Deuteronomy 33:17
His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.
Deuteronomy 33:17 stands in Moses' tenth discourse in Deuteronomy, which runs from 33:2 to 33:29. It is part of one of the two marvelous songs or beautiful poems of Moses concerning Israel that close the book of Deuteronomy. Within that closing section it comes after further precepts, solemn injunctions, blessed promises, and the final charge to the priests and to Joshua, and before the record of the death of Moses, the man of God.
The verse belongs to Moses' farewell utterances and blessings invoked upon the twelve tribes of the encamped host of Israel, specifically the blessing pronounced upon Joseph. The blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy 33 is to be read and compared with Jacob's dying prophecy of the tribes, giving attention to the character of its symbols and their fitness to each tribe. The verse depicts the fruit and outcome of character foreshown in the tribe, and is rich in symbol, emblem, and historic reference, full of tender pleading and petition, victorious and triumphant trust and faith, and joyful and exultant anticipation of blessing.
A horn is a scriptural symbol of strength and power. By likening his glory to a firstling bullock and his horns to the horns of wild oxen or unicorns, the verse pictures great strength and power, meaning that Joseph's power and glory would be very great. By putting Ephraim the younger before Manasseh the elder and assigning ten thousands to Ephraim but thousands to Manasseh, the verse illustrates the Saviour's words that the last shall be first and the first last.
The blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh connects to the later history in which the kingdom was divided at the close of Solomon's reign into Israel, or Ephraim, and Judah, but Ephraim was afterward absorbed in Judah so that the sceptre did not depart from Judah until Shiloh came. The fullness of the blessing pronounced of old upon Joseph has come upon those who believe in Christ, giving them the precious things of heaven, the dew, the deep, the fruits of sun and moon, the chief things of the mountains and hills, the precious things of the earth and its fullness, and the goodwill of Him that dwelt in the bush, with exceeding great and precious promises added to all. The picture of the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh has been recast to mean that Ephraim represents the spiritual world and Manasseh the material world, and to claim that a spiritual millennial age has begun and will spread throughout the earth, which is a false interpretation to be rejected.