would recognize that is the beginning to “God of Our Fathers.” And that’s all I’d have to say to a lot of you. You bring in all that context.

And so in the New Testament, we have specific quotations from the Old Testament that are part of this long line development. And God wants us to understand what those themes are as we look at them in the New Testament. And then there’s—there’s even more subtle approaches where basic themes in the New Testament are really geared toward an understanding of the Old Testament and this is the fruition of it.

So all that which is to say that we’re going to try today to look at kind of the long line of the tribe of Ephraim and some of the picture there of the long line in terms of our own lives and some of the things that God warns us about through this chapter and particularly the final concluding verse.

So we’re going to look at blessings of Ephraim and then the sin of Ephraim and then the wages of sin—what happens to the tribe of Ephraim over Old Testament history—and then finally at the glories of God’s grace to Ephraim specifically, but by application to us.

So that’s what we’re going to try to do in this talk today on Joshua 16.

## The Blessings of Ephraim

First of all then, the blessings of Ephraim. You’ll notice again on the back of your outlines is a map, and you’ll see that we talked last week about Judah, its position in the south. And you remember on the bottom of the map it’s got Simeon down there. Remember Simeon was one of the tribes, the early sons that was then dropped out of the line of being firstborn, so to speak. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi were all knocked out by various sins. Simeon is sort of subsumed within Judah. It’s it’s a portion of Judah’s land later on. That’s why Simeon’s down there.

And then you’ve got Dan and Benjamin directly to the north. And then you’ve got Ephraim. So that’s the territory right there in the center of the promised land, so to speak, that Ephraim receives. And that inheritance is sketched out for us in the first nine verses—actually verses 5 through in our text—and without going to the specific place names, indicating significance of them, it’s important that you know that this is in the center of Canaan. It has significance as being at the center then of the promised land. It is a very good land. It’s probably the best land in all of Canaan in terms of its fruitfulness and in terms of its being able to support crops and people and its beauty as well.

So it was beautiful and fruitful. Now this is a—and then that provided Ephraim a great amount of blessing. Ephraim was a very blessed tribe—if we want to look at it that way. That I mean, not that the other tribes weren’t blessed, but Ephraim also was incredibly blessed in relationship to some of these.

Ephraim was the second son of Joseph. Ephraim, the very name Ephraim means “doubly fruitful,” fruitful abundantly, or double fruitful. And Ephraim was born during the seven years of plenty while Joseph was in Egypt. So his lineage, his birth itself was a blessed thing in terms of a blessed time when Egypt had prospered and received the blessings of God.

Ephraim is mentioned here first in the designation of the tribes of Joseph before Manasseh. Now those of you who have done much reading in the Old Testament know why that happens too. You already have known the short line—the five or six of the five books that precede the book of Joshua that leads up to Ephraim being considered prior to Manasseh. And some of you know that, some of you don’t.

What happened, of course, was that Joseph had the two sons in Egypt. Jacob then later, as the people of God are brought into Egypt for protection originally, and Joseph being a picture of Christ saving the whole world and saving his own brothers who had betrayed him—Jacob then is in Egypt with Joseph and tells Joseph that his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, are going to be as Reuben and Simeon to him. They’re going to be equal tribes, each of them. They’re going to get the double portion.

Now we talked before about the preeminence of Judah in terms of rule, but Joseph is given a preeminence of having two tribes and a double portion of land, as it were. And we’ll see later as we get to Manasseh how much land they had. Joseph in essence here becomes Jacob’s firstborn in getting the double portion to take care of Jacob and to take care of the lineage of the family.

Now the firstborn gets a double portion of inheritance. Well, Joseph gets two tribes instead of just one here. He gets Ephraim, and his children are essentially adopted by Jacob. And when Jacob goes to give the blessing upon the two children, he puts one hand upon—he puts his right hand, the hand of preeminent blessing, upon Ephraim, the second born, instead of on Manasseh. And he puts his left hand, the hand of secondary blessing, upon Manasseh.

And you know, Joseph doesn’t like this. Joseph is displeased by this because his firstborn, Manasseh, is supposed to get the preeminent blessing. And so he says, “Hey, you know”—he tries to shake his hands. He thinks, “Dad’s old and not quite thinking right. I’ll just cross his hands back.” And Jacob says, “No, no.” The text tells us explicitly in that portion of the book of Genesis, in the later portions of it, that he did that wittingly. That Jacob did that wittingly. He did that intentionally, blessing the second born as opposed to the firstborn.

Remember, Jacob himself—you want to talk about a long line in scripture, there is one. The second born replacing the firstborn. Firstborn is Adam. The second born is Jesus Christ. Jacob himself, of course, is a picture of that, doesn’t he? The secondborn becomes the preeminence, takes the place of Esau. And so he then passes on the blessing to the secondborn as well—the sovereignty of God in determining blessing upon his people.

But Ephraim here is doubly blessed. Then he gets the preeminent blessing. By the way, before I go on from that, there’s a good picture there, isn’t it, of youth and age—the aged and the youthful. You know, you get to be some of our age now—40, 50—you think you’re pretty sharp, and you think those who are 60, 70, they end up doing some pretty silly things. And Joseph thought his Dad was doing a silly thing here.

But what we may not understand may look like silliness to us, but frequently the aged have very good reasons for doing what they do. And they’re doing things wittingly when we look at them sarcastically. That’s true, of course, as well with teenagers—even go down the line further. Teenagers don’t think their parents quite got it all together a lot of times. Well, it’s a very common theme in scripture as well, and we see it here.

But in any event, Ephraim is a very blessed tribe. They receive tremendous blessings from God materially speaking in terms of the years of plenty in Egypt, and then now in terms of this inheritance and also in terms of their preeminence of the tribes.

Ephraim will become, historically as well, to receive a lot of blessing. Ephraim—you’ll read in the prophets, the minor prophets, actually, later on in the Old Testament—you’ll frequently see references to Ephraim, but they’re not specifically to the tribe anymore. Ephraim is seen as head of all of the ten northern tribes. And so all the ten tribes north from Judah up there are pretty much represented later on by Ephraim. And that’s because Ephraim has a position of preeminence among those tribes—second only really, in terms of rule, to Judah.

So Ephraim is kind of like the second born now—secondborn who became the firstborn in terms of Joseph’s inheritance. But now he’s kind of secondborn to Judah. Judah gets preeminence in terms of rule. And that’s going to be a problem as we’ll see later on.

This particular portion is about oh somewhere around 20 miles, or maybe 15 to 20 miles north to south, and maybe 30 to 35 miles east to west. It has the two boundaries there of the rivers—you can see in your map—and then the Mediterranean and then the sea over here. So they had a good portion of land. And I said it was quite fruitful.

And that particular portion of land in the history of Israel is also seen as a position of blessing. Ephraim was Ramah, which was Samuel’s city. In the New Testament it’s called Arimathea, where Joseph was from, has some preeminence in terms of that. Samaria is in Ephraim. It was built by Omri after the burning of Tirzah, the capital city of the northern ten tribes. Tirzah itself, the capital city, was located in Ephraim. Again, it was kind of the capital representative of the northern ten tribes.

It was in the vicinity of Ebal and Gerizim, the two famous mountains of blessing and cursing. Sychar nearby, which was Jacob’s well, which is where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman—that’s in Ephraim. The whole, the ten tribes, as I said, were sort of summarized or had political capital of Ephraim. It was the most beautiful and fruitful part of Canaan. As a result, throughout the history of the Old Testament, many important things happened there, and so it has preeminence in terms of that.

So Ephraim was a tribe that had tremendous blessings from God and really should have been quite thankful for these things.

Joshua himself was of the tribe of Ephraim. We read that in Numbers 13:8 of the tribe of Ephraim, Oshea, the son of Nun, later changed to the name Joshua by Moses. You know, the twelve spies, they were one each, representatives for the twelve tribes. And Ephraim’s representative was Joshua himself. So they had a lot of preeminence. They had a lot of blessing from God.

Both Joshua and Eleazar—you know, the two, the prophet so to speak and the king in Joshua and then the priest, Eleazar, who took Aaron’s place, his son, in the promised land. Now we have the death of Moses and Aaron outside the land. Then we’re brought into the land. We have Joshua and Eleazar. They’re both buried in the vicinity of Ephraim in Mount Ephraim, it’s called, summarizing the whole area. Remember the Levitical cities are scattered throughout the land. And so one of the cities of Ephraim was a Levitical city, and that’s where Eleazar himself was buried.

A great preeminence then of Ephraim in the history of the Old Testament. Later on in Joshua 18:1, we find out that Shiloh, which is in Ephraim, was where the tabernacle was set up, was there for hundreds of years. The tabernacle of God was located in the context of Ephraim—right in Ephraim rather—showing their blessing again. The presence of God, and the center of worship and the political center of Israel as of the land of Canaan as well, was centered then in Ephraim.

Jeroboam later on, when the ten tribes split from Judah, Jeroboam is from Ephraim. Many things we could go through, but the point that I want you to see here is that Ephraim was tremendously blessed by God. He really—God moved in context of his name, which means “doubly blessed” or “fruitful.” And that’s what Ephraim was.

But as is so often the case, this doesn’t guarantee that people are going to be good or thankful just because God blesses them in the extreme. Frequently, another big theme throughout the scriptures is that those who are given much are, of course, held accountable for much. And those who are given much, particularly in terms of material prosperity, had the most difficult time acknowledging and humbling themselves before God.

You know, “the rich man going through the eye of the needle” is one of the ways we can look at that, but it goes throughout the scriptures. The blessings of God bestowed upon people frequently then leads to their stumbling by not being thankful, not realizing that they receive all that they receive by grace instead of by natural privilege or who they are necessarily.

## The Sin of Ephraim

And so the sin of Ephraim is pointed out for us immediately in the chapter, in verse 10. It says that they did not put—they did not expel the Canaanites. Says specifically from Gezer. And by the way, Gezer is not taken, and the Canaanites are not expelled from Gezer until the time of Solomon, quite a number of years later on. And even then the Pharaoh of Egypt is basically responsible for driving them out.

But in any event, it says they didn’t kick him out of Gezer. And instead they put the Canaanites under tribute. So Ephraim fails—as Judah also had failed as we saw last week, and as the next chapter will tell us Manasseh also fails—to totally expel the Canaanites from their land.

Now it’s interesting because it says that Judah “they could not.” We know that ultimately they could, of course, but it seems like the intimation there is they made an effort. In Ephraim it says “they didn’t,” and it almost has the implication—or at least it does to me—that they didn’t particularly feel like it was important to drive the Canaanites out.

Well, it was important. Deuteronomy 7 makes real clear, as does Numbers 33 and the book of Exodus, that you’re not to make covenants with the Canaanites. You’re not to enter into peace agreements with them. You’re supposed to drive them out, utterly, expel them. There is an antithesis to be seen between the people of God and the Canaanites, full-blown in their evil. And Ephraim refused to acknowledge that antithesis.

They refused, as Matthew Henry said, either through cowardice or through carelessness, to drive out the Canaanites. Either way, they had a lack of zeal for God and for his command. And as a result, we have the sin of Ephraim.

Now, specifically, we’re told here that they not only didn’t drive them out, but they put them under tribute. Calvin in his commentary on this says the following:

“But another crime still less pardonable was committed. When having it in their power easily to destroy all, they not only were slothful in executing the command of God, but induced by filthy lucre, they preserved those alive whom God had doomed to destruction.”

So they had enough power to put them under tribute. So they obviously could have wiped them out. But they decided—and apparently because of the material prosperity that these slaves could give them—they decided to keep them under tribute instead. And so Calvin says that compounds their sin. Not only were they disobedient, as Judah had been in terms of failing to drive out people, but the Ephraimites were particularly sinful because they were disobedient for their own sake, for their own material possessions, their own material prosperity.

They saw those things as more important—an accumulation of more blessings that they’d received. You know, it seems like somehow the rich always want more money. They’re never satisfied with what God gives them. We talked about this before about how the early Puritans in America, for instance, the colonists had problems. They had been given these grants of land by God, but they wanted even bigger plantations, even more land. And as a result, according to Increase Mather, at least, that was why the Indian wars—some of the Indian wars, King Philip’s War—happened to God to chastise the colonists for being hungry for more and more material blessings from God.

Well, Ephraim wanted more and more material blessings. And as a result, they sinned. Instead of expelling the Canaanites, instead of killing them and destroying them, wiping them out, they instead put them under tribute. They used the Canaanites for their own personal advantage. The group that God had said, “These are my enemies. I want you to wipe them out.” And so Ephraim falls into sin.

A specific sin here then is their failure to drive out the Canaanites through the motivation of seeking material gain. Of course, this is pride on the part of Ephraim. They’re a prideful tribe. They’ve been given great blessings, but they failed to use those blessings for God and instead let those blessings allure them into thinking that their concern—what they determine is good and evil—is more important than what God said.

It’s basic again—long line back in the garden. “Determine for yourself good and evil. Decide for yourself what is good and what is bad. Why should we kill these Canaanites? Well, we’re not going to worship their gods. We’re going to make them be real good, menial servants for us.” The word “tribute” means their heart will melt, fade away through service. We’ll wear them down eventually, but we’ll get all we can out of them in the meantime.

Isn’t that back to the sin of Achan, aren’t they? Where they want material possessions for themselves instead of glorifying God by obeying his commandments. They’re putting their own intellect, their own logic, their own desires, their own wishes in front of God’s clear command to wipe them out. And as a result, God then causes them to suffer great judgments from him.

It’s interesting again, to talk in terms of the long line, this then becomes—Ephraim is the first in a series of tribes that do the same thing. In the book of Judges, we read, for instance—in verse—when Israel was strong, they put the Canaanites to tribute, did not only drive them out. Verse 30: “Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants, but the Canaanites dwelt among them. Became tributaries to the tribe of Zebulun. Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants, but the Canaanites dwelt, but he dwelt among the Canaanites.”

And it goes on and on. So Ephraim, in their position of preeminence, they’re named immediately after Judah at the context of the center of Canaan. They have the religious center of Canaan developed in their midst. The tabernacle dwells there, and in spite of that, then they sin, and that sin then becomes the model for the rest of the tribes to put the following Canaanites under tribute as well.

So they suffer greatly at the hands of God because they sin against God grievously. Josephus comments on this sin in his Antiquities. He says:

“After the wars of conquest, after this the Israelites grew effeminate as to fighting anymore against their enemies, but applied themselves to the cultivation of the land, which producing them great plenty and riches, they neglected the regular disposition of their settlement and indulged themselves in luxury and pleasures. The Benjamites to whom belong Jerusalem permitted its inhabitants to pay tribute. The rest of the tribes in imitating Benjamin did the same and, contenting themselves with the tributes that were paid them, permitted the Canaanites to live in peace.”

Well, he puts Benjamin as the preeminent tribe here doing this. But Ephraim obviously is first listed. Ephraim has the preeminence in this, and they then cause the rest of Israel to sin as well. Seeking luxury, as Schaeffer said—a life of personal peace and affluence and increasing affluence upon themselves. They put God’s enemies to tribute and left them in the context of the land.

You know, it’s interesting to contrast this a little bit, but to Caleb—remember, Caleb said, “Hey, give me this land so I can drive these guys out.” And it may seem, you know, as Caleb says, “I’m wholehearted. I’ll kill these guys, wipe out the giants”—may seem a little presumptuous. But as Bush said in his commentary, there’s more presumption in declining and neglecting his promises than in urging their performance. And that’s what Ephraim did—presumptively declining and neglecting the promises of God that he would take these people out—and they then fall into sin.

Now, as we read, as I said before, many of these passages have to do specifically with the northern tribes and not specifically the tribe of Ephraim. They’re called Ephraim as a group, but there’s a reason for that, right? That’s because the prime of Ephraim developed this sin pattern in this particular area that the whole northern tribes fell into. So it’s legitimate, I think, to use the prophetic passages to develop the sin of Ephraim a bit more.

We read in Hosea 7:11: “Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart. They call to Egypt. They go to Assyria.” Isaiah 7:2: “It was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim.” See what happened here? When the northern tribes got into trouble, they made alliances then with the pagan nations around them to defend them when other pagan nations were threatening them. Ephraim’s pattern of compromise—failing to see the radical antithesis between God’s people and the people who were outside of covenant with God.

Ephraim’s early failure to do that resulted in the whole of their history being characterized as confederations, covenants with those the scriptures tell us quite clearly were to have nothing to do with. “What concord hath light with darkness? And what concord hath the Canaanite nations with the God Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel?”

But Ephraim said, “Well, hey, it worked out for us back then. We got a lot more material blessing. We can make confederations now, and it’s no big deal.” God said it was a big deal. And pride is the basis for this. Again, the imputation of their will over, higher than God’s thing—God’s commandment.

Isaiah 28:1: “Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim.” The crown of pride is used to describe these Ephraimites who are essentially drunk in their pride and in their self glory. Hosea 4:17: “Ephraim is joined to idols.” Hosea 8:9: “They are gone up to Assyria as a wild ass. Ephraim has hired lovers.”

“Hired lovers.” See, she thought, “Well, I’ll pay these Confederate nations around to help me. I’ll put them under servitude, tribute, like I did the Canaanites.”

Throughout Ephraim’s history, this terrible sin that’s developed and portrayed for us first here in Joshua as their pattern of life. Again, in Hosea 12:1: “Ephraim covenants with the Assyrians.”

Now, Psalm 78—you remember Psalm 78? We’ve talked a lot about that. It’s an excellent model for your children to teach them at least the first dozen or so verses of Psalm 78. It reads in verses 9 and following:

“The children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God and refused to walk in his law. Forget his works and his wonders that he had showed them. Marvelous things did he in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt in the field of Zoan.”

Now people, commentators have wondered about this, these few verses. They say, “Well, this seems to portray Ephraim as a bunch of cowards, but we don’t really see Ephraim involved in any particularly cowardly act. In fact, as we’ll see in a couple of minutes here, they were kind of a surly group, in a desert of being prideful. They were surly. They were kind of fat and sassy as well.”

We’ll see that in a couple of minutes. So why is God here, in the context of a disobedience to him, citing Ephraim as a position of cowardice? But you know, cowardice isn’t really mentioned in the verses, is it? All it says is: “The children of Ephraim being armed, carrying bows turned back in the day of battle.” Doesn’t say why they turned back. “They kept not covenant of God. Refused to walk in his law.”

They refused to acknowledge the preeminence of covenant and the command of God over their own personal self-interest. And in the day of battle with the Canaanites, they turned back. They were armed. They had bows. They were strong enough to put them to tribute, but they didn’t find it necessary to eradicate them as God had instructed them to do. And I think Psalm 78 refers to these early sins of Ephraim, which then characterizes its whole life and the whole life of the northern ten tribes as well.

One of compromise instead of one of self-conscious devotion to God’s law—to seeing the inheritance of God’s land as containing a responsibility to obey the path of God and driving out his eminent enemies, and instead seeing it just as a thing that they can enjoy. They kind of changed around the chief end of man: “is to enjoy God forever.” Forget the glorifying him. We’ll just enjoy what he gives us.

That’s Ephraim. And they’re given as the preeminent example in Psalm 78 of failure. I think frankly it’s probably more dangerous to the Christian community—the sin of Ephraim—compromise for the sake of material gain and well-being, personal peace and affluence, is a far more deadly temptation to us than is cowardice, than is a fear of the people outside of the church in terms of the conquest of culture.

And I think that’s what Psalm 78 is telling us. It’s not enough to say we’re beyond them. Know you have strength. You have to have the desire to obey God’s law instead of compromising.

It’s interesting, too, that really Ephraim here is the very reverse of what we talked about three weeks ago in Psalm 116. Remember, Psalm 116 is about anchoring in God and forgetting men. Matthew Henry, in commenting on Psalm 116, said that all men are fickle and inconstant and subject to change, and therefore let us cease from men and cleave to God.

But Ephraim, in their desire for personal peace and affluence, and particularly affluence, had abandoned God and cleaved instead to man—first in terms of the Canaanites, later in terms of Syria and Assyria. So Ephraim was the very antithesis of the wholeheartedness of Caleb and the wholeheartedness that Psalm 116 calls us to.

Ephraim became a symbol of backsliding and apostasy. And that’s the way it’s quoted in the prophets—in the major and minor prophets. Ephraim’s sin was great. And it’s even greater if you consider, as I said before, the blessings of Ephraim, the great things that God had blessed it with. Then their fall is seen in the context of that. And it is terrible. And it’s progressive. God’s judgment comes against—

And the scriptures say the wages of sin are death. And the wages of Ephraim’s sin also is death.

## The Wages of Sin

Later on, the Canaanites themselves would rise up and be powerful. In the time of the judges, the Canaanites have an iron monopoly. It’s they who have now put Israel to tribute and made them servants of them—Ephraim included. God and his basic principle of bringing upon people’s heads the results of their own sin: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Ephraim’s failure to conquer Canaan immediately and to drive them out instead put them under tribute, leads to God’s judgment against them. They are put under tribute. They are then seen in terms of Proverbs 12: “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute.”

Ephraim didn’t seem slothful. They had the land. They got those Canaanites under their dominion and all, but they didn’t bear rule correctly. They weren’t diligent in driving out the Canaanites in obedience to God’s command. And as a result, God puts them under tribute.

Worse than that, Hosea 9 tells us later that Ephraim is planted in a pleasant place. But Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Ephraim will reap the wages of death upon itself. It’s got a pleasant place—the pleasantness of places—from God. Great blessing. But the curse of God upon their sin means he’ll bring forth his children to the murderer.

Hosea 9:16: “Ephraim is smitten. Their root is dried up. They shall bear no fruit. Yea, though they bring forth fruit, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” Severe judgments from God against Ephraim for this tremendous sin, this compromise with the Canaanites.

And of course, the judgment doesn’t stop with just the tribe of Ephraim. It extends into the whole people of God, particularly the ten tribes. As Witherby in his commentary on Joshua says: “They could not drive them out. The note has been struck. Its tone will increase in volume. It will repeat itself again and again until the sound of victory will be swallowed up in the cries of defeat and loss and the walls of bondage and ruin.”

That’s what lay ahead for Israel. Even in the context of this wonderful book of Joshua with conquering and victory, we see the beginning tones of compromise. And those tones, the Witherby said, will grow louder and louder. The book of Judges will show the utter failure of the tribes of Israel to properly rule for God. They’re no longer “Israel.” They don’t rule for God when they allow themselves to compromise and instead of driving out God’s enemies, put them under tribute for their own purposes.

So Ephraim brings forth the wages of sin upon its own head and also, because of its preeminence, upon all the tribes of Israel.

As I talked about the long line of scripture, the whole Old Testament is characterized by this particular kind of failure on the part of Israel. We see in these beginning chapters—the Pentateuch and then Joshua—the beginning line that’ll play out throughout Old Testament history. When you get to those prophets or when you get to the judges, when you get to the historical books, you’ll see this line of compromise, desire to put affluence ahead of other things being played out again and again, and God’s curse upon it.

Now, I want to turn for a couple of minutes, and maybe we’ll just kind of go over this briefly, but there are a couple of stories in the book of Judges that are very emblematic of the sin of Ephraim and then God’s judgment upon it—in Judges 8, when Gideon fights the Midianites, and then later on, in chapter 12.

Now, just briefly, in chapter 8 of Judges, we see Ephraim being used by Gideon as kind of a secondary force in the war that God calls him to fight against the Canaanites and specifically the Midianites. What happens is Gideon does the bulk of the destroying of the armies of Midian. But then Gideon uses Ephraim at the fork of the River Jordan to slay the Midianites who are now retreating and trying to get back across the River Jordan.

And so that’s he uses them in kind of a mopping up kind of operation, but a very important one because the two heads of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, are among those that the sons of Ephraim kill at the River Jordan. The Jordan, by the way, is right at the fork of Jordan where John did his baptizing. The River Jordan is destruction, its death, and its resurrection to those who are called to salvation. But at any event, Ephraim is used in that way.

Now, it’s a good position that Gideon has to be involved with, right? But you know what their response to that is? This prideful, surly group of Ephraimites, they come to Gideon after the whole thing’s over and say, “Why didn’t you let us kill a lot more of these guys? Why didn’t you use us in this war? What’s the idea of not using us preeminently in the defeat of these people?”

And now Gideon, he’s concerned at the unity of the people, now that they begin to wipe out and destroy God’s enemies again. So he gives them a soft answer to turn away their wrath. He says, “Well, you know, the gleanings of the harvest of Ephraim are better than the full harvest of Abiezer.” And what he’s saying is, “Well, yeah, they got a lot more. They got 40,000 or whatever it was killed. You only got a few thousand, but you got Oreb and Zeeb, and your gleanings are even better than those guys. You got a lot more honored guys going for you.” He tries to buy a little peace with them.

That plates them for a while. But you see this sin of pride, the sin of wanting their own glory, as it were, through money or not through material or military success, is plaguing Ephraim as we move through the book of Judges.

Well, then it gets even worse in chapter 12, where Jephthah is called by God as a deliverer. Jephthah involves himself in warfare. And again here in chapter 12, the children of Ephraim are just like the Benjamites—prideful and surly.

12:1: “Then the men of Ephraim were summoned, and they crossed to Zephon and said to Jephthah, ‘Why did you cross over to fight against the sons of Ammon without calling us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you.’”

So here was Jephthah waging war successfully for God against the Ammonites. And are the Ephraimites happy about this? No. Actually, they failed to come when Jephthah first called them. And now they come along, “Johnny come lately,” so to speak. But do they come along somewhat repentant for their failure to put aside their own material prosperity for the sake of the warfare against God’s enemies? No. They come out again prideful and surly and they say, “Hey, why don’t you call us first? We’re going to burn down your house.”

They’re talking to the deliverer of Israel here at this point, Jephthah, a picture of Jesus Christ. And they’re going to burn down his house. They become enemies to the people of God.

Now Jephthah reminds them here: Hey, the victory is the Lord’s here. Don’t speak against the victory of the Lord. What are you doing this for? Well, they don’t receive that warning. They don’t receive that warning, and they then continue their—they essentially have come across to make war against God’s people on the other side of the River Jordan. And so Jephthah then involves them in warfare. He then—there’s warfare that ensues, and verse 8 tells us that 42,000 of the men of Ephraim died at the River Jordan at the hands of Jephthah and his men.

You see that sin not dealt with early on in the life of Ephraim—of pride, not obeying the commandment of God, using God’s enemies for their own purposes—that prideful, surly nature of Ephraim continues on. And every time they’re warned against it, they turn back the other way and say, “Too bad. We’re going to be like this anyway.” And now it comes full-fledged, comes full-bore, full flower, whatever you want to call it, here with Jephthah.

And God’s sword of wrath comes against Ephraim and wipes out 42,000 of them. Basically getting rid of the whole tribe politically for a long time. They have enough people left who still haven’t learned the lesson to later oppose David and to join Absalom’s revolt, etc. They never learned the lesson, at least in terms of most of Old Testament history.

But it’s a picture for us of the sin of Ephraim and then the judgment of God against the sin.

James B. Jordan, I’m going to read several comments of his again from his commentary in the book of Judges, which I highly recommend: “God’s War Against Humanism.” And in this case, God’s war against humanism is God’s war against a humanistic covenant tribe, as it were. They’ve now become the very enemy that they were facing. And I mean, in terms of God’s literary structure here, they get killed at the same River Jordan where they had earlier killed the Midianites. They’re Midianites now. They failed to identify themselves with the Lord’s anointed, with the delivery of God and his warfare and his glory. And so now God fully declares them his enemies and he makes war against them.

Jordan says the following: “It’s interesting to note that these men who present such a brave and threatening front now that the battle is over apparently were cowards when it came to the real fighting. God had said that Israel was to learn to fight and to fight by faith. Those who did not trust God and respect his Messiah not only refused to fight, but did not have the courage to fight either. But like cowards and bullies of all ages, Ephraim is not ready to fight.”

Well, I’m not really sure it’s cowardice there. I think it’s more self-interest. But the point is well taken in terms of the timing. They now come out ready to fight after the battle’s over. Again, Jordan says: “This is great lessons for the church. After the victory against the real enemy, the righteous have to face complaining and insurrection from within the church itself. There is always something it seems to criticize, and those offering the criticism are always people who cannot be bothered with the real battle.”

This is a battle within the context of the covenant household of Israel. The people who are too busy to fight the Lord’s battle will now, to justify themselves, attack the leadership of the church. That’s what Ephraim does here. It essentially calls Jephthah and his warriors criminals or fugitives. That’s the term they use to describe them. Be prepared, as Jephthah was, to deal severely with such people. For they are the worst enemies of all.

Notice also that Ephraim made it easy on themselves by pretending that the righteous are wicked. They declared that Jephthah is an antichrist, that his people are a false church, and thus they are justified in going to war against him. There is no moderation of their behavior, no willingness to listen or to be reconciled or to be consiliated.

This is another common tactic used by wicked people within society, within the church. Once they have refused to listen to reason and are determined to destroy God’s good work, they seem to justify their actions by accusing the righteous of some great evil.

And as I said, the result of that—God’s curse against them—is that 42,000 of them fall by the sword of God’s warriors. The destruction of Ephraim. Jordan writes: “Shows the end results of pride and envy. Ephraim wanted to make war to glorify themselves, not to give glory to God. Ephraim thought that they should be the leaders of all Israel. Yet they did not even speak the same dialect.”

We know that because, in this story from Jephthah’s group, when some of them try to get across the river, pretending they’re not Ephraimites, they’re asked to say the word “Shibboleth,” and they say “Sibboleth.” They can’t pronounce the sh sound. They don’t even speak the same dialect or tongue as the rest of the covenant people.

Jordan says: “They were out of touch and in no position to lead. They were unable to make the sh sound,” etc.

So Jephthah gives us a picture here of the full-fledged results of the pride of sin—the sin rather of pride—of seeing themselves as having material blessings from God that they wish to then glorify themselves and not God. And it is true—I didn’t mention this, but in the history of Ephraim throughout the Old Testament—we see Ephraim being envious against Judah. And so we eventually see that in the ten tribes versus the tribe of Judah later on in Israel’s history. And then we see that in other references as well, that Ephraim is explicitly stated to be envious of Judah.

It’s frequently those who’ve been given most giftings from God and blessings from God that then are envious that they’re not number one. And can you think of one big example in terms of the long line of scripture? Well, Satan, of course. Satan is the most beautiful of all God’s creatures. And yet his envy against God leads him to rebel against God and then leads to his destruction.

And so Ephraim as well here, the most blessed of God in many ways in terms of their inheritance, their birth, etc., become satanic in their attack upon God and upon the chosen tribe of Judah, who will lead God’s people politically as well.

So God’s great curse comes upon sin. The wages of sin are death. And Ephraim reaped those wages in its life.

## The Glories of God’s Grace

But the glory of God’s grace is also pictured for us in the long line of the picture of the tribe of Ephraim.

We read, for instance, in Isaiah 11:13: “The envy—I mentioned the envy earlier—the envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.”

This is a prophetic passage of the Messiah’s reign. Ephraim’s envy will be reduced and removed by God. He’ll reconcile them again.

Jeremiah 3:19: “These shall come with weeping and with supplications will I lead them. I cause them to walk by the rivers of water in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble for I am a father to Israel and Ephraim is my firstborn.”

See my firstborn? And God brings them back in the glories of his grace.

Again in verse 18 of Jeremiah 31: “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, ‘This thou has chastised me, and I was chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God.’” That’s Ephraim speaking—Ephraim’s desire for salvation.

Again in verse 20: “Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore, my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy upon them and upon him, sayeth the Lord.”

Ezekiel 37:16 tells the following:

“Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick and write upon it for Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions. Then take another stick and write upon it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions. And join them one to another into one stick, and they shall be one in my hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, ‘Wilt thou not show us what thou meanest by this?’ Say unto them, ‘Thus sayeth the Lord God, Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribe of Israel, his fellows, and will put them with you.’”