The text seems to talk about a messianic figure from Ephraim who will break evil before righteousness by three days. later the text talks about a “prince of princes” a leader of Israel who is killed by the evil king and not properly buried. the evil king is then miraculously defeated. the text seems to refer to Jeremiah Chapter 31. The choice of Ephraim as the lineage of the messianic figure described in the text seems to draw on passages in Jeremiah, Zechariah and Hosea. However, Matthias Henze suggest that this figure is not a reference to the Messiah ben Joseph who he believes is a later development but rather a pseudonym for the Messiah ben David and that Ephraim is simple a metonym in reference to Israel; Israel Knohl disagrees.