Did the 10 Tribes Really Lose Their Identity? (10 January 2017, 13 Tevet, 5777)
Contents:
1. Query from Kennard
2. Continued Knowledge of the Ten Tribes and Their Location?
3. Not Known to Judah
4. SEPARATE FROM JUDAH ALMOST TO THE END!
5. Ten Tribes
6. Israelites from the Ten Tribes Later Found in Judah?
7. Conclusion: The Lost Ten Tribes were Aptly Named!
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1. Query from Kennard
Kennard wrote:
Hello Yair:
Can you list some scriptures proving that the 10 tribes lost their identity?
Some object to the truth about the 10 tribes because they state the prophets and Josephus knew where they were located.
Warmest regards,
Kennard
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Brit-Am Replies:
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2. Continued Knowledge of the Ten Tribes and Their Location?
The "Lost Ten Tribes" is what they are known as. This fits what they became though it may not have always been the case.
Josephus (Antiquities 11:133) states:
"the Ten Tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated in numbers."
Josephus may have been extrapolating from what is written in the Bible.
1-Kings 14:
15 For the LORD will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the LORD to anger.
2-Kings 17:
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
Alternately Josephus may have had knowledge of the Ten Tribes.
Such awareness may have existed to some degree in different forms right up to the present.
See:
The Earliest West European Beliefs in their Israelite Origins
http://britam.org/countries/countriesindex.html
Also:
A portion of the Scythians identified their ancestor with Joseph.
See:
'The Syncretic Creed of Hellenized Jews From Tanais (Northern Black Sea Region)' by IRMA HAYNMAN.
Offprint from 'Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies;'
Division B: The History of the Jewish People;
Volume 1, Second Temple Period to Modern Times. Jerusalem 1994, World Union of Jewish Studies, pp.53-60.
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3. Not Known to Judah
At all events the Ten Tribes eventually lost awareness of their ancestry.
Scripture had indicated that this is what would happen.
Isaiah 28:
11 FOR WITH STAMMERING LIPS AND ANOTHER TONGUE WILL HE SPEAK TO THIS PEOPLE.
Most Israelites will not know Hebrew at that time.
ISAIAH AND THE RETURN OF THE LOST TEN TRIBES
Isaiah 49:21 speaks of the Jewish reaction when the Lost Tribes will return. Many Jews will be astounded and even perhaps slightly resentful since they will feel that Joseph at times of trouble could have been more positive.
The Lost Ten Tribes will return. The Jews of Judah will meet the return of the Lost Ten Tribes with mixed reactions:
Isaiah 49:
21 "THEN SHALT THOU SAY IN THINE HEART, WHO HATH BEGOTTEN ME THESE, SEEING I HAVE LOST MY CHILDREN, AND AM DESOLATE, A CAPTIVE, AND REMOVING TO AND FRO? AND WHO HATH BROUGHT UP THESE? BEHOLD, I WAS LEFT ALONE; THESE, WHERE HAD THEY BEEN?"
In other words, the Jews will ask where were all those now identified as Israel when the Jews needed help and were alone? According to the Midrash (Pesikta Rabati 32;10) this reaction of the Jews will take place WHEN THEY SEE THE THREE EXILES OF THE LOST TEN TRIBES RETURNING!
This reaction was also discussed in the Zohar as we described in our work 'Ephraim'.
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4. SEPARATE FROM JUDAH ALMOST TO THE END!
Isaiah 11:
12 "AND HE SHALL SET UP AN ENSIGN FOR THE NATIONS, AND SHALL ASSEMBLE THE OUTCASTS OF ISRAEL, AND GATHER TOGETHER THE DISPERSED OFJUDAH FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH "
13 "THE ENVY ALSO OF EPHRAIM SHALL DEPART, AND THE ADVERSARIES OF JUDAH SHALL BE CUT OFF: EPHRAIM SHALL NOT ENVY JUDAH, AND JUDAH SHALL NOT VEX EPHRAIM "
Isaiah 27:
12 In that day the LORD will start His threshing from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel.
13 It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
The expression (Isaiah 27:13) above "those who were perishing in the land of Assyria" in Hebrew is "Ha-Ovdim be-Erets Ashur." This literally means "they who were lost in the Land of Assyria."
We thus have a time of being lost and then later found:
Hosea 1:
9 And the LORD said, 'Name him Lo-ammi [i.e. Not My People], for you are not My people and I am not your God.'
10 Yet the number of the sons of Israel
Will be like the sand of the sea,
Which cannot be measured or numbered;
And in the place
Where it is said to them,
'You are not My people,'
It will be said to them,
'You are the sons of the living God.'
11 And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together,
And they will appoint for themselves one leader,
And they will go up from the land,
For great will be the day of Jezreel.
Jeremiah 3:
8 Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. ...
18 In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.
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5. Ten Tribes
The northern Israelites separated from Judah. They were the one who would be exiled to Assyria.
They had been referred to as Ten Tribes.
1-Kings 11:
31 He said to Jeroboam, Take for yourself ten pieces; for thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and give you Ten Tribes1-Kings 11:
35 but I will take the kingdom from his son's hand and give it to you, even Ten Tribes.
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6. Israelites from the Ten Tribes Later Found in Judah?
A related point is that we find later members of the Ten tribes in the land of Judah.
Is this not evidence that the Exile of the Ten Tribes was much comprehensive than has been claimed?
These claims have been discussed and answered in detail in our article:
The Completeness of the Exile
http://www.britam.org/CompleteExile.html
In brief, some of the points considered include:
(1) Claim 1:
"Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon" Still Present in the Time of King Asa of Judah (1-Kings 12:16)?
The above verse indicates that many from the Northern Kingdom moved south before the Ten Tribes were exiled.
This does not nullify the fact that: The Assyrian Exile included all of the Northern Kingdom PLUS a good portion of the southern though the northern section is the one emphasized by Scripture. Those who remained were from the Tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi as well as a mixed remnant of the other tribes that according to one Midrashic source (Seder Olam) represented 20% per cent of the total. Nevertheless those who remained from the other tribes were a minority and are subsumed amongst Judah, Benjamin, and Levi.
(2) Claim 2:
Hezekiah Celebrates the Passover with "All Israel" and with "Ephraim and Manasseh" (2-Chronicles 30:1, 9, 10, 11, 18). Pilgrims from the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulon, and Issachar are mentioned as coming to Jerusalem.
Many from the northern kingdom came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. After keeping the Passover in Jerusalem they presumably returned to their homes in the north.
They did not necessarily all stay in the south though some may have. This event occurred at the beginning of the reign of King Hezekiah who reigned from ca. 726 or earlier to ca 697 BCE the dates being uncertain.
This was before the Assyrian Exile of the Northern Tribes was completed. It was in the first year of the reign of King Hezekiah (2-Chronicles 29:3).
The Exile of Samaria occurred about 6 or more years after this event (2-Kings 18:10).
(3) Claim 3:
King Josiah of Judah also celebrated the Passover with "all Judah and Israel that were present" (2-Chronicles 35:17-18).
Does not this indicate that Northern Israelites were still in the neighborhood?
King Josiah the son of Amon ruled over Judah in ca. 628-609 BCE long after the Northern Tribes had been exiled.
King Josiah celebrated the Passover with those who were present. The verse emphasizes the Kohanim (Priests), Levites, Judah, and "Israel who were present" apparently including Benjamin and those few from the other tribes who still remained. The very phraseology suggests these were a minority.
In our work "The Tribes" we show how King Josiah attempted to re-settle some of the Exile Israelites in their former lands. These were Scythians whose presence in the area at that time is confirmed by archaeology and other sources. At all events the attempt WAS NOT succesful. Only a small number returned and these mostly went back to their places of Exile when Josiah was killed.
In addition
King Josiah went around the RUINED CITIES of Northern Israel and destroyed the remnants of idols he found in them.
2-Chronicles 34:
6 the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, even as far as Naphtali, in their surrounding ruins.
The King James (KJ) renders the Hebrew "becharvotayhem" as WITH THEIR MATTOCKS [2-Chronicles 34:6]. Nevertheless the translation "in their ruins" from the Hebrew is more correct! The translation of this expression as meaning "ruins" is also to be found in NIV, ESV, BSB, NASB, ISV, NETB, NHEB, NAS1977, KJ2000B, ASV, DarbyBT, ERV, WEB translations.
The verse in Hebrew actually affirms that the cities were in ruins and presumably uninhabited.
We admit that a minority of Northern Israelites may have remained. Amos (3:12) has been interpreted as saying that one in eight would not be exiled. A Midrash indicates that up to 20% of the people of Judah who returned with Ezra from Babylon were refugees from the Northern Kingdom. Nevertheless, as emphasized by Nachmanides, these were considered as nullified amongst Judah and counted as part of Judah just as those of Judah who had gone with Northern Israel are considered part of the Lost Ten Tribes.
(5) Claim 5.
When Ezra and Nehemiah led the captives back from Babylon the returnees were referred to as "the Children of Israel" and they offered sacrifices on behalf of all twelve tribes of Israel. Does this not show that "all Israel" were present?
In the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are found lists of the families who returned. to the Land of Israel from Babylon.
ONLY families from the Tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi are mentioned. The Lost Ten Tribes as far as Scripture is concerned were ALL exiled and disappeared. A small remnant from the other Tribes was also there. This is best explained by Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides).
Nachmanides (1194-1270):
"Those from the Tribes of Ephraim and Shimeon from Israel that were present with Judah were they who dwelt in the Land of Judah or perhaps to some degree also those who had dwelt in their own territories adjoining Judah and had fled to Judah. They are referred to in a general sense as from Israel [in 2-Chronicles 35:18] and not by their specific tribes since they represented only a small portion of their tribe. These are they who returned under Ezra with the Jews from Babylon. They were not expressly mentioned by their tribes since they were attached to Judah. They all settled in the cities of Judah. There was no Redemption for the Ten Tribes who remained in exile."
Book of Redemption (Sefer HaGeulah).
THE COMPLETENESS OF THE ASSYRIAN EXILE IN SECULAR SOURCES and Archaeology
It has been claimed that Assyrian Inscriptions prove that only a relatively small number of people were actually exiled from Northern Israel. The Assyrian inscriptions have been misquoted.
The Assyrians in fact said that ALL the Northern Tribes were taken and in one frequently misquoted example it says that 22,000 (plus) of them were set aside for the personal use of the king (army?) but NOT THAT the total number of exiles was only about 22,000.
Archaeology shows a TOTAL GAP in occupation between the time of Assyrian Exile and the period after. Only the remains of burnt out destroyed cities remain from the Israelite Period AFTER the Assyrian Exile.
The Hebrews' enjoyment of their patrimony was curtailed due to war with Assyria. The lands of Israel were conquered and all of the people exiled. The Tribes east of the Jordan were among the first to be taken away.
How many Israelites were exiled may have been debated but the fact is that they all went, the northern Israelite Kingdom along with its inhabitant disappeared from the Israelite area.
NOTHING REALLY SIGNIFICANT REMAINED OF THEM. THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY MUST HAVE GONE INTO EXILE AS THE BIBLE SAYS THEY DID!! (2-Kings 17:3).
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7. Conclusion: The Lost Ten Tribes were Aptly Named!
The Ten Tribes had been referred to as Ten Tribes (1-Kings 11: 31, 35) and as Lost (Isaiah 27:13) hence we have the expression "Lost Ten Tribes."
It was predicted that the Ten Tribes would be separate from Judah almost till the end of historical time.
They would not be known to Judah and therefore not aware themselves of who they are.
See Also: Matter of Return.
How will the Lost Ten Tribes known who they are? Who will Judah recognize them?