p. 6 | THE LOST TRIBES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 24, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 39.

“THE LOST TRIBES.”

“THE LOST TRIBES,” or the “Ten Lost Tribes,” of Israel is not a Bible term. It was evidently coined to meet the exigencies of a theory. What is taught concerning the truth of the ten tribes is well set forth in a study of the question in a New York paper called Salvation. The study is especially based on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The result of this study held in Bible-class is thus stated:—

The ten tribes were never “lost,” except in the heedless fancy of superficial readers of the Bible, but were compressed with the other two into “All Israel” (repeatedly so called by Ezra and Nehemiah) by the natural operation of a common captivity and exile among alien races. So far as genealogical identification for purposes of inheritance was concerned, it might be argued from the genealogies recorded that only those attached to the tribe of Judah were able to verify their records; and of those who were temporarily excluded for that reason from the holy things (Ezra 2:59) it might be argued in the same way that they were, at least in part, of other tribes. Of such we should suppose were those “of the people” (Neh 5:1) who complained “of their brethren the Jews” for oppressing them with usury and mortgage. But the uniform terms of both Ezra and Nehemiah, in indicating those who returned from captivity and those who remained and helped the return with their wealth, are “Israel,” or “all Israel,” only the priestly tribe (Levites) being specified in the return; while Judah is mentioned afterwards, repeatedly and only in contradistinction from the main body, or (Ezra 1:5) “with all those whose spirit God had raised;” and (3:1) “the children of Israel” (4:1). Note the following: “The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded, “and they sent to the king an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem” in particular or par eminence, the builders; “the children of Israel [even] the priests and the Levites and the rest of the children of the captivity kept the dedication,” etc. (7:7); “and there went up some of the children of Israel”—second re-migration under Ezra (9:1); “the people of Israel have not separated themselves from the people of the lands” (11:1); “there assembled out of Israel a very great congregation.” And so on, through both books.

Only the heathen, as was natural for them, gave the whole people of Israel the common appellation of “Jews.” But the avoidance of this term, more or less provocative of jealousy, by Ezra and Nehemiah, is proof conclusive, that Israel was now and hence forward one nation, as the prophets had foretold. The assumption of one name by the whole nation later, as we find it already in Esther’s time, was natural as to a title so honorable, but was not significant of exclusion; for we find in the New Testament no indication that the descendants of those tribes that remained scattered, as in the time of Esther, throughout the Persian empire and later throughout the succeeding empire of Rome, were the less regarded or regarded themselves, as Jews, but were really compressed by their providential chastisement into a conscious national unit, under the same religion, and owning its universal center in the temple and priesthood at Jerusalem. A writer in The Reaper (February, 1902) adds this interesting note:—

We read in Acts 2:5 of “Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven” being present at Jerusalem at Pentecost, and we may very well believe (with the case of Esther before us) that the “Parthians, Medes, and Elamites” who come first in the enumeration, included many members of the ten tribes, whose families had not left their ancient homes. We may refer to the expression which the apostle Paul uses when he says, “Unto which promise our twelve tribes hope to come.” Acts 26:7. The word translated “twelve tribes” is in the original a compound noun, and in the singular (dodeka-phulon), so that the force of it would be rendered somewhat thus: “Unto which promise our twelve-tribed people hopeth to come.” Such language indicates the unity of Jacob’s race, and does not encourage the view that ten tribes formed a section by themselves who had been lost sight of, or had lost sight of Israel’s hope.