Revelation: Ephraim and Dan

 Revelation: Justification by Faith

Ephraim and Dan

A good reason to see the 144,000 as spiritual is the tribes named in Revelation 7.

It says:

Revelation 7:5 From the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed; from the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand sealed;
6 from the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand sealed; from the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand sealed; from the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand sealed;
7 from the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand sealed; from the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand sealed; from the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand sealed;
8 from the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand sealed; from the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand sealed; and from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand sealed.

These are not the usual 12 tribes of Israel.
The name Ephraim is missing here and is replaced simply by the name Joseph, and Dan is missing to give place to Levi, who normally was not counted in the census because he received no inheritance (see Numbers 26).
But why are the names Ephraim and Dan omitted?
To have your name in the inheritance means everything to us.
The answer most likely lies in the character of the tribes of Ephraim and Dan.
Dan is one of the first tribes of which we get a bad impression in history:

Judges 18:30 And the Danites set up for themselves the carved image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day the land went into exile.
31 So they set up the carved image for themselves, which Micah had made, all the days that the house of God was in Shiloh.

The idol of Dan was notorious enough to catch the attention of the prophet Amos:

Amos 8:14 those who swear by the guilt of Samaria,
and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,
and the way of Beersheba lives!”
They shall fall and never rise again.

The tragedy is that Dan was indeed one of the tribes. They originally had the right to the inheritance, received blessings from Jacob and Moses, and entered the land of Canaan. But they fell away.
The absence of Dan among the 144,000 tells us the painful truth that some people will fall away at the end into idolatry. And by idolatry, we mean putting anything above God or giving it honor that it does not deserve.
For Ephraim, we find one of the most heartbreaking passages in the entire Bible in Hosea.
Ephraim became the leading tribe of the ten-tribe kingdom in Israel. Ten tribes out of the twelve split off from Judah and Benjamin.
But this Ephraim also became the main leader in idolatry for Israel and is used here as a representative of the other ten tribes.
Ephraim’s journey begins like this, in God’s words:

Hosea 11:3 Yet I taught Ephraim to walk;
I took them up in my arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
4 I led them with cords of kindness,
with the bands of love.
I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

But we read:

Hosea 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols;
let him alone!
18 When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring.

Then we hear the tone God strikes:

Hosea 6:4 What shall I do with you, Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.

Still, we know Judah remained for a while and eventually was restored to their land after exile in the Bible.
Ephraim clearly takes the lead in Hosea:

Hosea 8:11 Ephraim has made many altars to sin,
altars that become places for sinning.
12 Though I wrote for them my many laws,
they were regarded as something foreign.

Hosea 9:16 Ephraim is stricken,
their root is dried up;
they bear no fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will kill those loved ones.
17 My God will reject them
because they have not listened to him;
they will be wanderers among the nations.

But then we get those heartbreaking words from God Himself:

Hosea 11:8 How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
9 I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come against their cities.

God did not want to give Ephraim up. He compared him to a child or his wife. He had compassion on him. He gave Ephraim more time and patience and would not yet pour out his wrath.
But we know from history that Ephraim eventually went into exile and never returned, along with the other tribes.
Although those other tribes also went into exile, we get a very different picture of their character as we read through the Bible compared to Ephraim. Ephraim took the lead in idolatry and fell.
But God did not rejoice in this.
Soon we will see that generation enter the heavenly land. But there will be some who bear the character of the tribe of Ephraim to God’s sorrow. He has compassion on them.
But for those who have fallen, there is still hope. They do not have to be like Ephraim.
The other tribes that are named among the 144,000 are by no means sinless. Much is written about Judah, but they came to repentance in their humiliation and are found in the promised land after their exile in the Bible.
Reuben, the ancestor tribe, was accused of a sexual sin in Genesis 49.
Gad is described as a tribe that would suffer a loss in Genesis 49.
Asher is described as wealthy.
We do not find many problems with Naphtali, Manasseh, and Joseph, but the priestly Levites are often found corrupt.
We also do not find much information about Issachar and Zebulun.
But Benjamin had a fierce civil war with another tribe in the book of Judges and some rather scandalous stories. Additionally, Benjamin was considered the weakest tribe in the time of Samuel.
Yet we find all these tribes in Revelation 7 among the 144,000.
Your sins do not have to immediately exclude you from the heavenly promised land.
What God asks of us is to grasp the compassion and grace that He so gladly gives, as to people with the character of Ephraim.

For further study of these tribes, one can refer to the meaning of the names in Hebrew and the further character traits that appear in these tribes throughout the Bible.