Did Jeremiah Bring Davidic princesses to Ireland?
This article accompanies another one on a related subject, see:
No Princess? Another Cup of Tea Tephi?
https://hebrewnations.com/articles/bible/jeremiah/tea3.html
Question:
Anything recorded in Jewish texts about the names of the 2 daughters who went with Jeremiah out Jerusalem into Egypt after the Babylonian Invasion. Or any significant stand out details fo that period?'
Brit-Am Reply:
Jeremiah was born of a Priestly (Cohen) family, in the town of Anatoth in Benjamin. His father was the Prophet and High-Priest Hilkiah. Jeremiah began his prophecy during the time of the prophet Zephaniah and prophetess Huldah, in the thirteenth year of King Josiah son of Amon.
Jeremiah went to the Ten Tribes in their places of Exile. He persuaded some of them to return (Talmud Arakin 33a; Megilla 14b; Rashi on Sanhedrin 94a). The Israelite returnees were otherwise known as Scythians. They established a center in Beth-Shean and small settlements in other areas. These however were all abandoned at the end of the reign of Josiah. The Israelite returnees, according to Rabbinical sources then went back to their places of Exile (Rabbi S. GOREN, "Torat HaShabbat. VeHamoed" quotes Nachmanides-Ramban on Ketuboth 25a. See also similar remarks by NACHMANIDES in "The Book of Redemption", concerning the Census of Ezra and the fact that no members of the Lost Ten Tribes are recalled therein.). King Josiah had expanded the realm of Judah into former areas once settled by the Ten Tribes before the Assyrians took them away. Josiah went through the ruined cities of the Ten Tribes and destroyed all traces of idolatry he found there.
2-Chronicles (NIV) 34:
6 In the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them, 7 he tore down the altars and the Asherah poles and crushed the idols to powder and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout Israel. Then he went back to Jerusalem.
Meanwhile the majority of the Ten Tribes who were still in Exile managed, with the help of others, to take de facto control of the Assyrian Empire. Eventually, the Assyrians re-asserted themselves. A coalition including Medes, Babylonians, and some of the Scythians, besieged Nineveh the capital of Assyria. Egypt was worried about the Balance of Power in the region and so decided to support Assyria. An Egyptian army under Pharoah Neco marched to the aid of Assyria. King Josiah of Judah attempted to stop the Egyptian progress. The King of Egypt tried to dissuade him: "HE SENT AMBASSADORS TO HIM, SAYING, WHAT HAVE I TO DO WITH THEE, THOU KING OF JUDAH? I COME NOT AGAINST THEE THIS DAY, BUT AGAINST THE HOUSE WHEREWITH I HAVE WAR" [2-Chronicles 35:21]. The expression the Egyptian used to denote the Scythian side to the conflict is "House", i.e. not your house but the other (Scythian) house. This is an unusual choice of expression. There were two Houses of Israelites: the House of Judah and the House of Israel (2-Samuel 2:7 Jeremiah 11:10). Pharoah Neco was distinguishing between the two. King Josiah would not heed and was killed fighting Pharoah Neco at Megiddo in niorth Israel. The Egyptians continued northward, only to be defeated at Carchemish in north Syria (2-Chronicles 35:20-25).
King Josiah of Judah had died fighting on the Scythian behalf. After having defeated the Assyrians and the Egyptians, the Scythian leaders were invited by the Medes to a feast. The Medes got the Scythian leaders drunk and then massacred them (Herodotus 1;106). After this the Medes and Babylonians divided the former Assyrian Empire between themselves. The Scythians were to be pushed to the north beyond the Caucasus.
The Babylonians were to conquer Judah and exile its inhabitants to Babylon.
Later, the Medes lost supremacy to their allies, the Persians. Cyrus the Persian king conquered Babylon and allowed the Judeans to return to their land. As for the Ten Tribes, Medes, Babylonians and Persians were to progressively drive the Israelite-Scythians out of the Middle East area and into the north. From the north the Scythians were eventually to continue westward into Europe.
Meanwhile what had happened to the Prophet Jeremiah?
The prophet Jeremiah had warned Judah against resistance to Babylon but the people of Judah did not listen. Jeremiah was imprisoned in Jerusalem until the Babylonians captured the city. They destroyed the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah was released and treated favorably. The Babylonians exiled most of the people to Babylon. A small remnant remained over whom a descendant of David named Gedaliah was appointed. Jeremiah went to Mizpah in the territory of Benjamin where Gedaliah held his administration [Jeremiah 40:5-6]. Gedaliah was assassinated. Johanan succeeded Gedaliah. Along with the remnant of Judah Johanan feared the Babylonians would be angry at the death of Gedaliah and punish them. Against the advice of Jeremiah he fled with the people to Egypt taking Jeremiah, Baruch the Scribe and disciple of Jeremiah, and the daughters of King Zedekiah with him [Jeremiah 43:1-13].
Jeremiah (NIV) 43:
4 So Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers and all the people disobeyed the LORD's command to stay in the land of Judah. 5 Instead, Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers led away all the remnant of Judah who had come back to live in the land of Judah from all the nations where they had been scattered. 6 They also led away all those whom Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan.the men, the women, the children and the king's daughters. And they took Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah along with them. 7 So they entered Egypt in disobedience to the LORDnd went as far as Tahpanhes.
Jeremiah was connaded by God to take some stones and bury them "in the brick pavement at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes" (Jeremiah 43:9)
He was told that the King of Babylon, nebuchadnessar, was destined to conquer Egypt and set his throne over the stones.
Jeremiah, chapter 44, prophesies that disaster and destruction will overtake Egypt. The people of Judah who fled to Egypt will also perish. A small number of them however will be saved and return to Judah.
Jeremiah (NIV) 44:
26 But hear the word of the LORD, all you Jews living in Egypt: 'I swear by my great name,' says the LORD, 'that no one from Judah living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name or swear, 'As surely as the Sovereign LORD lives.' 27 For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed. 28 Those who escape the sword and return to the land of Judah from Egypt will be very few. Then the whole remnant of Judah who came to live in Egypt will know whose word will stand, mine or theirs.
29 'This will be the sign to you that I will punish you in this place,' declares the LORD, 'so that you will know that my threats of harm against you will surely stand.' 30 This is what the LORD says: 'I am going to deliver Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hands of his enemies who want to kill him, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who wanted to kill him.'
https://www.gotquestions.org/how-did-Jeremiah-die.html
... the early church father Tertullian, the Jews stoned Jeremiah to death in Daphne (Tahpanhes in Hebrew), Egypt. Jeremiah's 'crime' was telling them truths they did not want to hear [Scorpiace, Chapter VIII]. The tradition of Jeremiah's martyrdom is backed by other first-century, extrabiblical writings (Lives of the Prophets), and invoked in the works of Jerome, Isidore of Seville's De Ortu Et Obitu Patrum, and Peter Comestor's twelfth-century Historia Scholastica. However, one Jewish tradition claims that, when Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt around 569 BC, he took Jeremiah from Egypt to Babylon, where Jeremiah died.
https://www.929.org.il/lang/en/page/451/post/72793
According to Midrash Aggadah on Numbers 30:15 (ed. Buber, page 157), after Jeremiah reproached the Judean exiles in Egypt, they stoned the prophet to death. But they respectfully laid Jeremiah to rest in Egypt, because they loved Jeremiah for having successfully prayed to rid the Nile of crocodiles. Afterwards, Alexander the Great had Jeremiah's body exhumed and re-interred in Alexandria (see Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 'The Exile', note 42).
British-Israel sources claim that Jeremiah fled to Ireland bringing the daughters of King Zedekiah of Judah with him. Alternately it was not Jeremiah who brought the princesses to Ireland but rather Baruch son of Neriah the disciple of Jeremiah. One of the daughters married a local prince. The resulting dynasty eventually gave rise to the ruling house of Great Britain.
We have dealt with this issue on several occasions.
The point of the tale is given that in this way British Monarchs may also be relate themselves back to the House of David. This is despite the fact that everywhere else in the Bible the Royal genealogy goes through the male line. The image of Tea Tephi has enjoyed great popularity. There seems to be something about it that delights romantic imagination. Nevertheless, it seems that it originated with the British Israelite writer F. R. A. Glover, M.A., who in 1861 published 'England, the Remnant of Judah, and the Israel of Ephraim'. Others over the years have added to the image of Princess Tea, and changed some of the details. Nevertheless the fact that this belief exists and is quite popular may in itself be significant.
It was prophesied that descendants of David would always exist.
Jeremiah (NIV) 33:
14 'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.
15 'In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.
16 In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called:
The LORD Our Righteous Savior.'
17 For this is what the LORD says: 'David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel, 18 nor will the Levitical priests ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices.'
19 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 20 'This is what the LORD says: 'If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time, 21 then my covenant with David my servant, and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me, can be broken and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne. 22 I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars in the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore.'
This prophecy clearly is intended for a future time. The passage also speaks of the Levites. The Levites no longer serve in the Temple but still exist and will serve again when the Temple is rebuilt. So too, the descendants of David may no longer reign over Israel but they still exist and will reign in the future.
Nevertheless, the verse does say, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of Israel (Jeremiah ch.33:17). Taken out of its context it could be interpreted as saying that a descendant of David i will also rule over some part of Israel.
DAVID had numerous sons. Solomon the son of David had 300 wives and 700 concubines and children were borne to him. Most of the kings of the House of David had more than one wife and several children each of whom also would have raised a family of his own. It follows that numerous offspring on the male side must have belonged to the House of David. Descent through the male is what Scripture, strictly speaking, requires in order for the descendants to call themselves by the House of their male ancestor. This is despite the fact that in Jewish Law, anyone borne of a Jewish mother is considered Jewish. The House of David reigned in Judah and quite a few families amongst the present-day Jews trace themselves back to David, some of them have complete (or almost complete) geneaological records all the way back. In some cases the traditions may not be entierely valid ones but in other cases they most likely are. The Biblical Commentators Rashi (1040-1105) and Abarbanel (1435-1508) as well as the Maharal (1512-1609) and many other famous Rabbinical scholars were descended from King David. The Maharal (1512-1609) was the leading Rabbinical scholar in his time. John Dee who formulated the idea of a future British Empire in the time of Elizabeth-I was sent by Elizabeth to interview the Maharal. What transpired is unknown. The family of Yosef Dayan in Israel have a genealogical Family-Tree reaching back through the male line to King David! Apart from those descendants of David amongst the modern Jews, people from Judah were also exiled together with the Lost Ten Tribes and in this and other ways descendants of David must have penetrated the ranks of the exiled Israelites. An Aramaic inscription mentions a "House of David" somehow in connection with Dan in the Galilee. There was also a Judaean enclave known as Yadi in southeast Turkey which was attached to Judah in the south, "He recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel" (2-Kings 14;28). The rulers of Yadi had Hebrew names like Gabbar, Bamah, Hayya, Saul, and in our opinion represented a minor branch of the House of David. Yadi disappeared together with the northern Ten Tribed Kingdom of Israel. The Assyrians exiled the Ten Tribes of Israel. The Ten Tribes went to the north and part of them became identified as Scythians who were also known as Sacae. The Sacae-Scythians were spread over several areas and at one stage an offshoot of the Sacae had an independent kingdom in eastern Iran named 'Sakastan'. The ruling dynasty of Sakastan believed itself descended from King Solomon the son of David. Iberia (Georgia in the Caucasus in southern Russia) also belonged to the Scythians. Here too there was a dynasty (related to the Arsacid Kings of Parthia) that traced itself back to David as well as to a mythical "Angl-Tork." The main region of the Scythians was the area formerly known as the USSR which along with Eastern Europe is referred to in historical terms as 'Scythia.' The ruling houses of the Sakae-Scythians in Sakastan and Scythia were interrelated and had familial connections with the monarchs of the Guti (Goths) east of the Caspian Sea and with the Parthians and they with each other. It follows that these rulers too, at least in part, may well have been descended from David. The ruling house of the Khazars in southern Russia also, according to Arab sources, were from the House of Jesse (i.e. from David).
From the monarchic and aristocratic lines of Scythia came the early kings of Scandinavia, of the Franks, and of the Anglo-Saxons.
Machir of Narbonne in southern France who had his own autonomous realm was also descended from David and his family later intermarried with the aristocracy of Western Europe.
For more details about the House of David amongst the Jews
see "Davidic Dynasty":
Extract:
The partial lost of possible or probable descendants of King David include the family names:
Abarbanel*, Adler, Alter/Rotenberg (Ger Chassidim), Alfandari, Altshuler, Ashkenazi, Auerbach, Averels/Everels, Babad/Heschel*, Bach (descendants of Sirkes), Bachrach, Beharier, Berdugo, Berlin/Berliner, Bernstein, Biederman, Birnbaum, Breslav Chassidim, Nakhman, Burstein, Caro/Karo, Charif, Charlap*, Chayes/Chayut, Cohen (various families), Dayan*, Don Yechia/Ibn Yechia*, Edels, Ehrenreich, Ehrlich, Eichenstein (Zditchov Chassidim), Enzel, Epstein*, Falman, Fishel, Freidensohn, Frenkel/Frankel*, Frenkel-Teomim*, Friedland, Friedman (Rizhin, Sadagora etc. Chassidim), Fuchs, Ginzburg/Gunzburg, Glickman, Goldman, Gombiner, Gordon, Halberstam(ZanzChassidim), Heilprin/Halperin*, Heller*, Helman, Hertzkes, Heschel/Babad*, Hillel and the Nesi'im*, Horowitz/Hurwitz (various Chassidim)*, Ish-Zvi, Isserles/Isserlin*, Itinga/Ettinger/Ittingen, Jaffe/Yoffe* / ** , Kalb, Kalmankes, Kalonymus*, Karo/Caro*, Katz (Maharal of Prague)* / **, Katzenellenbogen*, Klauber, Klausner*, Klingberg, Landau, Lau, Levinsohn, Lichtenstadt, Lichtenstein, Lifshutz/Lipshitz, Loeb*, Loewenstam, Lowe*, Lubarsky, Lukashevesky (Lux), Lurie/Luria*, Maharal of Prague * / **, Malavski, Margolioth, Margulies/Margolis/Margaliot*, Meisels*, Mintzberg, Mirels, Mirkes, Morgenstern (Kotzk Chassidim), Moskowitz, Oknovski, Openheim, Paprosh, Parnas, Pereles, Peretz, Polak, Posner, Rabinowitz, Rapaport*, Rashei Galut (Exilarchs) male descent from David*, Rashi (descendants of daughters)*, Reines, Roffe, Rokeach (Belz Chassidim), Rotenberg/Alter (Ger Chassidim), Roth, Rubin (Horowitz) (Ropshitz Chassidim), Rubinstein, Sabatka, Safrin, Sassoon*, Schneurson, Schneurson (Lubavitch Chassidim), Schol, Schorr*, Segal (descendantz of "Taz"), Shachor/Charny/Shwartz, Shapiro/Shapira.Spiro/Spira*, Shealtiel/Sealtiel*, Shereshevski, Shrentzels*, Simchowitz/Simchowitch, Sirkes/Sirkin, Sonnabend, Spiro, Tamarels, Teitelbaum, Teomim/Teomin-Frenkel*, Treves/Dreyfus*, Twersky (Chemobyl Chassidim), Weil *, Weinberg, Weisblum (Lizhensk Chassidim)*, Widslawski, Winkler, Zak, Zaslovsky, Zifferstein, Zinger