Lost Ten Tribes

Background

After the death of Solomon, around 930 BC, Israel split into northern and southern kingdoms (Division of the Kingdom). The northern tribes made Jeroboam their king and formed the northern Kingdom of Israel. The south remained the Kingdom of Judah under Rehoboam, centered on the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The expression "ten tribes" comes from the words of the prophet Ahijah to Jeroboam: "I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee" (1 Kings 11:31). Exactly which tribes are counted among the ten varies somewhat from source to source, depending on whether the tribe of Levi, which received no territorial allotment, is excluded and whether the tribe of Joseph is counted as two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh (see Twelve Tribes of Israel).

Course of Events

• c. 733–732 BC: Tiglath-pileser III, king of Assyria, conquered Galilee and the region east of the Jordan and carried off its inhabitants (2 Kings 15:29). According to 1 Chronicles 5:26, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh were taken captive at this time.
• c. 722 BC: Shalmaneser V besieged the capital, Samaria, for three years until the city fell (2 Kings 17:5–6). Some date its fall to 721 BC. Scripture records that the captives were relocated to Halah, to Habor by the river of Gozan, and to the cities of the Medes. His successor, Sargon II, is reported to have claimed in his inscriptions that he took more than 27,000 captives (see Fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel).
• Resettlement policy: Assyria brought people from other regions to settle in Samaria (2 Kings 17:24). This is understood as the background to the later emergence of the Samaritans.

Outcome and Influence

The people of Judah returned after the Babylonian Exile and reestablished their community. By contrast, there is no clear record of the northern exiles returning as a group. For this reason they came to be called the "lost" tribes.

Scripture, however, does not simply say that the northern population vanished entirely. Several passages suggest otherwise:

• People from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon came over to Judah (2 Chronicles 15:9).
• Hezekiah invited the remnant of the north to the Passover (2 Chronicles 30).
• The New Testament mentions the prophetess Anna, of the tribe of Asher (Luke 2:36).
• The New Testament speaks of the "twelve tribes" as one complete Israel (Acts 26:7; James 1:1).

In later periods, traditions arose concerning the whereabouts of the ten tribes. The apocryphal book of 2 Esdras (chapter 13) relates that the ten tribes went to a distant land called "Arsareth." The first-century historian Josephus wrote that the ten tribes were living beyond the Euphrates as an innumerable multitude.

Claims made in the modern era include the following:

• The Beta Israel of Ethiopia hold a tradition that they descend from the tribe of Dan, and the Bnei Menashe of northeastern India claim descent from the tribe of Manasseh. Both communities are reported to have been recognized by Israel's rabbinic authorities and to have immigrated to Israel.
• In nineteenth-century Britain, British Israelism, the belief that the Anglo-Saxons are descendants of the ten tribes, gained popularity.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches the gathering of scattered Israel as part of its doctrine.
• Claims linking the Japanese or Koreans to the ten tribes have also appeared in popular books and elsewhere.

Assessment

Historians generally hold the following view: Assyrian deportations were concentrated on the ruling class and a portion of the population, while a considerable number remained in the land. Those who were deported gradually intermingled with local populations. Some scholars connect the significant expansion of Jerusalem in the late eighth century BC with refugees who came south from the northern kingdom. Claims identifying particular peoples as descendants of the ten tribes are mostly regarded as lacking a scholarly foundation.

Theological interpretations vary by denomination and tradition. Dispensationalism holds that national Israel will be restored in the last days and that all twelve tribes will be restored, in keeping with the prophecy in Ezekiel 37:15–28 of two sticks becoming one. The covenant theology and Reformed traditions tend to see the promises to the twelve tribes as fulfilled in the church, composed of Jews and Gentiles, in Jesus Christ. In Korean churches, the topic is frequently raised in discussions of such questions as the omission of the tribe of Dan from the tribal list of the 144,000 in Revelation 7:4–8. Major Protestant denominations, however, have not defined the whereabouts of the ten tribes in their confessions of faith or doctrinal statements.