Your ShelfYour Projects

Two Houses of Israel

8%

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 27, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 36.

Read the full edition

Two Houses of Israel.

By N. Field, M. D.

SOME think that in some way Isa. 8:14 involves a difficulty or contradiction according to the way I understand the Jew question.
On that verse I will remark that all the posterity of Jacob were originally called Israel. After the division of the nation into two kingdoms, one was called the kingdom of Judah, and the other the kingdom of Israel, from the fact that a large majority of the nation composed it. Sometimes it was called Ephraim, or the kingdom of Ephraim, because the tribe of Ephraim occupied one of the most eligible sections of the territory, extending from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the river Jordan on the east. The capital of the kingdom was always within the bounds of Ephraim. This is another reason why it was sometimes called Ephraim. Jer. 31:9, 10, 20.
But the kingdoms were both really composed of Israelites, and might with propriety be sometimes called the two houses of Israel. Still, however, the distinction was kept up under the titles of Israel and Judah. The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria 725 years before Christ, and the people were carried into captivity to the Assyrians. In the year B. C. 588, or one hundred and thirty-seven years after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Judah was destroyed by the Chaldeans, and the people went into captivity for seventy years. Thus ended both kingdoms.
Now I am asked, What has become of the ten tribes? Where are they? I answer, Nowhere at all. There is no such a people on the earth. They are a dead nation, as much so as the Assyrians and Chaldeans. The present race of Jews, dispersed among all nations, are all that remain of the natural seed of Jacob. They are called “Israel according to the flesh.” See 1 Cor. 10:18.
It is supposed by the Judaizers that the ten tribes left the Assyrian empire, and went off into some unexplored part of the earth. There is not one particle of truth in this supposition. There never was a tribe lost in a literal sense. All the tribes were in the land of Canaan when the Saviour made his first appearance to the Jewish nation. When he sent out the apostles to preach, he told them not to go in the way of the Gentiles, but to confine their mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, who were then in Judea, but lost in one sense of the word. These are the people the Judaizers are looking for.
By way of comforting them on their fruitless search, they are hereby referred to the fact that the apostles found them more than eighteen hundred years ago. All the tribes were in the land at the first advent, and continued in it until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and their final dispersion among all nations. Their genealogical records were lost in that terrible calamity, consequently their tribal character ceased. They were all merged into one common stock, since known as Hebrews, Jews, or Israelites.
As I have written somewhat extensively on this subject several years ago, it is not necessary to go over the same ground again. But I will say that after the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, and the issuing of his decree of emancipation, remnants of all the tribes returned and formed one nation and one kingdom, subsequently known as the kingdom of Judea. Assyria, the place of the ten tribes, was geographically the same as the Chaldean or Babylonian empire. Cyrus, king of Persia, succeeded to the government of all the provinces of those conquered empires. Chaldea swallowed Assyria, and Persia swallowed up Chaldea. The decree of Cyrus applied to all Israelites in his vast empire.
Jeremiah is extensively quoted to prove a future return of Israel and Judah to the land of Canaan. This is a strong delusion, misapplication, and perversion of his prophecies. So far as Israel and Judah are concerned, his prophecies have been fulfilled. I refer to the fiftieth chapter of his prophecy for proof of this statement. I would add that all of every tribe never returned, but a remnant of each did, as foretold by Isaiah (10:20–22). Such as remained in Babylon melted away in the native population. They did not all return at once, but continued to return for years.
I will close with a few historical facts, which will forever refute all arguments of the Judaizers. Two hundred and fifty-nine years after the return from Babylon, at the request of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, the Jewish Sanhedrim sent down to Alexandria seventy-two learned Jews, six from each of the tribes, to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek language, which translation we have to-day, known as the Septuagint. Now I want some learned stickler for the restoration of the ten lost tribes to tell me how the Sanhedrim could have selected six men of each of the twelve tribes if ten of them were not in the country, but lost to the knowledge of the world? This historical fact forever explodes the theory of the lost tribes.
Another fact worthy of note is that at the dedication of the second temple, all the tribes were present, and twelve he-goats were offered for the sin of all Israel, according to the number of the tribes. Ezra 6:17. Now, why should a sin-offering be made for ten of the tribes if they were lost and unknown to Judah and Benjamin? The tribe of Judah never made such an offering for the ten tribes when they lived in the land. Why should it be done at the time stated by Ezra? The reason is that the tribes returned under the decree of Cyrus, and were present when the offering was made.
We are told (Luke 2:36, 37) that Anna, a prophetess, was of the tribe of Asher, one of the lost tribes according to the Judaizers. I will not pursue the subject any farther now, but simply add that the natural Jews have not a promise in the Bible of any future blessing, unless they obey the gospel. God has bestowed upon them every temporal blessing he ever promised them. They now stand upon the same footing with the Gentiles. If they become Christians, they will be Abraham’s seed and heirs to what God promised him. They will then be the true Israel, who own the land of Canaan, and indeed the whole world of which Abraham was made heir.—N. Field, M. D.