Topic(s): Old Testament

The fate of the lost ten tribes has been the stuff of lore and legend. Several fantastic theories have emerged over the years, trying to trace these “lost Israelites.” Some claim, for instance, that the British royal house descended from lost Israelite royalty, and that Britain and its colonies, including America, are the heirs of God’s promises and the present day ten tribes of Israel. The truth, however, is that the lost ten tribes were absorbed by conquering nations and ceased to exist as they intermarried with other peoples.

The twelve tribes of Israel formed the united kingdom of Israel that continued for one hundred and twenty years under Saul, David, and Solomon. At the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam took the unwise counsel of the young men and refused to lighten the tax load Solomon had placed on the people. The result was a revolt that gave Jereboam ten tribes that formed the kingdom of Israel, and left the kingdom of Judah, consisting of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, as well as most of the Levites, ruled by Rehoboam.

After the division, the northern kingdom of Israel began to practice idolatry. To prevent the people from going back to Jerusalem to worship, Jereboam set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kings 12:26-29). Idolatry under infamous kings such as Ahab marked the history of the kingdom until 733 B.C. when the Assyrians occupied Israel and deported many of the residents (2 Kings 15:29). In 721 B.C., Israel’s capital city of Samaria fell, and its inhabitants were also deported. “In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods” (2 Kings 17:6-7). God rejected them because of their idolatry, and the nations around them gradually absorbed them. They had already largely lost their identity as Israel because of their idolatry. The few people left in Samaria intermingled with other people the Assyrians imported, creating the Samaritans whom the Jews despised for being a mixed race.

In 597 B.C., the southern kingdom of Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar, who deported many Jews, including Daniel and his friends. In contrast to the Israelites from the northern kingdom, however, they maintained their identity and faith in Babylonian captivity. After seventy years of captivity in Babylon, King Cyrus allowed them to return. He decreed, “The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:2-3). Any faithful Israelites from the ten tribes would have returned to Judea then along with those from Judah. The church is the true Israel of God today, a universal kingdom that knows no national boundaries (Daniel 2:44).
                         —Bob Prichard, P. O. Box 3071, Oxford, AL 36203