The House of Joseph (sometimes referred to as the Tribe of Joseph) is a designation which members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) apply to the ancient "birthright" tribe of the house of Israel (Jacob) as it is described in the Old Testament, made up of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. The tribes' namesakes — the two sons of Joseph of Egypt — are first mentioned in .
Members of the LDS Church believe themselves, in a general sense, to be members of the House of Israel, many of whom believe themselves also to be the literal bloodline descendants of Ephraim, Joseph of Egypt's youngest son, but inheritor, notwithstanding, of Israel's "firstborn" birthright blessings. These modern Josephites claim, however, that many in their ranks are also of the tribe of Manasseh, Joseph's eldest son and a joint-recipient of the 'double portion' of Jacob's birthright blessing upon the heads of his grandsons.
Church members therefore consider themselves to be a 'covenant people', specially called or foreordained from 'eternity' (or before earth's creation, which they call 'premortality', or pre-existence).Latter-day Saint ecclesiastical leaders from Joseph Smith to the church's present-day prophet have taught the fundamental church doctrine of premortality (Deut 32:7–9; Acts 17:24, 26; Alma 13:3-4; Abr 3:22-26), wherein all humankind, antecedent to the Creation or before their earthly existence, dwelt as spirit children of God. Those of the house of Israel, and especially the house of Joseph, come to earth with what one of the church's latter-day apostles called "believing blood," meaning that "those born in that lineage have both the right and a special spiritual capacity to recognize, receive, and believe the truth [that applies principally to] the seed of Abraham to whom the promises were made" ... "My sheep hear my voice," the Master said, "and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27; latter-day Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, cited in Millet & McConkie, 2010). LDS Apostle Erastus Snow had, earlier in 1882, also testified of modern Israel's special birthright mission: "The Lord has sent those noble spirits [of Israel] into the world to perform a special work, and appointed their times ... Such were called and chosen and elected of God to perform a certain work at a certain time in the world’s history and in due time he fitted them for that work ... Their blood [by which, as God promised Abraham "all the nations of the earth" would be blessed - Gen 26:4; Abr 2:8-11] has permeated European society, and it coursed in the veins of the early colonists in America. And when the books shall be opened and the lineage of all men is known, it will be found that they have been first and foremost in everything noble among men in the various nations [including the ancient Christian martyrs] in breaking off the shackles of kingcraft and priestcraft and oppression of every kind, and the foremost among men in upholding and maintaining the principles of liberty and freedom upon this continent and establishing a representative government, and thus preparing the way for the coming forth of the fulness of the everlasting Gospel [for it was those 'founding fathers', "prodded by the hand of the Almighty, who provided the resting place, as it were, 'for the Ark of the covenant, where the temple of our God might be built,' where the gospel could be restored, and practiced in freedom"]. And it is the foremost of those spirits whom the Lord has prepared to receive the Gospel when it was presented to them ... [the elect of Israel] having been watched over from the days that God promised those blessings upon Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Ephraim. And these are they that will be found in the front ranks of all that is noble and good in their day and time ... and among those also who receive the fullness of the everlasting Gospel, and the keys of Priesthood in the last days, through whom God determined to gather up again unto himself a peculiar people, a holy nation, a pure seed that shall stand upon Mount Zion as saviors" (JD 23:185-187; 26:201). They profess to attend to sacred saving ordinances as they existed anciently in God's holy temple — "the place of the covenant" — with sacred responsibilities and obligations for God-given 'birthright' blessings that are contingent upon upright living.
Young people within the church are often referred to as 'youth of the noble birthright' — a designation inspired by lyrics from one of the faith's time-honored hymns.
Much of the story of the House of Joseph, according to Latter-day Saints, is reflected in ancient ancestral prophecies, including those made by the patriarch Jacob and his son, Joseph of Egypt (many of them now restored through revelation by the LDS faith's founding prophet). But that story is also relayed in messianic Jewish tradition and legend concerning one 'Messiah ben Joseph' that, for some Latter-day Saints, mirrors the earthly mission of Joseph Smith, the faith's founder, who in the LDS worldview stands preeminent among the heirs of Joseph's house.
The house of Joseph is mentioned in the Bible several times, notably in ; ; ; and . There is also an allusion to the house of Joseph in .
Patriarchal primogeniture
Let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph... [upon] him that was separated from his brethren. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of the wild-ox: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh... (Deut33:16-17; see D&C110:9)
I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, as a shepherd doth his flock... (Jer31:9-10)
Joseph is a father to Ephraim and to all Israel in these last days... (latter-day prophet Brigham Young, 9Apr 1837)
According to LDS doctrine, the Twelve Tribes of Israel descended from the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob (who was later named Israel) and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. Jacob was the last of a line of ancient biblical patriarchs who held the full power of the "blessings of the firstborn", of bechor. But Jacob's firstborn by first wife Leah — Reuben — forfeited by transgression his spiritual inheritance, and it passed instead to the Patriarch's newly sanctioned 'firstborn' son by favored but second wife, Rachel. This son's name was Joseph — a name signifying 'fruitful'.Pharaoh would also bestow later to Joseph, his young vizier, or viceroy, the Egyptian name Zaphnath-paaneah 'secrets-revealer,' or seer, revelator. Joseph's name in Samaritan is Taheb 'Restorer' — 'he who restores' or 'causes to return', and in Hebrew: Asaph 'God gathereth' or Yosef 'he shall add'. (See Gen 41:45; 2 Ne 3:7, 15).
Leah's second and third sons — Simeon and Levi — likewise, because of murder, forfeited any birthright they may have had, and the 'covenant bloodline' blessing and inheritance of the royal scepter went to Leah's fourth, but Jacob's first righteous son, Judah.
In Genesis, Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, are taken to see their dying grandfather, who has 'adopted' them as his own. As with each of his own sons, Israel (Jacob) laid his hands upon the heads of his grandsons to bless them.
But when the aged patriarch laid his left hand upon the elder grandson Manasseh's head and his right hand on the younger Ephraim's head, Joseph, seeing that his father had made a mistake, switched his hands. But Israel refused and said:
I know it, my son, I know it: he [Manasseh] also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh... (Gen48:19-20).
Jacob went on to further elevate the status of the descendants of Joseph's sons to that of "full tribes in their own right" (Gen41:50). To the mighty prince Joseph himself the patriarch declared:
Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the Stone of Israel:) Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren... (Gen49:22-26KJV)
Thus, before he died, the old patriarch blessed his fourth son Judah with the kingly scepter and his eleventh (yet 'anointed') son Joseph — or rather Joseph's second and youngest son, Ephraim, to whom it passed — with the priestly 'firstborn' birthright (Gen49:10, 22-26)."Joseph's two sons were not only adopted by Jacob, but they were established [by inheriting the 'double portion' of the firstborn birthright] as the "legitimate continuation" of the patriarch's generation" (Sigvartsen, p. 76). This divided the blessings of God's children into two parts — with 'kingship' going to the House of Judah, and the firstborn 'priesthood' inheritance going to the House of Joseph — leading to an eventual breach between the children of Judah and those of Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh. That critical breach — which widened again later with divisions between Levi and the sons of Aaron — would only be healed in a far-distant, future day, after Israel's 'scattering' (722586BC) and centuries-long apostate captivity among Gentile nations.
Josephite prophecy Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us... Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it... to take deep root, and it filled the land... The hills were covered with the shadow of it... She sent out her boughs unto the sea... Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine; And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself... Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself... Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved... (Psalm80:1-2, 8-11, 14-15, 17, 19)
In the latter days, according to LDS interpretation, the tribes of Israel were to be gathered again into one fold (the elect family of God) in the 'second' promised land of Joseph's 'double portioned' inheritance — which Latter-day Saints believe is the entire American continent of North and South America (with North America serving as the latter-day 'Zion') — which God has consecrated to house, at a future day, His holy city of the 'New Jerusalem'.See D&C 57:1-2; 84:1-2; Ether 13:3-6, 10; 2 Ne 20:22; and Art of Faith 1:10.