In 2 Samuel 7:10, in the time of David (quite some time before the time of Jeremiah), the LORD said "I will appoint a place for my people Israel...and will plant them [in that place]." The Israelites were already in Palestine when this promise was made, so this indicates that the place where the LORD would plant His people Israel was a place other than Palestine. Another "Promised Land," if you will.

But where was this place? And how would Israel get to that place from their home in Palestine? And what would cause them to move in the first place?

When a family relocates today, there could be a variety of reasons. Our job may move us, health reasons may warrant a change in climate, or you may just like to travel. But back then, as a general rule, people didn't jump around like we do today. And this prophecy is not talking about just one family, or even a number of families; we're talking about the relocating of an entire NATION!

How would YEHOVAH God move His Israel to this new place?

In the 8th Century before the Messiah, YEHOVAH God began to chastise His beloved people for their awful disobedience in serving other gods; first with the Assyrian Captivity of Israel, and later with the Babylonian Captivity of Judah. The Assyrian Captivity, which is what we will deal with here, came in waves beginning around 771 BC, and coming to a climax with the siege of Samaria, 723-721 BC. Samaria was the capital of the kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 16:23, 24).

In 721 BC, Israel was taken captive into the land of Assyria by Shalmaneser. We read about it as follows:

"And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah [king of Judah], which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes: because they obeyed not the Voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed His covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them" (2 Kings 18:9-12).

Again we read: "In the ninth year of Hoshea, the King of Assyria [Shalmaneser] took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes...For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria..." (2 Kings 17:6, 22-23).

The Israelites had heroically withstood Shalmaneser three years, but it was now YEHOVAH's Plan to turn them over captive to Assyria.

So, the entire ten-tribed nation of Israel (along with 200,150 of the people of Judah a few years later) was moved from their own land into Assyria because of their disgraceful wickedness and disobedience toward YEHOVAH God. They were used by the Assyrians as a "buffer" around their kingdom against any outside attacks. YEHOVAH God had begun the moving of His people.

But they did not stay in Assyria.

After their captivity, the Israelites left Assyria. They could not go back to their own land, however, because when the King of Assyria took Israel away captive, he filled the area where the Israelites had dwelt with the heathen. We read:

"And the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof" (2 Kings 17:24).

So where did the Israelites go?

Scholars are variously divided on this question. There is such controversy over this issue, that the people of this Assyrian Captivity (all of the House and Kingdom of Israel, along with a great portion of the House and Kingdom of Judah) are called the "Lost Tribes of Israel".

They are believed by many to be gone forever, having become amalgamated together with the people of Assyria, and mongrelized. But I do not believe this to be the case.

The LORD had said of the northern ten tribes (those thought to be "lost") and their kingdom: "Behold, the eyes of the LORD God are upon the sinful kingdom [the northern kingdom -- Israel], and I will destroy it [the kingdom, not the people] from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD. For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the House of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth" (Amos 9:8, 9).

He also said: "I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me..." (Hosea 5:3); and that "...the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice or sacred pillar, without an ephod or teraphim: [but] afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days" (Hosea 3:4, 5).

There are numerous prophecies, yet to be fulfilled, which include each of the twelve tribes. What about these prophecies? If these people are truly "lost" forever, how can these prophecies be fulfilled? They can't be fulfilled! But the veracity of YEHOVAH's Holy Word demands that these tribes do exist. The book of James, written eight centuries after the Assyrian captivity, is addressed to "the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad." So they have got to be out there somewhere! I refuse to believe the scholars who say that these ten [plus] tribes were lost! They may be lost to the world, lost to the present day theologians, and even lost to their own selves (for "blind is my servant"), but I believe YEHOVAH God when He says that He will not "lose" His people. No, they're not lost. YEHOVAH knows where they are, for He has guided their path and fed them all these many years! And if we will look, and study history and the scriptures, we will know where they are too!

Josephus, writing in the first century AD, knew where his kindred were. He wrote:

"...there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates [west from Palestine] till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimate by numbers" (Antiquities Bk. xi, ch. v, 2).

So they have still got to be out there somewhere! And they have got to be a great people! The prophet Ezra writes more specifically:

"And whereas thou sawest that He gathered another peaceable multitude unto Him; those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea [Hoshea] the king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land. But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land.

"And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river. For the most High then shewed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over. For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half: and the same region is called Arsareth" (2 Esdras 13:39-45).

The area referred to is near the headwaters of the Euphrates, in the Caucasian Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. That area has a ravine or "gate," if you will, called "the pass of Israel" in early writings.

The fascinating thing is that according to classical history, this was the point of origin of the Kimmerians, or Cimmerians; and the area referred to as Arsareth is the same area where the Scythians emerge on the scene of history. Who were these Cimmerians and Scythians? There stands in the British Museum an Assyrian monument called the Black Obelisk. This monument refers to the Assyrian captivity of Israel, but does not call the Israelites "Israelites." The Black Obelisk refers to the Israelites, whom the Assyrians had taken captive, as "Bit Khumri," meaning "House of Omri." Among the many variations of this name, Khumri, we find Kimmerians, Kymry, Gimmiri. The Kimmerians, or Cimmerians, were also called Sakai. But these same Sakai are also called Scythians. This fact is established by the best known inscriptions which have furnished the key to Assyriology.

So we see that the vast majority of Israel became "lost" to her original identity and became known as the Cimmerians, Scythians, Kymry, Gimmiri, Sakai, etc. These peoples were all the same people in reality (Israelites), but were known by different historians at different periods by different names. Archeology and anthropology bears this out. These people went northward and westward and later in history became known as the Celts, Vikings, Angles, Normans and Saxons of history. And they were already in the "Isles of the Sea" (Isaiah 24:14,15; 49:1; 51:4,5; Jeremiah 31:10) in large numbers by Jeremiah's time.

-- Edited by John D. Keyser.

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Courage for the Sake of Truth is Far Better Than Silence for the Sake of Unity!

Hope of Israel Ministries P.O. Box 853 Azusa, CA 91702, U.S.A. www.hope-of-israel.org

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