2 Samuel 19:43

ten parts The northern tribes claimed a share of the king in proportion to their number. Ephraim and Manasseh are counted as one in the reckoning of Israel as tentribes. Cp. 1 Kings 11:31; 1 Kings 11:35.

and we have also moreright in David than ye And even in David we have more right than ye: lit. I … than thou. They claim a share of the king, as king, in proportion to their number, and maintain this to be their right even in the case of David, whom the men of Judah might assert to belong specially to them as being their kinsman. But the Sept. preserves (in addition to a rendering of the present Heb. text), a different and very remarkable reading, which is perhaps the true one: and I am the firstborn rather than thou. Reuben, the natural firstborn, forfeited his birthright, and it was transferred to Joseph, the eldest son of Jacob's second wife. In virtue of the birthright Joseph inherited a double portion (Deuteronomy 21:17) by Jacob's adoption of his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. See 1 Chronicles 5:1-2; Genesis 48:22; Joshua 16:4. It was most natural for Ephraim, speaking on behalf of the northern tribes, "the house of Joseph" (2 Samuel 19:20), to assert such a claim at the present crisis.

why then, &c. Better: why then hast thou despised me? was not my word the first for bringing back my king? a reference to the movement described in 2 Samuel 19:9.