ARE THE TEN TRIBES TO RETURN?
By Wm. Sheldon
[By Wm. Sheldon, in World's Crisis.] ALLOWING that the ten tribes were ever “lost,” where are they now? And who are they? We deny that they were ever lost except by being merged with the Gentile nations, being thus obliterated as distinct tribes, and so can not return as such. But to prove that they were lost, the claim is made in two different publications brought to me by mail recently, that Jesus recognized them as “lost” in speaking of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matt. 15:24. Jesus said to the twelve, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles; . . . but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matt. 10:5, 6. If He really meant the ten tribes, then they had previously returned, and were then where the apostles preached to them; then why talk about their future return, as they were not to return twice? So much for that assumption. But who are they? We are gravely told, without proof, “They are the English-speaking people—Englishmen and Americans—often called Anglo-Saxons.” “The Anglo-Saxons are the actual descendants of the lost ten tribes.” No proof given, only that they “are a multitude.” Well, if they are the class, there are over a hundred millions of them to return to Palestine, aside from the twelve millions of the two tribes called Jews; and such a return would overpopulate Palestine at the start. Then it is claimed that deaths will be rare in that “millennial age,” and human longevity great, so that a person will be counted a child at the age of one hundred years, and the inhabitants be fruitful even in old age. So 1,000 Palestines would not hold them at the end of the “millennial age”! With such a return of Anglo-Saxons and Jews to Palestine—a little country about the size of New Hampshire—there would be at the very start over ten thousand population to the square mile, while this little State averages only about forty-two to the square mile. These figures show overpopulation at the beginning! Then think of the increase annually, with but slight decrease by death, owing to the longevity then due—the thing is self-explosive! Then, too, what a task we Anglo-Saxons will have in tracing our pedigree! What a host of ships needed to carry us! Let it not be said that a mere part will meet the demand; for when we prove from the Bible that Cyrus offered them all a chance to go under his decree, and prove from history that a part of the ten tribes did return with the two, we are told that all must go, to fill the prophecy; if this is so, then all the Anglo-Saxons must go, if they are the lost tribes, even if they pack Palestine ten deep! If the claim is good, these absurdities follow. Other future-age believers are less certain who or where the ten lost tribes now are, but feel equally certain that they are yet to return to Palestine as tribes. An English work entitled “Israel Gathered,” thus speaks:— For upwards of 2,600 years have the ten tribes been scattered abroad, their dispersion taking place B.C. 721. From Assyria and Media they went into various parts, and no one now can tell with certainty where they are. “Many conjectures,” as a writer in the Restitution says, “have been made with reference to them. Some think they are in an open country at the North Pole. Others locate them in Africa, in China, in Afghanistan. Some say they are the Anglo-Saxon race. God knows where they are and who they are; and as the time is at hand for Jehovah to recover them, He will gather them from all the lands thru which they are now scattered, and bring them into the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” That they were not lost as late as the third century before Christ, is made clear by Josephus, who tells us that Ptolemy Philadelphus then requested “Eleazar, the high priest” in Jerusalem, to send six of the elders out of every tribe, to translate the law of Moses into Greek—seventy-two in all—that the high priest sent the law and the required number of translators from each tribe, saying, “Send back the law when it is translated; and return those to us that bring it in safety.” So six out of each tribe went from and returned to Jerusalem. So the ten tribes were not then lost; and a part of them at least lived in the region of Jerusalem, to which region they went at the return from Babylon; for Josephus tells us that copies of Cyrus’ edict were sent to the ten tribes, offering them the opportunity of returning, and also that “many” of them did then return with the two tribes, while the bulk rejected the offer, as well as some of the two tribes—and their posterity in time were amalgamated with the Gentile nations, and their tribeship was thus obliterated, so as distinct tribes they can never return. In no other sense have they ever been lost. Their age, furthermore, ended long ago, and they have no further claim on their original land as a distinct people. Now Gentiles and Jews stand on a level, “the middle wall of partition being broken down,” never to be rebuilt. So God has put “no difference” between us and them; we shall all return, if worthy, in the immortal state, but none as fleshly claimants.