TRIBE OF MENASHE

the eastern part of Menashe today, courtesy, BiblePlaces.com

For previous postings about parts of Menashe, see Samaria and Bashan/Golan Heights.

Menasheh was born in Egypt, the first born of Joseph by Osnat, daughter of Potiphar, priest of On. According to Genesis 41:51, Joseph named him “Menasheh” because “…god has made me forget (נשני Nashani  ) all my toil…” referring to the time when he was sold by his brothers to a caravan going to Egypt, and his subsequent imprisonment in Egypt. The Bible refers to the descendants of Menasheh as a “half tribe”, probably because he was not the son of Jacob. By the time the Children of Israel were on the edge of the Promised Land, Menasheh was divided into east and west. The eastern portion of the tribe settled in their lands first. In Numbers 32:33 and 39, it is stated that eastern Menasheh took possession of the lands of Gilead and Bashan, which stretched as far as the town of Edrei in the east and, what is now known as the Golan Heights in the west. The cities of eastern Menasheh are listed in scattered places in the Bible, but mainly in Numbers 32:41 and Joshua 13:30-31: Ashtarot, a royal city of Bashan, Edrei, another royal city where Og, King of Bashan, was defeated and his lands given over to Menasheh, Golan, set aside by Joshua as a city of refuge and was held by the Gershon branch of the Levites, the Havot Yair bloc, Nobah, and Salchah. Of Salchah nothing is known but the fact that it was a boundary city.

The western portion of the tribe took possession of its land during the time of Joshua. Roughly, this territory consisted of the lands from the Carmel mountain range and across the Jezreel Valley to the Jordan, including the towns of Megiddo and Bet She’an in the north, and going southward, until the northern border of Jaffa in the west, the southern border of Shechem in the center, and the southern border of Gilgal in the east, thus, consisting of the bulk of the Jordan Valley. The cities of Menasheh on the west side of the Jordan, many of which were shared with the tribe of Ephraim, are listed in Joshua 17: Bet She’an, Dor, Ein Dor, Ible’am, Megiddo, Michmetah, Taanach, the area that became Haifa, Ein Tappuah, Gilgal, Shechem, and Shomron.