Fable of "British-Israel" (Part 2): Did Israelites Manage To Escape To Judah?

[Rebbe]

FUNDAMENTALS: The Fable of "British Israel" [2]

DID ISRAELITES MANAGE TO ESCAPE TO JUDAH?

Copyright © BRI 2012 All Rights Reserved Worldwide
by Les Aron Gosling, Messianic Lecturer (BRI)

CAUTION: BRI Yeshiva notes are not available to the general public. They are not for distribution. They are not for reproduction. The notes may also bear little or no resemblance to the actual recorded BRI Yeshiva lecture.

" ...the ten tribes will not return [to Eretz Yisrael], for it is said, and cast them into another land, as is this day: just as the day goes and does not return, so they too went and will not return: this is r. Akiba's view. r. Eliezer said: as this day - just as the day darkens and then becomes light again, so the ten tribes - even as it went dark for them, so will it become light for them" - B. Talmud, Sanhedrin 110b

Jonathan Swift, a Rosicrucian who wrote Gulliver's Travels, had a serious novel solution to the horrible Irish Famine. His suggestion for economic recovery was simple: The Irish should eat their own children.

God refers to scholars as "dumb dogs" in the Bible. As we can ascertain from Swift's swift thoughts on the topic of economic recovery for Ireland, we cannot always trust the scholars -- and even if Swift's statement was meant as humour it reflects an underlying current of sheer hostility toward his fellow man.

We must also be cautious when it comes to quotations from authoritative sources. Its always a good thing to go to the "horse's mouth," so to speak, to check whether or not a quotation is correct.

As a prime example of a well-and-often-quoted line from a movie, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca never said "Play it again, Sam."

Tarzan, the hero of Edgar Rice Burrough's jungle tales, never said, "Me, Tarzan; You, Jane."

Jack Webb, starring as Sgt. Friday in the radio and TV hit of the 50's Dragnet, never uttered the phrase, "Just the facts Ma'am."

Sherlock Holmes never said, "Elementary, my dear Watson!"

Edmund Burke did not say, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Rather, he notes in his Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents -- "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

William Shakespeare absolutely did not say "Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned." The quote actually derives from William Congreve's play The Mourning Bride (1697). The complete quotation is, "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

Marie Antoinette at the outbreak of the French Revolution never said of the peasants, "Let them eat cake." The full quotation by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Confessions (1783) is as translated from the French, "If they have no bread, let them eat cake!" But he applied the quote to "a great princess" thought by scholars of the period to be Maria Theresa of Spain.

And Paul did not say that Gentile Christians were now "spiritual Jews"! Indeed, the phrase is not found anywhere in the Bible. No biblical identity ever uttered such a notion.

This is one of the prime phrases that are used by certain Christians to illustrate why the Jewish people have been removed from HaShem's "election in Grace" as the Chosen People of God. In connection with this statement made by those who are largely ignorant of the teachings of the biblical revelation, Paul added, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance" in Rom 11.29. Or, put another way, "The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable."

God's rejection of the Jews occurred in order for the Gospel to go to the Gentiles -- its entirely God's Game Plan -- but at the end of the age the Scripture states explicitly that the Jews will return to God's favour, and once more occupy their rightful place as His chosen instrument to yet fulfill their destiny.

Indeed, in 1967 -- the very year the Jews retook their own city of Jerusalem -- the Constantinian Church STOPPED GROWING. That's a fact. If anyone has doubts about God's promises to Israel, please read Romans 9,10,11. And STOP reinterpreting these texts concerning Israel to refer to the church. And I might just add, read what the prophets of ancient Israel and Judah had to say on this very same subject.

Please turn with me to Romans 2.29. Paul wrote, "He is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

The entire context reveals that the JEWS are under the spotlight pertaining to being a Jew "in the heart" -- Paul is NOT speaking of the converted Gentiles. He's speaking of the Jews. Remember, Paul is a Jew, and he is using Jewish thoughtform in this section of Scripture. Rav Shaul is using a literary lever, a play on words in relation to the term "Jew." Jew is short for Judah or Y'hudah or Yehudi, which is related to another Hebrew word, hodayah meaning "praise" or "to praise [God]." Paul is saying that to be a true Jew one must maintain an attitude of praise toward HaShem. Etymologically, a Jew MUST be a God-praiser.

In the text we ought to recognise that the term "spiritual Jew" does not appear. In fact, it nowhere appears in the entire Bible. Rather, Paul speaks of "a Jew who is one inwardly," meaning a Jew is one who is actively engaged inwardly with praise toward God. This is a heartfelt praise toward the Father, a genuine praise, a non-affected praise.

Gentiles are counted by God as Gentiles, physically and spiritually. It's those who call Gentiles "spiritual Jews" who are being derogatory to Gentiles.

Look at the entire context. Romans was penned by Rav Shaul and the letter is addressed to "All that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (Rom 1.7). In other words he is writing to the Christians, both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Yeshua as the Messiah. These are people who are not called "to be" saints as that phrase also does not appear in the Greek text. It simply says that the Christians in Rome ARE saints. The word "saint" means holy, or sanctified, set apart by God for God.

Paul in his letter addresses all sorts of people and judges them all as unqualified for salvation in any sense of the word. There is nothing anyone can do, in other words, to merit God's Grace. He addresses pagans, idolaters, and religious people. And he in one fell swoop condemns everyone. We all stand in need of God the Father's salvation. In Rom 2.17 Paul turns his attention to the Jews in the Roman ekklesia.

"If you call yourself a Jew and trust on Torah and boast about God and know his will and give your approval to what is right, because you have been instructed from the Torah; and if you have persuaded yourself that you are a guide to the blind, a light in the darkness, an adequate instructor for the spiritually unaware and a teacher of children, since in the Torah you believe you have the embodiment of knowledge and truth; then, you who teach others, don't you teach yourself? Preaching, "You shall not steal" do you steal? Saying, "You shall not commit adultery," do you commit adultery? Detesting idols, do you commit idolatrous acts? You who take such pride in Torah, do you, by disobeying the Torah, dishonor God? - as it says in the Tanakh, "For it is because of you that God's name is blasphemed by the Gentiles." For circumcision is indeed of value if you do what Torah says. But if you are a transgressor of Torah, your circumcision has become uncircumcision! Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the Torah, won't his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? Indeed, the man who is physically uncircumcised but obeys the Torah will stand as a judgment on you who have had a circumcision and have Torah written out but violate it! For the real Jew is not merely Jewish outwardly: true circumcision is not only external and physical. On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, inward not literal; so that his praise comes not from other people but from God" (Rom 2.17-29).

Is Paul here addressing Gentiles? No, he begins in this section of his letter by speaking to Jewish believers. Why do we Christians consistently fail to note the address on the envelope? If I find a letter in our mail box addressed to our Pastors Les and Laurel Moon c/- this address, should I open it and read its contents and then apply them to myself?

Of course not! But when it comes to the Bible we do, don't we?

And, yes, there are always those believers who quote Yeshua liberally (when it suits them) as to: "Man must live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

But, I would remind such Zealots that not everything in the Bible applies to us in a direct way. Noah was told to build an Ark, but that doesn't apply to us. Strangely, some good Christian folk have busied themselves replicating an ark for when a great flood comes -- even though the scroll of Genesis mentions that there will never be another worldwide deluge.

Again, the Sinai Covenant was good while it lasted (and if you were a Jew ... and that Covenant was "holy, just and good" -- as the apostle himself acknowledged -- but I mean God help you if you were a Canaanite) but it has been replaced with a New Covenant. My view is that we should all be thanking HaShem for that New Covenant and also for the GRACE that has superseded it and in which we all stand: both Jews and Gentiles.

(If you haven't as yet perused the contents of our recent lectures on the Covenants please do so in order to be brought up to speed in our grasp of the biblical revelation in this matter.) Paul wrote:

"Study with your every effort in intense concentration to show yourself approved in the eyes of God, a skilled laborer who will by so doing not be ultimately ashamed, rightly partitioning the word of truth to your best advantage" (2 Tim 2.15 Tentative BRI Version).

But certain people, who have never "rightly partitioned" the biblical revelation, have been guilty of fostering onto others the need to see in the New Covenant teachings the need to jettison from Covenant relationship the Chosen People of God: the Jews. Big mistake!

Replacement Theology has largely been built on the wrested words, taken also out of context, that Paul penned in Romans.

The Christian Constantinian Church in all its divisions is now 2000 years AWAY from the time and the events and the culture of the period in which Rav Shaul wrote his letters to the various ekklesias (erroneously called "churches" today after the goddess of the circus, Circe). This very fact raises difficulties in our understanding today, when we explore the world in which it was penned.

Indeed, we are now SO FAR away from that environment, and have reinterpreted the "NT" through Reformation and post-Reformation eyes for so long, that when someone comes along to show how the original folk of the first century understood the things of God it seems not to "ring true." We have all been deceived. Both Jews and Gentiles. But when a Jew who has been converted to the Messiah Yeshua reads the "NT" he has very little difficulty in comprehending the text.

Let me explain something here. Converted Gentiles have certainly become "Abraham's seed" but notice too that Paul in his letters never calls them "Judah's seed." They are Abraham's seed. Of course, Jews look upon their father Abraham as "the first Jew," but biblically, historically, culturally, he was decidedly not. Abraham was not a Jew, he was a Gentile, you see. And, true, if Gentiles have been authentically converted to Yeshua they have joined the "national life of Israel" as Paul adds in Ephesians. But they have joined as Gentiles, not "Jews," "pretend Jews," or "Jewish Gentiles."

Gentiles are and remain Gentiles, not even "spiritual Jews" -- just as Uriah the Hittite remained Uriah the Hittite after becoming a proselyte to the Jewish Faith in David's time. Look up any concordance of the Bible for "Uriah the Hittite" and see for yourselves that he is never called "Uriah the Jewish Hittite," or "Uriah the Hittite Jew" or anything else for that matter. He was only ever seen to be a Hittite! The same applies to "virtuous" Ruth. She was a Moabitess until the day she died. She is not called a Jewish Moabitess, or a Moabite Jewess. You see, God LOVES all humankind. God appreciates all the different racial groupings. God loves variety. God is not a racist like the German Nazis or certain sections of a modern Jewish elite.

Joining the spiritual ekklesia (the Messianic Community) which was established by Yeshua, the converted Gentiles become ONE with Mashiach in co-bodied union with Jewish believers (and they, both united, are called the "One New Man" -- not the "new Jew," or a mongrelised "Jewish-Gentile composite," but an altogether NEW Human Being based entirely on the IMAGE of the Cosmic Christ).

Understanding these principles, this then brings me to questions regarding individual racial identity. While laboriously pouring over genealogies can be a dreadful waste of precious time (as Paul noted), there can be advantages indeed. Knowing our "roots" is vitally important to a proper self-image, even psychologically. Any psychiatrist can tell you that much! Indeed, there are many people living all over the world who are Jewish and are not even aware of that fact. But something deep within them causes them to search into Jewish matters as if there is an enormous yearning that MUST eventually be satisfied. God is opening hearts and eyes to His calling and to His election in Grace, in relation to His people.

Believers need to be made aware of this fact too: Jews being the Chosen People does not in any way imply that the Gentiles are "especially Unchosen." This is not what God intended to be the case. But, some Christians view it this way.

Clearly, the Word of God must be "rightly partitioned" as Paul articulated. Really, there is no such thing as a "spiritual Jew." But a true, authentic Jew is one who is inwardly a fervent, praising believer in God and His Grace and love toward himself and all humankind.

Remember, always, as we have seen in this account of Romans 2.28,29 that a text taken out of context is nothing more than a pretext.

Now, this being the case, at our last lecture we discussed the fact that representatives of all the tribes of Israel were -- during the mid-to-late Second Temple Period -- in the city of Jerusalem and dwelling in the region of Judaea. There were also Israelites in the Diaspora, and they were in the Mediterranean region having NEVER EVER LOST THEIR IDENTITY. We have seen evidence of this fact from Our Lord Yeshua, from Peter, James and John, and Luke and Paul as well.

I mentioned during that same recently past lecture that there exists evidence that tens of thousands of Israelites from the northern kingdom of Israel fled south to the protective borders of the Kingdom of Judah at the time of the Assyrian conquest of Israel under Shalmaneser and Sargon II. (Remember there were actually TWO Kingdoms of Israel, for there had been a civil war between the tribes of Jacob and ten tribes confederated in the north and were known variously as Israel, Ephraim and Samaria, and three tribes stayed loyal to the Jerusalem Temple cult in the south -- Judah, Benjamin and Levi.) The ten tribes followed the rebel leadership of the upstart Jeroboam, and the Jews followed the royal leadership of Rehoboam the son of Solomon by the Ammonite princess Na'amah.

With the astonishingly rapid and aggressive rise of Assyrian power the northern kingdom of Israel (also known as Ephraim after its major tribe, and equally called Samaria after its capitol of the same name) began to suffer psychologically from the influence of the permeating Aryan doctrine of Assyrian racial superiority. Israelite fears of growing Assyrian military menace were not unfounded.

In about 745 B.C.E. Tiglath-Pileser invaded Syria slaying its king, Rezin, and then blitzkrieged across the extremities of Israel's northern frontier borders pushing his invasion far south to the level of the Sea of Galilee, abruptly turning eastwards and ravaging the entire region to nearly the level of the Dead Sea, taking captive the survivors of the tribes of Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Naphtali, Reuben, Manasseh and Issachar in major deportations to the depopulated cities of the Medes in the vicinity of the Black and Caspian Seas and concentration camps of Assyria (2 Kings 15.29; 1 Chron 5.26).

Tiglath-Pileser left us a record (discovered in Mesopotamia around the year 1850) which is clear as to the numbers of Israelites who were carried back to Assyrian camps as slave labour. It simply says, "All of its people together with their goods I carried off to Assyria."

Israel had been effectively reduced to a third of its original size.

It is certainly noteworthy that the northern Dan is missing from the biblical historical commentary. This is not an oversight by the editor of the biblical record. The other Israelite tribes are noted but Dan is conspicuous by his absence. There is a simple reason for this.

Situated were they were, the tribe of Danites would have been the first tribe to feel the impact of the Assyrian invasion and therefore, to avoid the foreseen conflict, the entire tribe either fled southwards or struck out in a massive Mediterranean armada westward, or both. One thing for certain, they were not there when the Assyrians marched through their land. Dan was not the only tribe that fled southwards. We have already noted that many thousands from all the tribes of Israel were given political asylum in the Southern Kingdom of Judah as early as the breakup of the Solomonic kingdom (1 Kings 12.23; 2 Chron 11.14-17). Surely the inhabitants of Judah and Benjamin (with the priestly Levites) would have done no less during this period of Assyrian conquest. There is NT evidence that supports this assertion and we discussed this fact in our last lecture (as an e.g., see Lk 2.36).

A little over two decades later, with an economically devastated and politically fragmented Israel still reeling under the repercussion of Assyrian hostilities, the sacrificial destruction of at least seven of Jacob's tribal nationalities and the monumental loss of the Danites, the remaining Israelites viewed with awesome dread the continuing escalation of the Assyrian war machine. In 721-718 BCE Israel was again invaded, this time by the emperor Shalmaneser and his commander-in-chief Sargon II. The capitol of the northern kingdom, Samaria, finally fell.

We are told by Professor Worrell, "The Assyrian state is without parallel in history for economic destructiveness, organised rapacity, and calculated frightfulness. The cruelty of the Assyrians is a thing that stands out hideously ... His greater energy and efficiency he devoted effectively to war. He fought with chariots and horses, with the new iron weapons of the Hittites, and with battering rams of his own invention ... His chief god was the war-god Asshur. He set the example of world empire, followed in turn by the Persians, Greeks, Romans, French and Prussians [Germanic peoples]" (W.H.Worrell, A Study of Races in the Ancient Near East, 1927, 104).

Baikie throws more light on the character and nature of the Assyrian warrior: "With the possible exception of the Huns, or the wild hordes of Tamerlane, there has probably never existed, in the history of the world, a power so purely and solely destructive, so utterly devoid of the slightest desire to make any real contribution to the welfare of the human race, as Assyria. But the Huns and the hordes of Tamerlane were untaught savages. In the case of Assyria you have a  highly organised and civilised people ... [and] a tremendous aptitude for organisation and discipline ... with the ruthless spirit of a Red Indian brave and an absolute delight in witnessing the most ghastly forms of human suffering ... the outside, a splendid specimen of highly developed humanity - the inside a mere ravening tiger" (J.Baikie, Lands and Peoples of the Bible, 1914, 99).

Under the Assyrian banners, one of which was more than likely the swastika, a national symbol borrowed originally from the Phoenicians, the most horrendous examples of wholesale cruelty to a people was unleashed in the barbarous torture and slaughter of the surviving inhabitants of an entire city -- as a prospect awaiting the rest of the nation if Israel refused to capitulate. Capitulate she did.

The Assyrian king wrote, subsequent to the capture of Babylon, "I  slew one of every two. I built a wall before the great gates of the city. I flayed [skinned alive] the chief men of the rebels [those councillors, politicians and administrators who would not submit to Assyrian conquest] and I covered the walls with their skins. Some of them, I enclosed alive within the bricks of the walls; some of them were crucified alive with stakes along the wall [this was not mere crucifixion, bad enough, but rather the stake was thrust through the victim between the legs and out the chest cavity missing the heart. It could take days to die a lingering and shockingly cruel death]. I caused a great multitude of them to be flayed in my presence, and I covered the walls with their skins" (A.Kalyanaraman, Aryatanangini. The Saga of the Indo-Aryans, 1969, Vol I., 14.n3).

Out of a thriving metropolis of the capital city of Samaria a mere handful of survivors were deported to the slave labour camps of outer Assyria, into the vicinity of the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and Caspian Seas. On the walls of the palace of Sargon II at Ninevah there reads the following inscription:

"In the beginning of my reign I besieged, I took by the help of the god Shamash ... the city of Samaria. Twenty seven thousand two hundred and eighty [27,280] of its inhabitants I carried away ... I took them to Assyria and put into places people whom my hands had conquered. I set my officers and governors over them, and laid on them a tribute as on the Assyrians."

This inscription has been misunderstood by some to apply to the northern kingdom of Israel (or Samaria) in its entirety, but a cautious reading reveals that Sargon is relishing the fruits of successful conquest over the fall of the capitol city which was called by the same name as the Israelite nation -- Samaria.

So WHAT is the evidence that Israelite tribes were swallowed up amongst the the tribes of Judah in the southern kingdom? Please follow what I have to share carefully.

At the time of the division of the Kingdom of Israel into two separate nations, many of the Israelites who dwelt in the cities of Judah remained.

"So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king saying, What portion have we in David? Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to your own house, David. So Israel departed unto their tents. BUT AS FOR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WHICH DWELT IN THE CITIES OF JUDAH, REHOBOAM REIGNED OVER THEM ... And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred and eighty thousand chosen men [180,000], who were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon" (1 Kgs 12.16,17,21).

Even subsequent to the national split into two divisions (the North and the South) Rehoboam was able to muster some 180,000 warriors against Israel. This is a most important fact, and in a moment we shall consider this figure in the light of further research into the biblical narrative. And remember, when the division occurred, the Scripture states that many Israelites preferred to show loyalty to the sovereign Rehoboam than to that of the rebel confederacy to the north under Jeroboam.

Their wisdom was justified, for after only a very short space of time, the entire Northern Kingdom was led into pagan idolatry and heathen practices by Jeroboam. Yet even here in this instance the Bible again clearly states that not everyone in Israel was led into national apostasy. Notice it now:

"And the priests and THE LEVITES THAT WERE IN ALL ISRAEL RESORTED TO HIM [to Rehoboam king of Judah] OUT OF ALL THEIR COASTS. For the Levites left their suburbs [Hebrew "their open land"] and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam [usurper-king of Israel] and his sons had cast them off from executing the priest's office unto the LORD: and he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the satyrs [half-human, half-goat idols], and for the calves which he had made" (2 Chron 11.13-15).

"And AFTER THEM OUT OF ALL THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers. So THEY STRENGTHENED THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH, and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong, three years: for three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon" (2 Chron 11.16,17).

Now please note what the holy Spirit inspired the author of Chronicles to record. The Levites departed for the Jerusalem segment of the divided kingdom and a general populace immigrated after them from ALL the tribes of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. And they continued to emigrate -- hordes of them -- and to gravitate to the Southern Kingdom thirty five years later!

"And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the LORD, that was before the porch of the LORD. And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin and those who dwelt with them out of EPHRAIM and MANASSEH, and out of SIMEON: for they fell to him out of Israel in ABUNDANCE, when they saw that the LORD his God was with him. [The Complete Jewish Bible translates: "for they had defected to him in large numbers upon seeing that Adonai his God was with him."] So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa" (2 Chron 15.8-10).

Take notice that here, over a period of at least thirty-five years, we have documentation that hordes of emigrating Israelites, especially and notably those from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon aligned with Judah and Benjamin and Levi.

Recall I mentioned earlier that at the time of the split between the united tribal nations, Rehoboam was able to muster a military machine of 180,000 men. This in itself was no mean feat. This information is vital to comprehend the powerful increase in Rehoboam's might and Kingdom as the nation of Judah grew and prospered. For not a mere eighteen years onward Ahijah, Rehoboam's heir, gathered together an estimated fighting force of 400,000 seasoned warriors (2 Chron 13.3).

Remember, that was in just 18 years. It gives us some idea of the growth of the Southern Kingdom of Judah as a direct consequence of Israelite defections from the North. But this is not all -- consider that a little later in the days of Asa, the son of Ahijah, the growth of the military might and prowess of Judah is reflected in the statistic of 580,000 soldiers at arms (2 Chron 14.8).

This impressive figure swells, within another 32 years, to an astonishing 1,160,000 troops (2 Chron 17.14-19) -- "men of valour," "prepared for war."

The gradation from a military force of 180,000 to 400,000 to 580,000 to a final standing army of 1,160,000 Jewish fighters is a positive indicator of dramatic population increase -- the Kingdom of Judah (with Benjamin and Levi) had now enlarged considerably incorporating a vast multitude from the "ten" Northern tribes. It is also a genuine indicator of healthy, stable economic growth.

Not only is this the case, we have seen that the biblical documentation shows without any doubt whatever that by the period of the Assyrian conquest and captivity of the Northern Confederacy (circa) 721 BCE the Jewish Kingdom comprised multitudinous representatives of ALL twelve tribes.

Those who have considered the evidence and are adamant in their stand that the Southern Kingdom of Judah was only made up of Judah, Benjamin and Levi are doing so in contradistinction to the biblical revelation as laid down by the holy Spirit.

They are rebelling against God's revealed Word!

Their "Replacement Theology" needs to be slammed back to the pit of devilish hell from whence it came.

There is an old maxim. No matter how impressive the tree appears, if the root is rotten the entire tree is rotten.

In our next lecture we shall consider the British-Israel 2520 year scenario.