It should be noted that according to the Pentateuch’s portrayal of the history of Israel, this Manassite-Aramaean ambience was actualized only during the tribal settlement after the Exodus, and had nothing to do with the individual figure ‘Manasseh the son of Joseph’, who spent his whole life in Egypt, and whose son Machir as well as his grandsons were born there (Gen. 50.23). The Chronicler, by contrast, conceives of the bond between the Manassites and the Aramaeans as going back to the person of Manasseh himself. In this respect, the Chronicler’s picture of Manasseh resembles that of Judah;
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