Lyranus makes two different Ephraims in this text: one, whose sons are related [to have been] slain by the Gethites — and this one he will have [to be] of the posterity of that first Patriarch, [a descendant] who dwelt in Chanaan after the departure from Egypt; but the other, the Patriarch himself, whose sons are Rapha, Reseph, and the others who are thereafter mentioned. Now the reasons for positing the former are chiefly two. One: those sons could not have gone down into the land of Geth unless [the Chananaeans] were already inhabiting Chanaan. For it was most diligently guarded against that any of the Jews should depart out of Egypt — so much so that, when they sought that the power of departing be granted them, the King could not be brought to consent, unless broken and subdued by intolerable evils and calamities. And again, their father [Ephraim] had to be dwelling at that same time still in Chanaan — [the father] who drew the greatest grief from their slaughter, and who, when he afterward begot a son, therefore called him Beria, that is, “begotten in evil and grief.” But these things cannot fit the Patriarch Ephraim. For he would then have had to prolong [his] life beyond 250 years. For since he himself was born at the time in which there was the greatest abundance of grain and of all things in Egypt (Genesis 41, verse 52), before Jacob went down into [Egypt] (Genesis 48, verse 5), it is necessary that he was born in the year before the 188th from the birth of Isaac, and the 38th of Joseph. And from then to the departure out of Egypt there remained at least 212 years (from Genesis chapter 15, and from what I have disputed and established on Exodus chapter 12, verse 40). And if to those 212 years you add the 40 years of the desert, Ephraim’s age will become more than 252 years. Let there be added also those seven [years] in which Joshua subdued the land (chapter 14 of Joshua): you see that Ephraim would then have been at least 260 years [old]. But that former age did not now bear so great an age of a man — since Isaac, although very long-lived, yet died in his 180th year (Genesis 35, verse 28); Jacob in [his] 147th (Genesis 47, verse 28); Levi, 137 (Exodus 6, verse 16); Moses, in [his] 120th year (Deuteronomy 34, verse 7). And indeed, granted that Ephraim could live so long, would he even still beget sons? Yet it would have had to happen, because, as has been said, after the slaughter of the former sons he begot Beria. But the other reason is that his daughter Sara is said to have built lower and upper Beth-horon, which were cities in Chanaan, as will be clear below (chapter 16). But how could she build there except after the land was occupied by the Israelites? For even if we grant that she was born to Ephraim in [his] 90th year of age, she would still herself be, after the peaceful possession of Chanaan, more than 130 years [old] — [an age] which was not granted even to Joshua himself, who reached only 110 (below, chapter [24], verse 29).
Nevertheless, only one Ephraim is here described, and he is that Patriarch, the son of Joseph. For look diligently at the context, and you will see that only one is named, and that all things are said of that one and the same [Ephraim]. He loses sons, begets another, and — without any mention of another [Ephraim] — it is subjoined: “his son Rapha.” Whom does this relative or demonstrative pronoun “his” look back to? Whom does it point out? Certainly none but that Ephraim who before
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had been named — [no one else]. And that this [Ephraim] is the same Patriarch cannot be doubted. First, because, in the description of any tribe whatsoever, that book of Paralipomenon is wont to give the first place immediately to the father and originator of that tribe. Then, because those whom Lyranus gives as sons to the other Ephraim — Suthala, Bared, and the rest — the same [ones] Numbers chapter 26, verse 35, testifies to be sons of the Patriarch Ephraim. And indeed, who [is] the father of that other Ephraim? Whence does he so suddenly come forth? Why would the beginning of the narration about this tribe be drawn from him?
But [Lyra’s] reasons must be answered. For Lyranus carved this other Ephraim out of his own brain for this [reason]: that he thought those [reasons] most firm — which, however, are weak. For it was not necessary that either those sons or their father were already dwelling in Chanaan, [in order] that they made an onset upon the fields of the Gethites; but they could make this attack from Egypt itself — and that, either before they were pressed by that dreadful servitude and held by those very strict watches which were afterward applied, or even afterward, by the nod and will of the Egyptian King, as will be made plain below when I speak of the cause of this incursion. And this foundation being taken away, all the rest that Lyranus built upon it collapse. But in the other reason there would truly be nothing absurd, if we should say that Sara lived even beyond her 130th year, and then built those cities. For it is not necessary that we believe no one at that very time was older than Joshua — just as, in the first age of the world, we see that Adam himself was surpassed in age by some (Genesis 5, verse 27 and following), and, after Isaac, Abraham. But of this woman herself [I shall speak] more a little later.