latter form accordingly signifies ‘those belonging to Ephrâth,’ and is the national name of the Hebrews of the North, used afterwards as a designation of their ancestor. Many instances of a similar proceeding occur in the Biblical genealogies. Thus the Northern Hebrews possess national memories connecting them with Joseph-Ephraim. It is therefore quite natural that, as the national difference which parted the Northern from the Southern people became more evident, vivid and acknowledged, the mind of the former was more occupied with the cycle of stories about the person and adventures of Joseph. The existing mass of stories offered abundant opportunity for this, and more productive matter could scarcely be imagined than the story of the hatred of the brethren towards Joseph, the Patriarch of the North. The Northerns consequently seized this portion of the Patriarchal history, and worked it out in the interest of their national separatism, always contriving to let the supremacy of Joseph above Judah clearly appear. They take pleasure in representing Judah crouching in the dust before Joseph the ruler, and owing his life entirely to the will of the generous brother, towards whom he had formerly borne such bitter ill-will. Joseph is brought forward with satisfaction and pride as the brother whom the aged father treated with the greatest favour and distinction, and whose life alone was able to revive his fainting spirits; while Joseph’s mother was the only woman whom the Patriarch really loved, whereas the Southerns were descended partly from the ugly Leah, Judah’s mother, who became Jacob’s wife only by deceit and craft, and partly from slaves. National stories are created by the awaking consciousness of opposition; and, as we have seen, they transfer to primeval times the national spirit of opposition, which is an affair of the present, and ascribe a reflex of it to the respective ancestors. This is the spirit of the stories of Joseph, worked out by the Northern in opposition to the Southern Hebrews. The enmity of the two Hebrew kingdoms is transferred to the earliest times, and prefigured in the picture of the relation between Joseph and his brethren. The chief portions of this mass of Northern stories which were reduced to writing at a later time, and thus fixed in a definite form, were contained in the ancient document distinguished by most critics as the ‘Book of Uprightness’ (Sêpher hay-Yâshâr).[684]