ABRAHAM’S SEED

After the death of Solomon in approximately 930 BC, Israel was divided into two kingdoms: The Northern Kingdom became known as Israel and was led by Jeroboam son of Nebat. The kingdom became known as Samaria.  The Southern Kingdom became Judea and was led by Rehoboam the son of Solomon. The two kingdoms differed greatly in their religion. In Judah the faith’s main place of worship was in the Jerusalem temple. They maintained the Torah as their doctrine and guide in their faith; even so they sometimes practiced some idol worship. In the North, Jeroboam established two temples, one in Bethel and one in Dan where he placed golden calves to worship.

The two kingdoms were often involved in conflicts with each other but often would join forces against a common enemy, as in the days of Jehoshaphat of Judea and Ahab of Israel, who fought together against the Aramites.

During this time the Neo-Assyrian Empire began to rise in power with the accession of Adad-nirari II, in 911 BC. Assyrians expanded their borders from the land of the Medes in the East to Egypt in the West. In 722 BC, Shalmaneser III king of Assyria, invaded Samaria and began a 40-year campaign of taking the most elite and skilled Israelis captive to expand their culture east of their capital, Nineveh in Northern Media. Conversely, peoples from those lands and from Babylon were deported to Samaria to replace the Israelites.  Some Israeli refugees who escaped exile fled to Jerusalem.  Many took to ships and sailed to present day Spain and North Africa.  Most people believe that the half of the tribe of Dan living in the Northern Kingdom fled to Greece and founded the city of Dan, later named Athens.

2Ki 17:6  In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria 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.

2Ki 17:7  For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,

2Ki 17:8  And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.

2Ki 17:9  And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

2Ki 17:10  And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:

2Ki 17:11  And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:

2Ki 17:12  For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.

2Ki 17:13  Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.

2Ki 17:14  Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God.

2Ki 17:15  And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.

2Ki 17:16  And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

2Ki 17:17  And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

2Ki 17:18  Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

2Ki 17:19  Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

2Ki 17:20  And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

2Ki 17:21  For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin.

2Ki 17:22  For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them;

2Ki 17:23  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 unto this day.

2Ki 17:24  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.

By removing the skilled and leaders from Israel the Assyrians replaced people to Govern their new conquest according to their wishes. It has been estimated that as many as a million people was taken into captivity during the 40-year removal period. They were ultimately assimilated into new cultures, other captives from other lands, the Medeswho were already there and even with Assyrians.  Eventually they became unaware of their original identity, forgot their native language, adopted the religion of the area and became a new people.

Recent archeology finds of clay tablets written in ancient cuneiform provide us with the name that the Assyrians gave this mixed people, the Cimmerians.  They were given this name because most of them were taken from the land that the Assyrians called Cimmeria or Samaria.

Judea was attacked by the Assyrians in 701 BC but withstood their attack.

The fall of the Assyrian Empire was surprisingly rapid. Egypt regained its independence and the Assyrians faced two enemies in the east: the Medes and the Babylonians. In 626 Babylon defeated an Assyrian army and gained their independence.  Egypt joined forces with Assyria, in order to keep Assyria as a much-weakened buffer state between their regions of interest and the rising powers of the East, Babylon and the Medes.  Egypt was too weak to be able to withstand the attacks of the Medes for long: Two years after a battle between the united Assyrian-Egyptian forces and the Babylonians in 616 BC, the Medes under Cyaxares conquered Ashur. In the year 612 BC, Nineveh fell to the combined forces of the Babylonians and Medes. Haran, Ashur-uballit’s last stronghold, was taken in 610 BC. The Assyrian Empire was over.

The Babylonians and the Medes wanted revenge.  An attempt at genocide was in the making.  The two armies went through Assyria and Northern Media killing everyone they found.  It made no difference if it was Assyrian, Cimmerian (Israeli), or Northern Mede, they wanted every one in the land of their enemies dead.  There was a wholesale evacuation from the land.  Vast numbers went Northeast through Galatia, east of the Black Sea and into Northern Europe. Hordes went west around the Black Sea and into Northern Europe.  Countless numbers went directly east and drifted into the Far East toward India and China.

Wherever they went they began to mix with the people already there.  In Northern Europe, present day West Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, Spain, Britain, and Ireland were sparsely populated areas until these millions of people started filtering in.  They became known as the Celts.  Those that went east around the Black Sea spilled into present day East Germany, Hungry, Poland Romania and on toward Russia.  They became known as Scythians (Renamed Germans by the Romans), the Slavs, the Huns and other mongrel tribes.  A point I must make clear is that when the Assyrians took the Israeli captive, they did not take whole tribes or even big bunches of a tribe.  They were interested in the skills of the individual to put them to work on their expanding projects.  When they took a carpenter, teacher, brick mason or metal worker, they took the man and his family.  They kept families together but not ethnic groups. The captive was settled in amongst other captives from other lands and that is where they lived and worked.  When they were pushed out by the Babylonians they went with their neighbors and finally settled among other strangers.  The idea that the Tribe of Zebulon settled Holland, or Ephraim came to America is ridiculous.  To bless the whole world with the seed of Abraham, the ten tribes started mixing even prior to captivity.  The pot was stirred even more during captivity and when they migrated to other countries the mixing became more pronounced until today the world is populated with a people everywhere with the DNA of Abraham flowing through their veins.  As promised, God was truly blessing the whole world with the seed of Abraham and He was making Abraham the father of many nations. 

In 586 BC, Babylon was the great power in the world.  They spread their authority throughout the Middle East demanding tribute from every nation.  In Judea they took the nobility and elite into captivity.  Many fled to Egypt and across Northern Africa, Syria and Mesopotamia. In 559 BC Cyrus the Great became King of Persia and in 539 he defeated Babylon. Like a lot of imperial powers during the Iron Age, King Cyrus allowed citizens of the empire to practice their own religion, as long as they included him as deity or semi-deity or at the very least that he was the subject of offerings and recognition.  He ended state slavery and the Jews were now free to live where they wanted.  This is well recorded in the books of Chronicles and Ezra.  For those who wanted to return to Judea, he even promised assistance in rebuilding their temple.  Most of the Jews remained in Babylon but about 40,000 returned to Judea.

The Second Temple was reconstructed and consecrated, then the sacrificial observances known as the korbanot were resumed.  The new priest had to bring out the scrolls of the Torah and relearn temple worship.  The Jews were no longer an independent, but were subject to Babylon, but never the less were free to worship their God in their old  ways. 

To keep the people in check and insure that they did not stray again the priest began to make new rules.  By the time of Yeshua they had so many Rabbinical Laws that not even the priest could account for all of them.

About 19 BC, Herod the Great began a massive renovation and expanded the Temple into a Complex. Actually, the Temple was torn down and a new one built in its place, but is still called the Second Temple because the sacrificial rituals continued unchecked throughout the construction period. The resulting temple is sometimes referred to as Herod’s Temple.

In 66 AD the Jews rebelled for the first time against the Roman Empire. In 70 AD, Roman legions under Titus subsequently destroyed much of Jerusalem and Herod's Temple.  In their last revolt, Jerusalem was destroyed and all the Jews were either killed or taken into captivity by the Emperor Hadrian in 135 AD.  Jews were carted off into slavery all over the Roman Empire.  To escape slavery or being killed many escaped to Spain and into Africa.

Again God fulfilling His promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as the stars of the sky and he would be the father of many nations.  The Jews lost their language and Hebrew became a dead language, but they retained their faith.  Even with the added Rabbinical Laws they kept Torah.

Even though some Jews returned and Israel became a nation in a day in 1948, this is not the fulfillment of God’s Covenant with Abraham.  There are far more Jews outside of Israel than in.  The Promised Land is from Egypt to the Euphrates River, not a little strip of what was once Israel.  What about the House of Ephraim?  If all of God’s chosen people are to return, should it not include the ten tribes?  I will deal with this in the next paper.