Menashe son of Joseph מנשה בן יוסף

Joseph's firstborn by Asenath, born in Egypt before the years of famine. Joseph gave the name: "for God has made me forget all my toil and all my father's house." Before his death Jacob adopted both grandsons—"Ephraim and Manasseh, like Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine"—and they became tribes on a level with the sons.

In blessing them Jacob crossed his hands and laid the right on the younger. Joseph tried to correct his father; he answered: "I know it, my son, I know it; he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he."

The tribe of Manasseh is the only one whose portion lay on both sides of the Jordan: half in Bashan, half west of the river. From it came Gideon, who called himself "the least in my father's house", and the daughters of Zelophehad, who won the right to their father's portion.