The Lost Tribes Of Israel
Where are the lost tribes of Israel?
People have been identifying various newly discovered people groups as belonging to one or more of the lost tribes of Israel, at least since the day when worlds collided. Sometimes, people have tried to assign a large ethnic group, like all Anglo-Saxons, or all Africans, as making up all of the real Israelites. They will even go so far as to say the people living in Israel today are not the real Jews.
More frequently, they will identify a smaller people group as being one of the lost tribes of Israel. For example, some people identify the Bnei Menashe as being the entire tribe of Menasseh, since their name literally means "sons of Menasseh".
There are a number of problems with this claim.
One problem is that they were not called the Bnei Menashe, until a Rabbi gave them this name around 1990 AD. This particular Rabbi founded a group called "Amishav" ("my people return") in 1975 AD to find members of the lost tribes of Israel, and help them return to the land of Israel. He gave them this name based on the name of their founding ancestor in their oral history, named Manmasi.
Another problem is that most of the members of the larger people group that they live among reject all claims that the Bnei Menashe are part of the people of Israel. They point out that the men in Bnei Menashe have the same Indian-Chinese genetic mix in their Y chromosome DNA as their neighbors. Indeed, there has yet to be found any Middle Eastern DNA evidence in any of the men tested so far. However, there has been some found in a small percentage of the women.
None of this means for certain, that the Bnei Menashe are not part of the people of Israel.
The fact is, that the DNA sequencing that identifies people as definitely being part of the people of Israel has not been identified. The only markers that have been completely isolated are the Kohen genetic markers, which identify descendants of Aaron, the first high priest.
While Middle Eastern DNA markers might be a good indicator of being a descendant of Israel (Yah'acob aka Jacob) in Norway, it is meaningless as an indicator in the Middle East. The prescence of Middle Eastern DNA only has meaning in areas, where Jews were the only people from the Middle East to immigrate there.
Likewise, the lack of Middle Eastern DNA markers is not proof that someone is not part of the people of Israel. More than half of the Jews in the world lack any known Middle Eastern DNA markers. These DNA markers have been washed out of their DNA through generations of inter-racial marriage.
There simply is no means today to determine if someone is a descendant of Israel based on DNA evidence alone. (Unless, they have the Kohen DNA marker, but this is less than 1 in 10,000 of all descendants of Israel.) There is certainly no way today to rule anyone out as being a descendant of Israel based on DNA evidence.
So, based on some other evidence of customs among the Bnei Menashe, they were declared to be Jews by the Sephardic Chief Rabbinate of Israel in 2005. They could make aliyah to Israel on condition that the converted to Rabbinic Judaism. About three thousand of them have made aliyah to Israel, while about seven thousand are still in India. Most of those who remain have refused to convert to Rabbinic Judaism, because they are followers of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ).
This is another problem in itself.
The Bnei Menashe worshiped rocks and trees in their head-hunting religion when Baptist missionaries first encountered them, some time before 1900 AD. After a great revival in 1906 AD, many of them became followers of the Man of Truth. When these missionaries abandoned the policy of forbidding the inclusion of their traditional customs in worship, a greater revival ensued from 1919 AD to 1924 AD, that brought almost every member of their tribe into the House of Truth.
As the Bnei Menashe began learning how to read the Book of Truth (The Bible) for themselves, they began noticing similarities between many of their own customs and those commanded in the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law). They also noticed things in the Book of Truth that the Baptist missionaries had not told them about, so they started putting them in practice. The Baptist missionaries were horrified when some of the Bnei Menashe started producing the sound of power, and took steps to put an end to it in 1949 AD.
Around 1950 AD, the Bnei Menashe had adjusted their customs to match those in the Law of Truth, since they were so similar. Due to this similarity of their customs with those in the Law of Truth, and the similarity of the name of their great ancestor to one of the sons of Israel, they became Messianic Jews. So, by the time that they were "discovered" by Amishav almost forty years later, it was hard to tell what their customs were before they had adjusted them. There simply was not much documented about their pre-contact customs, since they had no written language, until the Baptist missionaries helped them develop one.
So, there is controversy about their status as descendants of Israel. It has not gone unnoticed that the ones who immigrated to Israel have all became part of the Sephardic Jews, bolstering the position of the Sephardic Jews in their struggle against the Ashkenazi Jews for control of religious life in Israel.
However, without controversy, the biggest problem with the claim that the Bnei Menashe are the entire tribe of Menasseh, is that there is simply not enough of them. The tribe of Manasseh should have millions of members, while there are only about ten thousand members of the Bnei Menashe.
Also, it was not Amishav, which first declared that the Bnei Menashe were a lost tribe of Israel. It was not even the Bnei Menashe, who first made this declaration. It was the Baptist missionaries who first declared this, not long after they first encountered the Bnei Menashe.
This was not an isolated case. The fact is, that many missionaries, especially Christian Zionists, have made declarations of this type about a myriad of isolated people groups, which they have encountered since the New World was discovered. They were all looking for the lost tribes of Israel.
So, who are the lost tribes of Israel?
Israel had twelve sons (Genesis 35:22-26). These twelve sons were the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel (Genesis 49:2-28). The land of Israel was divided between these twelve tribes, so that each tribe had a land that bore its name (Joshua 11:23).
The tribes of Israel formed a confederacy of twelve different countries, without a king to unite all twelve tribes into one country (Judges 21:24-25). Hundreds of years later, the tribes of Israel decided to join together to form one country that was ruled by one king (1 Samuel 8:5-20). So, the united kingdom of Israel was formed from the twelve tribes of Israel (1 Samuel 15:17).
About one hundred and twenty years later, the united kingdom of Israel was splint into two smaller kingdoms. The ten northern tribes split off from the two southern tribes to form the northern kingdom (1 Kings 11:29-31). The two southern tribes then formed the southern kingdom (1 Kings 12:21-24).
The northern kingdom became known as Israel, because most of the tribes of Israel belonged to it (1 Kings 12:19-21). The southern kingdom became known as Judah, after the most prominent tribe of Israel in it (1 Kings 12:27).
Hundreds of years later, the people in the northern kingdom of Israel were taken out of their land, and scattered to other lands by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:21-23). One hundred and thirty seven years later, the people in the southern kingdom of Judah were taken out of their land, and scattered to other lands by the Babylonians (2 Kings 25:21).
Seventy years later, the people of the southern kingdom of Judah began returning to their land (Jeremiah 29:10-14).
However, the people of the northern kingdom never returned to their land. Over the centuries, they were scattered more as the Assyrian Empire was succeeded by the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks, and finally the Romans. Over the centuries, the people of the northern kingdom lost track of each other, lost much of their culture, and even lost their identity as descendants of Israel in most cases. Since the northern kingdom of Israel was composed of the land and people of the ten northern tribes of Israel, these ten tribes are referred to as the lost tribes of Israel.
The capital of the northern kingdom of Israel was built on Mount Ephraim (1 Kings 12:25). For this reason, the northern kingdom of Israel is sometimes referred to as Ephraim (2 Chronicles 25:7). (This is similar to how the United States is sometimes referred to as America.) The Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) promised to one day bring the people of the Ephraim, the northern kingdom, back to the land of Israel, along with the people of Judah, the southern kingdom (Isaiah 11:11-13). He promised that, the twelve tribes would once again form the united kingdom of Israel, with the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) as their king (Ezekiel 37:16-22).
Since the Man of Truth cannot come back until at least some members of all twelve tribes have returned to the land of Israel, missionaries have been looking for the ten lost tribes of Israel everywhere they have went. The Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him) have also helped people that they identified as belonging to one of the lost tribes of Israel return to the land of Israel.
So basically, the lost tribes of Israel can be summarized like this: Ten of the twelve tribes lived in the northern kingdom of Israel. When the people of the northern kingdom of Israel were scattered by the Assyrians, then these ten tribes were scattered. Since these scattered tribes never returned to the land of Israel, but were scattered even more by succeeding empires, then these ten tribes of Israel have been lost. The Man of Truth cannot return until these ten lost tribes are found, and at least some members of each tribe has returned to the land of Israel. So, missionaries have been looking to see if each new people group that they encounter, is one of those lost tribes of Israel, so they can help return the lost tribes of Israel back to the land of Israel.
However, does the Book of Truth really say that these tribes of Israel were lost?
Only those from a tribe of Israel could own rural property in the land of that tribe (Numbers 36:7-9). Even if they sold the rural property that they inherited to someone from outside of their tribe, they could buy it back at any time (Leviticus 25:24-27). In the worst case, they would get it back in the year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:28). The same was true about the unwalled villages in the land of the tribe (Leviticus 25:31). So, it would seem that if everyone in the land of these ten tribes were scattered by the Assyrians, then everyone in these ten tribes were scattered and lost.
However, that is not the whole story. It is just not as tidy as that.
Anyone could own a house in a walled city in the land of any tribe, not just their own, even a Gentile who lived among the people of Israel (Leviticus 25:29-30).
For this reason, many of the people from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon lived in the cities of the southern kingdom of Judah (2 Chronicles 15:8-10). There were also people from the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Issachar, who moved to the southern kingdom of Judah (2 Chronicles 30:11-18). There people from all over the northern kingdom of Israel that had fled to the southern kingdom of Judah, when the Assyrians came to remove the people from the northern kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 34:9). People from all ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel were present in the southern kingdom of Judah, after the Assyrians removed everyone from the northern kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 34:31-33).
However, it did not end there.
People from all ten tribes were taken to live in Assyria, and in the cities of the Medes, by the Assyrians (2 Kings 18:10-12).
Then Babylon took over all of the nations that Assyria had overthrown, along with the southern kingdom of Judah (Jeremiah 25:9-11). The Medes were among those who became part of the Babylonian Empire (Jeremiah 25:18-25). Assyria was destroyed when the Babylonians took over the Assyrian Empire (Zephaniah 2:13-15).
After that, the Medes overthrew the Babylonian Empire (Isaiah 13:17-19). The Medes then ruled over all the lands that the Babylonians (Chaldeans) had ruled over (Daniel 9:1).
So, the descendants of the ten tribes that made up the northern kingdom of Israel, became part of the Babylonian Empire and the empire of the Medes and Persians (Persian Empire). By the time that the people of the southern kingdom of Judah were taken captive into Babylon, the descendants of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel were already part of the Babylonian Empire. All twelve tribes were then scattered throughout the Persian Empire.
It is for this reason, that Ezra offered a goat for each of the twelve tribes, when the second Temple was dedicated (Ezra 6:16-18). This why hundreds of years later, Anna from the tribe of Asher (Aser) was in the Temple (Luke 2:36-38). In like manner, Paul the Jew (Shaul aka Saul aka The Apostle Paul) said that, the twelve tribes of Israel were serving the Father of Truth in the Temple day and night (Acts 26:6-7).
It is worth noting, that Jews, the people from the southern kingdom of Judah, did not all return to the land of Judah, even though some people from all twelve tribes did. The Persian Empire stretched from India to Ethiopia, and Jews lived in every part of it, long after they were allowed to return to the land of Judah (Esther 8:9). This was still the case hundreds of years later, when James the Jew (Yah'acob aka Jacob aka The Apostle James) addressed his epistle to the twelve tribes of Israel, who were still scattered outside of the land of Israel (James 1:1).
So the fact is, that none of the tribes of Israel were ever completely lost from each other. Even among Jews today, there are people with last names like Reuben, which identify that they belong to one of the northern kingdom tribes. It is certain that the Father of Truth has never lost track of anyone belonging any of the tribes of Israel, for He will have twelve thousand of each tribe (except Dan) sealed during the Tribulation (Revelation 7:3-8).
Instead, all the tribes of Israel have been scattered to the ends of the Earth (Deuteronomy 28:63-64). So, the Man of Truth has been raised among the Gentiles, and has motivated Christian Zionists into helping people from all of the tribes of the northern kingdom, as well as those of the southern kingdom, return to the land of Israel from the ends of the Earth (Isaiah 11:10-12). Not every member of every tribe will be regathered to the land of Israel from the ends of the Earth, until the Man of Truth returns to rule over the Earth (Mark 13:24-27).
So, it is not that any of the tribes of Israel have been lost, but rather that parts of each tribe have lost contact with the other descendants of Israel. These parts of each tribe of Israel, that have lost contact with the other descendants of Israel, have in many cases lost part of their identity as being part of the people of Israel.
In some cases, the identity as part of a tribe of Israel was hidden to protect their members from destruction by the Gentiles around them. In other cases, their identity was lost as they intermarried with the Gentiles around them. As the generations passed, in many cases, their identity of being part of a tribe of Israel was forgotten completely, even though they continued to not fit in with the host ethnic group that they had come to resemble in appearance.
However, when their identity as part of a tribe of Israel was hidden from even them, it did not change the fact that they were a hidden part of a tribe of Israel. Not only has the Father of Truth kept track of their identity as part of a tribe of Israel, but the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan Aka The Devil) has been keeping track of their identity as well.
That is why the Spirit of Anti-Jewism will has often raised up unusual persecution against them by the host ethnic group for no apparent reason. This is why the enemies of the Father of Truth have not just sought to destroy the known descendants of Israel, but also the hidden ones that have lost their identity as part of a tribe of Israel (Psalm 83:2-4).
So, these hidden ones are part of the tribes of Israel, which have been lost to the descendants of Israel that were able to maintain contact with each other. In that sense, it could be said that the Bnei Menashe are part of the lost tribe of Manasseh. Other similar people groups could be said to be part of the lost tribes of Israel.
In like manner, even among the known descendants of Israel, the majority do not know what tribe that they actually belong to. They have not lost their identity as being part of the people of Israel, but they have lost their identity as belonging to a particular tribe of Israel. So in another sense, it could be said that many Jews in Israel and all over the Earth, are part of a lost tribe of Israel as well.
In either case, it is not that any tribes of Israel have been lost, but that the identity of the membership of these tribes has been partially lost. The tribes of Israel have never been completely lost, but the ability to identify all the members of the tribe has been lost.
So, the lost tribes of Israel are those descendants of Israel, who have lost their identity as a member of a particular tribe of Israel. The tribes of Israel are lost today, in that all of their their members cannot be identified. The tribes of Israel have lost their identity. The lost tribes of Israel are lost among all other ethnic groups all over the Earth.
However, the lost tribes of Israel will not stay lost forever. The Man of Truth is going to restore their identity to them, because he is first and foremost the Messiah of Israel.
The Messiah of Israel is going to finish bringing all of the descendants of Israel back into the Promised Land, and set up a new united kingdom of Israel there (Isaiah 11:10-13).
The Messiah of Israel will not only finish bringing the descendants of Israel back into the Promised Land, but he place each member of each tribe in the new land of that tribe. The land of seven of the tribes will be in the north, in strips that go east to west (Ezekiel 48:1-7). Then a strip in the middle, going east to west, will contain the land of the Levites, the Priests, the Prince, and the city of Jerusalem, where people from all twelve tribes will live (Ezekiel 48:8-22). The land of the remaining five tribes will be in the south, in strips that go east to west (Ezekiel 48:23-28).
Every member of every tribe of Israel will live in the land of their tribe (Ezekiel 48:29). Even the members of each tribe who live in Jerusalem, will know the identity of their tribe, and will live in the land of Israel with the Messiah of Israel (Ezekiel 48:31-35).
The lost tribes of Israel will be lost no more.
The tribes of Israel have been lost because they left the House of Truth. It is for this reason, that the Man of Truth sent his messengers to first bring the message of salvation to the lost among the tribes of Israel (Matthew 10:5-7). The Man of Truth came to save the tribes of Israel from being lost (Matthew 15:24).
It is not just the lost tribes of Israel that the Man of Truth has came to save from being lost. It has always been about the Gentiles.
The Man of Truth came to save the lost Gentiles as well, for his suffering on the cross was too great just to save the lost tribes of Israel (Isaiah 49:5-7). He was sent to save the lost human race (Matthew 18:10-14).
The Father of Truth accepts anyone who will walk in His ways (Isaiah 56:1-5). Even a Gentile, who walks in His ways, will have a part of the walled city of Jerusalem (Isaiah 56:6-7). The Temple in Jerusalem was always meant to be place of prayer for the Gentiles as well as the people of Israel (Mark 11:17).
The Man of Truth was sent to gather to himself much more than just the lost tribes of Israel (Isaiah 56:8). He came to gather those among the people of Israel and the Gentiles, who will obey him, to live as the people of His Father together in one place (John 10:14-16).
You might be one of the few people of Israel, who know what tribe they are from. You might be one of the majority of the people of Israel, who do not know what tribe they are from. You might be one of the hidden ones, who have no clue that they are part of one of the tribes of Israel. You might be one of the vast majority of people, who are not part of any tribe of Israel.
The truth is, that it just does not matter. You do not come into the House of Truth by being part of one of the lost tribes of Israel.
The Man of Truth suffered on the cross, so that everyone could come into the House of Truth, and be part of the Israel that the Father of Truth has always desired (Galatians 6:14-16).
You come into the House of Truth by faith in the Man of Truth (Ephesians 2:8-10). Those who come into the House of Truth, become part of the Israel that the Father of Truth has always desired (Ephesians 2:11-13). There is no separation between the descendants of Israel and the Gentiles, when both come into the House of Truth (Ephesians 2:14-16). There is simply no difference among those, who come into the House of Truth (Ephesians 2:17-19).
You come into the House of Truth by making the Man of Truth your king, because you believe that his Father raised him from the dead (Romans 10:8-10). Everyone comes into the House of Truth the same way, even the lost tribes of Israel (Romans 10:11-13).
Come into the House of Truth!
People have been identifying various newly discovered people groups as belonging to one or more of the lost tribes of Israel, at least since the day when worlds collided. Sometimes, people have tried to assign a large ethnic group, like all Anglo-Saxons, or all Africans, as making up all of the real Israelites. They will even go so far as to say the people living in Israel today are not the real Jews.
More frequently, they will identify a smaller people group as being one of the lost tribes of Israel. For example, some people identify the Bnei Menashe as being the entire tribe of Menasseh, since their name literally means "sons of Menasseh".
There are a number of problems with this claim.
One problem is that they were not called the Bnei Menashe, until a Rabbi gave them this name around 1990 AD. This particular Rabbi founded a group called "Amishav" ("my people return") in 1975 AD to find members of the lost tribes of Israel, and help them return to the land of Israel. He gave them this name based on the name of their founding ancestor in their oral history, named Manmasi.
Another problem is that most of the members of the larger people group that they live among reject all claims that the Bnei Menashe are part of the people of Israel. They point out that the men in Bnei Menashe have the same Indian-Chinese genetic mix in their Y chromosome DNA as their neighbors. Indeed, there has yet to be found any Middle Eastern DNA evidence in any of the men tested so far. However, there has been some found in a small percentage of the women.
None of this means for certain, that the Bnei Menashe are not part of the people of Israel.
The fact is, that the DNA sequencing that identifies people as definitely being part of the people of Israel has not been identified. The only markers that have been completely isolated are the Kohen genetic markers, which identify descendants of Aaron, the first high priest.
While Middle Eastern DNA markers might be a good indicator of being a descendant of Israel (Yah'acob aka Jacob) in Norway, it is meaningless as an indicator in the Middle East. The prescence of Middle Eastern DNA only has meaning in areas, where Jews were the only people from the Middle East to immigrate there.
Likewise, the lack of Middle Eastern DNA markers is not proof that someone is not part of the people of Israel. More than half of the Jews in the world lack any known Middle Eastern DNA markers. These DNA markers have been washed out of their DNA through generations of inter-racial marriage.
There simply is no means today to determine if someone is a descendant of Israel based on DNA evidence alone. (Unless, they have the Kohen DNA marker, but this is less than 1 in 10,000 of all descendants of Israel.) There is certainly no way today to rule anyone out as being a descendant of Israel based on DNA evidence.
So, based on some other evidence of customs among the Bnei Menashe, they were declared to be Jews by the Sephardic Chief Rabbinate of Israel in 2005. They could make aliyah to Israel on condition that the converted to Rabbinic Judaism. About three thousand of them have made aliyah to Israel, while about seven thousand are still in India. Most of those who remain have refused to convert to Rabbinic Judaism, because they are followers of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ).
This is another problem in itself.
The Bnei Menashe worshiped rocks and trees in their head-hunting religion when Baptist missionaries first encountered them, some time before 1900 AD. After a great revival in 1906 AD, many of them became followers of the Man of Truth. When these missionaries abandoned the policy of forbidding the inclusion of their traditional customs in worship, a greater revival ensued from 1919 AD to 1924 AD, that brought almost every member of their tribe into the House of Truth.
As the Bnei Menashe began learning how to read the Book of Truth (The Bible) for themselves, they began noticing similarities between many of their own customs and those commanded in the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law). They also noticed things in the Book of Truth that the Baptist missionaries had not told them about, so they started putting them in practice. The Baptist missionaries were horrified when some of the Bnei Menashe started producing the sound of power, and took steps to put an end to it in 1949 AD.
Around 1950 AD, the Bnei Menashe had adjusted their customs to match those in the Law of Truth, since they were so similar. Due to this similarity of their customs with those in the Law of Truth, and the similarity of the name of their great ancestor to one of the sons of Israel, they became Messianic Jews. So, by the time that they were "discovered" by Amishav almost forty years later, it was hard to tell what their customs were before they had adjusted them. There simply was not much documented about their pre-contact customs, since they had no written language, until the Baptist missionaries helped them develop one.
So, there is controversy about their status as descendants of Israel. It has not gone unnoticed that the ones who immigrated to Israel have all became part of the Sephardic Jews, bolstering the position of the Sephardic Jews in their struggle against the Ashkenazi Jews for control of religious life in Israel.
However, without controversy, the biggest problem with the claim that the Bnei Menashe are the entire tribe of Menasseh, is that there is simply not enough of them. The tribe of Manasseh should have millions of members, while there are only about ten thousand members of the Bnei Menashe.
Also, it was not Amishav, which first declared that the Bnei Menashe were a lost tribe of Israel. It was not even the Bnei Menashe, who first made this declaration. It was the Baptist missionaries who first declared this, not long after they first encountered the Bnei Menashe.
This was not an isolated case. The fact is, that many missionaries, especially Christian Zionists, have made declarations of this type about a myriad of isolated people groups, which they have encountered since the New World was discovered. They were all looking for the lost tribes of Israel.
So, who are the lost tribes of Israel?
Israel had twelve sons (Genesis 35:22-26). These twelve sons were the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel (Genesis 49:2-28). The land of Israel was divided between these twelve tribes, so that each tribe had a land that bore its name (Joshua 11:23).
The tribes of Israel formed a confederacy of twelve different countries, without a king to unite all twelve tribes into one country (Judges 21:24-25). Hundreds of years later, the tribes of Israel decided to join together to form one country that was ruled by one king (1 Samuel 8:5-20). So, the united kingdom of Israel was formed from the twelve tribes of Israel (1 Samuel 15:17).
About one hundred and twenty years later, the united kingdom of Israel was splint into two smaller kingdoms. The ten northern tribes split off from the two southern tribes to form the northern kingdom (1 Kings 11:29-31). The two southern tribes then formed the southern kingdom (1 Kings 12:21-24).
The northern kingdom became known as Israel, because most of the tribes of Israel belonged to it (1 Kings 12:19-21). The southern kingdom became known as Judah, after the most prominent tribe of Israel in it (1 Kings 12:27).
Hundreds of years later, the people in the northern kingdom of Israel were taken out of their land, and scattered to other lands by the Assyrians (2 Kings 17:21-23). One hundred and thirty seven years later, the people in the southern kingdom of Judah were taken out of their land, and scattered to other lands by the Babylonians (2 Kings 25:21).
Seventy years later, the people of the southern kingdom of Judah began returning to their land (Jeremiah 29:10-14).
However, the people of the northern kingdom never returned to their land. Over the centuries, they were scattered more as the Assyrian Empire was succeeded by the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks, and finally the Romans. Over the centuries, the people of the northern kingdom lost track of each other, lost much of their culture, and even lost their identity as descendants of Israel in most cases. Since the northern kingdom of Israel was composed of the land and people of the ten northern tribes of Israel, these ten tribes are referred to as the lost tribes of Israel.
The capital of the northern kingdom of Israel was built on Mount Ephraim (1 Kings 12:25). For this reason, the northern kingdom of Israel is sometimes referred to as Ephraim (2 Chronicles 25:7). (This is similar to how the United States is sometimes referred to as America.) The Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) promised to one day bring the people of the Ephraim, the northern kingdom, back to the land of Israel, along with the people of Judah, the southern kingdom (Isaiah 11:11-13). He promised that, the twelve tribes would once again form the united kingdom of Israel, with the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) as their king (Ezekiel 37:16-22).
Since the Man of Truth cannot come back until at least some members of all twelve tribes have returned to the land of Israel, missionaries have been looking for the ten lost tribes of Israel everywhere they have went. The Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him) have also helped people that they identified as belonging to one of the lost tribes of Israel return to the land of Israel.
So basically, the lost tribes of Israel can be summarized like this: Ten of the twelve tribes lived in the northern kingdom of Israel. When the people of the northern kingdom of Israel were scattered by the Assyrians, then these ten tribes were scattered. Since these scattered tribes never returned to the land of Israel, but were scattered even more by succeeding empires, then these ten tribes of Israel have been lost. The Man of Truth cannot return until these ten lost tribes are found, and at least some members of each tribe has returned to the land of Israel. So, missionaries have been looking to see if each new people group that they encounter, is one of those lost tribes of Israel, so they can help return the lost tribes of Israel back to the land of Israel.
However, does the Book of Truth really say that these tribes of Israel were lost?
Only those from a tribe of Israel could own rural property in the land of that tribe (Numbers 36:7-9). Even if they sold the rural property that they inherited to someone from outside of their tribe, they could buy it back at any time (Leviticus 25:24-27). In the worst case, they would get it back in the year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:28). The same was true about the unwalled villages in the land of the tribe (Leviticus 25:31). So, it would seem that if everyone in the land of these ten tribes were scattered by the Assyrians, then everyone in these ten tribes were scattered and lost.
However, that is not the whole story. It is just not as tidy as that.
Anyone could own a house in a walled city in the land of any tribe, not just their own, even a Gentile who lived among the people of Israel (Leviticus 25:29-30).
For this reason, many of the people from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon lived in the cities of the southern kingdom of Judah (2 Chronicles 15:8-10). There were also people from the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Issachar, who moved to the southern kingdom of Judah (2 Chronicles 30:11-18). There people from all over the northern kingdom of Israel that had fled to the southern kingdom of Judah, when the Assyrians came to remove the people from the northern kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 34:9). People from all ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel were present in the southern kingdom of Judah, after the Assyrians removed everyone from the northern kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 34:31-33).
However, it did not end there.
People from all ten tribes were taken to live in Assyria, and in the cities of the Medes, by the Assyrians (2 Kings 18:10-12).
Then Babylon took over all of the nations that Assyria had overthrown, along with the southern kingdom of Judah (Jeremiah 25:9-11). The Medes were among those who became part of the Babylonian Empire (Jeremiah 25:18-25). Assyria was destroyed when the Babylonians took over the Assyrian Empire (Zephaniah 2:13-15).
After that, the Medes overthrew the Babylonian Empire (Isaiah 13:17-19). The Medes then ruled over all the lands that the Babylonians (Chaldeans) had ruled over (Daniel 9:1).
So, the descendants of the ten tribes that made up the northern kingdom of Israel, became part of the Babylonian Empire and the empire of the Medes and Persians (Persian Empire). By the time that the people of the southern kingdom of Judah were taken captive into Babylon, the descendants of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel were already part of the Babylonian Empire. All twelve tribes were then scattered throughout the Persian Empire.
It is for this reason, that Ezra offered a goat for each of the twelve tribes, when the second Temple was dedicated (Ezra 6:16-18). This why hundreds of years later, Anna from the tribe of Asher (Aser) was in the Temple (Luke 2:36-38). In like manner, Paul the Jew (Shaul aka Saul aka The Apostle Paul) said that, the twelve tribes of Israel were serving the Father of Truth in the Temple day and night (Acts 26:6-7).
It is worth noting, that Jews, the people from the southern kingdom of Judah, did not all return to the land of Judah, even though some people from all twelve tribes did. The Persian Empire stretched from India to Ethiopia, and Jews lived in every part of it, long after they were allowed to return to the land of Judah (Esther 8:9). This was still the case hundreds of years later, when James the Jew (Yah'acob aka Jacob aka The Apostle James) addressed his epistle to the twelve tribes of Israel, who were still scattered outside of the land of Israel (James 1:1).
So the fact is, that none of the tribes of Israel were ever completely lost from each other. Even among Jews today, there are people with last names like Reuben, which identify that they belong to one of the northern kingdom tribes. It is certain that the Father of Truth has never lost track of anyone belonging any of the tribes of Israel, for He will have twelve thousand of each tribe (except Dan) sealed during the Tribulation (Revelation 7:3-8).
Instead, all the tribes of Israel have been scattered to the ends of the Earth (Deuteronomy 28:63-64). So, the Man of Truth has been raised among the Gentiles, and has motivated Christian Zionists into helping people from all of the tribes of the northern kingdom, as well as those of the southern kingdom, return to the land of Israel from the ends of the Earth (Isaiah 11:10-12). Not every member of every tribe will be regathered to the land of Israel from the ends of the Earth, until the Man of Truth returns to rule over the Earth (Mark 13:24-27).
So, it is not that any of the tribes of Israel have been lost, but rather that parts of each tribe have lost contact with the other descendants of Israel. These parts of each tribe of Israel, that have lost contact with the other descendants of Israel, have in many cases lost part of their identity as being part of the people of Israel.
In some cases, the identity as part of a tribe of Israel was hidden to protect their members from destruction by the Gentiles around them. In other cases, their identity was lost as they intermarried with the Gentiles around them. As the generations passed, in many cases, their identity of being part of a tribe of Israel was forgotten completely, even though they continued to not fit in with the host ethnic group that they had come to resemble in appearance.
However, when their identity as part of a tribe of Israel was hidden from even them, it did not change the fact that they were a hidden part of a tribe of Israel. Not only has the Father of Truth kept track of their identity as part of a tribe of Israel, but the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan Aka The Devil) has been keeping track of their identity as well.
That is why the Spirit of Anti-Jewism will has often raised up unusual persecution against them by the host ethnic group for no apparent reason. This is why the enemies of the Father of Truth have not just sought to destroy the known descendants of Israel, but also the hidden ones that have lost their identity as part of a tribe of Israel (Psalm 83:2-4).
So, these hidden ones are part of the tribes of Israel, which have been lost to the descendants of Israel that were able to maintain contact with each other. In that sense, it could be said that the Bnei Menashe are part of the lost tribe of Manasseh. Other similar people groups could be said to be part of the lost tribes of Israel.
In like manner, even among the known descendants of Israel, the majority do not know what tribe that they actually belong to. They have not lost their identity as being part of the people of Israel, but they have lost their identity as belonging to a particular tribe of Israel. So in another sense, it could be said that many Jews in Israel and all over the Earth, are part of a lost tribe of Israel as well.
In either case, it is not that any tribes of Israel have been lost, but that the identity of the membership of these tribes has been partially lost. The tribes of Israel have never been completely lost, but the ability to identify all the members of the tribe has been lost.
So, the lost tribes of Israel are those descendants of Israel, who have lost their identity as a member of a particular tribe of Israel. The tribes of Israel are lost today, in that all of their their members cannot be identified. The tribes of Israel have lost their identity. The lost tribes of Israel are lost among all other ethnic groups all over the Earth.
However, the lost tribes of Israel will not stay lost forever. The Man of Truth is going to restore their identity to them, because he is first and foremost the Messiah of Israel.
The Messiah of Israel is going to finish bringing all of the descendants of Israel back into the Promised Land, and set up a new united kingdom of Israel there (Isaiah 11:10-13).
The Messiah of Israel will not only finish bringing the descendants of Israel back into the Promised Land, but he place each member of each tribe in the new land of that tribe. The land of seven of the tribes will be in the north, in strips that go east to west (Ezekiel 48:1-7). Then a strip in the middle, going east to west, will contain the land of the Levites, the Priests, the Prince, and the city of Jerusalem, where people from all twelve tribes will live (Ezekiel 48:8-22). The land of the remaining five tribes will be in the south, in strips that go east to west (Ezekiel 48:23-28).
Every member of every tribe of Israel will live in the land of their tribe (Ezekiel 48:29). Even the members of each tribe who live in Jerusalem, will know the identity of their tribe, and will live in the land of Israel with the Messiah of Israel (Ezekiel 48:31-35).
The lost tribes of Israel will be lost no more.
The tribes of Israel have been lost because they left the House of Truth. It is for this reason, that the Man of Truth sent his messengers to first bring the message of salvation to the lost among the tribes of Israel (Matthew 10:5-7). The Man of Truth came to save the tribes of Israel from being lost (Matthew 15:24).
It is not just the lost tribes of Israel that the Man of Truth has came to save from being lost. It has always been about the Gentiles.
The Man of Truth came to save the lost Gentiles as well, for his suffering on the cross was too great just to save the lost tribes of Israel (Isaiah 49:5-7). He was sent to save the lost human race (Matthew 18:10-14).
The Father of Truth accepts anyone who will walk in His ways (Isaiah 56:1-5). Even a Gentile, who walks in His ways, will have a part of the walled city of Jerusalem (Isaiah 56:6-7). The Temple in Jerusalem was always meant to be place of prayer for the Gentiles as well as the people of Israel (Mark 11:17).
The Man of Truth was sent to gather to himself much more than just the lost tribes of Israel (Isaiah 56:8). He came to gather those among the people of Israel and the Gentiles, who will obey him, to live as the people of His Father together in one place (John 10:14-16).
You might be one of the few people of Israel, who know what tribe they are from. You might be one of the majority of the people of Israel, who do not know what tribe they are from. You might be one of the hidden ones, who have no clue that they are part of one of the tribes of Israel. You might be one of the vast majority of people, who are not part of any tribe of Israel.
The truth is, that it just does not matter. You do not come into the House of Truth by being part of one of the lost tribes of Israel.
The Man of Truth suffered on the cross, so that everyone could come into the House of Truth, and be part of the Israel that the Father of Truth has always desired (Galatians 6:14-16).
You come into the House of Truth by faith in the Man of Truth (Ephesians 2:8-10). Those who come into the House of Truth, become part of the Israel that the Father of Truth has always desired (Ephesians 2:11-13). There is no separation between the descendants of Israel and the Gentiles, when both come into the House of Truth (Ephesians 2:14-16). There is simply no difference among those, who come into the House of Truth (Ephesians 2:17-19).
You come into the House of Truth by making the Man of Truth your king, because you believe that his Father raised him from the dead (Romans 10:8-10). Everyone comes into the House of Truth the same way, even the lost tribes of Israel (Romans 10:11-13).
Come into the House of Truth!
Labels: Israel, Jews, Lost Tribes
posted by The House Of Truth @ November 05, 2017
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