“ JOSEPH, in the Old Testament, the son of the patriarch Jacob by Rachel; the name of a tribe of Israel. Two explanations of the name are given by the Biblical narrator (Gen. xxx. 23 [E] , 24 [J] ) ; a third, “He (God) increases,” seems preferable. Unlike the other “sons” of Jacob, Joseph is usually reckoned as two tribes (viz. his “sons” Ephraim and Manasseh) , and closely associated with it is the small tribe of Benjamin (q.v.) ”