Who Were the Lost Tribes of Israel?

Roland wanted to know about the so-called lost tribes of Israel. Here are some of the details.

In the words of Rich Mullins, Jacob got two women and a whole house full of kids. Jacob, renamed Israel, had twelve sons by four different women: two wives and two concubines. Those twelve sons had their own families… twelve different tribes of Israel.

So, how did any of them get lost? Well… for that, we fast forward a few generations. These twelve families had grown to become a very large number of people. After leaving slavery in Egypt, they settled in Canaan. At first, the ancient Israelites had no king. They had God as their king… or, to be more precise, they were supposed to. They had human spiritual leaders, like Samuel. When Samuel’s sons turned out badly, the elders of Israel didn’t want them in charge. They wanted a human king, so they could be like the other nations around them.

That’s how Saul became Israel’s first king. Fast forward through King David and King Solomon to Rehoboam. After 3 years as king, the united kingdom of Israel split. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin were living in the south, which became the kingdom of Judah, where Jerusalem is. The other ten tribes lived in the north, including Samaria and Galilee, which became the kingdom of Israel. This was around 928 BC. For a list of rulers, see The Kings of Ancient Israel and Judah.

Fast forward again, around 200 years. The Assyrian kingdom attacked the northern kingdom of Israel off and on for a decade or more and killed a lot of people. Along the way, they deported a lot of people to other places, spreading them out. This is a strategy for conquest. If you conquer a city and leave everybody there, it’s likely they will eventually revolt. If you capture the smartest and bravest and relocate them, the victims would eventually settle in their new homes, get married to locals, have kids, put down roots, and be assimilated into the culture. In that way, they would never again be a threat.

The Assyrian kings involved were Pul (or Pulu, also known as Tiglath-pileser III), Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II. Over time, they conquered the entire northern kingdom of Israel. Those who were deported weren’t “lost,” of course. They would, however, lose their identity over time. Also, there were many who fled south into Judah. Asa, king of Judah, listened to Azariah the prophet and removed the idols and altars to other gods. He also repaired the altar to Yahweh that was in front of the temple. This began a revival of sorts in Judah:

Then he assembled all Judah and Benjamin and the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who had settled among them, for large numbers had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him. They assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign. At that time they sacrificed to the Lord seven hundred head of cattle and seven thousand sheep and goats from the plunder they had brought back. They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and soul.

Significance

Part of Roland’s question was about the significance of the lost tribes. I see two parts to this:

• a lesson to learn, and
• urban legends.

The lesson part can only be understood by reading the texts as found in the Bible. You see, most of these problems began with King Solomon. He did not obey God, allowing his many wives to influence him to worship other gods. As a result, God told Solomon that He would tear the kingdom away from his son and give it to a subordinate. That was Jeroboam, who rebelled against Solomon’s son Rehoboam and caused the united kingdom to split into north and south.

Not only was it God who actually caused the kingdom to split, it was God who also stirred up the spirit of the Assyrian kings to invade the north. So the dispersion of the ten Israelite tribes from the northern kingdom was punishment for idolatry. When Asa removed the idols from the southern kingdom, the people responded to God’s discipline by entering into a new covenant with God, promising to obey Him.

As for the urban legend part, I don’t put much stock in urban legends. There are many of them. Some relate to where the Israelites ended up, from China and Japan to Nigeria and the Americas. Some may be based in history, some are clearly myth. Others relate to what will happen in the ‘last days,’ where the lost tribes will (or won’t, depending) reunite with Judah and Benjamin. As fun as it is to speculate, it’s unwise to create theology from speculation… so urban legends are fascinating, but not the building blocks for any real conclusions.

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