Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin remain faithful in the Southern Kingdom while the other tribes forming the Northern Kingdom largely depart from the Eternal. But this exchange between Oded and the Ephraimites shows another side of the Northerners. Oded’s request that they free the Judahites is based on their common heritage. And the chiefs’ obedience to his request shows that they still remember God’s power. Although the Northern Kingdom has strayed far from the Eternal One, they still remember their ancestral brothers in the South.