In The Master's Service

Print this page

GOD'S ORACLE PEOPLE

CHAPTER NINE
THE MYTH OF THE "LOST TRIBES"

Brother John G. Gassaway

Matthew 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Matthew 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

You may interpret this however you will, but all of the evidence after the Day of Pentecost, particularly the ministry of Paul, points towards the apostles taking this literally and going first to people in the areas where the northern captives had migrated by their time, far away from Judah and Jerusalem. James the elder went to Spain immediately to Jews, the Sephardic (Hebrew name for Spain) who arrived there sometime after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC and ancient aristocratic rulers in Egypt, sons of Zerah and perhaps some Danites, Simeonites who separated themselves from the main body of Israel in the desert migrations. They were now known as Milesians. Paul went into the area we call Turkey today. He intended to go to Spain. Why? And if he intended to do so and it was God's will as Paul clearly stated, was it even possible that he did not go? The evidence is that Paul went there during the time that he "rented his own house" in Rome as described in Acts 28. He was free to come and go as he pleased once Caesar had heard his case.

I am going to pause here just a minute to consider an obvious question about this entire subject. Why, if all of this is true, did God not place it clearly somewhere in the Bible? If the mission of Jeremiah was to plant Judah and the throne of David, why would the Bible not have told us more about Jeremiah's final mission? My answer may be simplistic, but we have to look as much as possible from God's viewpoint. He had threatened multiple times through Moses and the prophets of the punishment for disobedience. We considered that earlier. Yet God had made some unconditional promises to Abraham and his generations to Jacob and then to David, the man "after God's heart." To carry out those promises, God had to have other options just as He had with Adam and Eve. He did punish Israel, Judah, and David and his line but in that punishment, secretly carried out the promises to Abraham and to David. The secret is not so buried that we cannot find it and that is what I am doing with this work. All of the assertions are backed up by prophecies in the Bible as I have given but the actual fulfillment is found only outside the Bible in profane history.

The earliest northern tribes to migrate out of Medo-Persia were known as Cimmerians (House of Imrite). They were also known as (English) CIMMER, (Greek; Josephus) KIMMEROI, (Assyriab) GIMMERAI, (Hebrew) GMR or Gomer, and (Latvian) ZIEMELI "northerners." They were the Gimirru (Cimmerians; (Herodotus) of Assyrian inscriptions, dating after 720 BC. They were then pushed south of the Black Sea into Galatia and back east and northward into France and westward to Spain by the sixth century BC and the British Isles by the advancing tribes known as Scythians and Getae pursuing them by the fourth century BC. Herodotus recorded this in the fifth century BC. The Welsh trace their origins to the Cimri and their traditions, as with the other Celtic peoples, link the Cimri to the Cimmerians and those who sought refuge in the mountainous areas of Wales. Their Gaelic dialect remained generally unchanged by the Romans, Saxons and lastly the Norman invasions in 1066 AD.

Some tribes became known as Gauls in France and in Germany they were known to Julius Caesar in his annals as the Germani in the first century BC. Some of the Gauls sacked Rome in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC, and then moved back into central Asia Minor (Turkey) to become the Galatians, whom Paul visited on all three missionary journeys. Even the apostles knew where the "lost sheep of the House of Israel" were. The Church was to grow in those environments of Turkey, Europe and the British Islands. Up until Acts 28, Paul always went to the local synagogues but inevitably would be attacked by the Jews and his success would come with the non-Jewish citizens, that is, the Gentiles of an area. Paul let it be known in chapter twenty-eight that from then on, he would turn to the Gentiles. Remember that ANY non-Jew was a Gentile and those descendants of Joseph and the "lost tribes" were considered Gentiles. That was even the case in Rome as that Church was made up of the royal family of Briton and people who had been captured by Roman Emperor Claudius' army in the long war in Briton and brought back to Rome in chains. Carodok, or Latin, Caractodus, his family and his cohorts were eventually to gain favor with Claudius and were given their pardon and assigned the Praetorium Britannica as their own home. The condition of pardon for the sage of that family, the fierce warrior king Carodok, was that he could never return to war against Rome and a tax would be levied on his old homeland, Seluria, to support him and his band of family and friends. Carodok kept his word and they remained there and the first Gentile church was in their house. Paul makes a distinction between them and the Jewish Church in the house of Prisca (or Priscilla) and Aquilla. (Romans 16:5; II Timothy 4:19). Paul writes to them, speaking of their names in the 4th chapter of II Timothy with names like Gladys (named Claudia by the Emperor Claudius), her brother, Linus, who would become the first pastor of the Gentile church in Rome; Eubulus, also called Aristobulus in the 16th chapter of Romans, along with Hermes (the pastor from Briton, a converted Druidic priest).

These people were all descendants of the earliest Cimmerians who came out of Assyria in the seventh century BC, or descendants of Judah who moved to southern Briton prior to the Exodus from Egypt and after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Additionally, a large group of the tribe of Simeon settled in that area sometime during the last days of the wilderness migration of Israel after the incident in Numbers 25 when a prince of the House of Simeon was slain for cohabitating with a "medianitish woman." Just prior to the time that Paul was speaking of these people of Spain (and Briton). [Did the Apostle Paul Visit Britain? By R.W. Morgan], they were practicing Druids. They had been converted by Joseph of Arimathea shortly after the first persecutions of the Christians in Jerusalem by the Jewish authorities. (Acts 8:1). Gladys and Linus were children of a king of Briton, Carodok (Briton name) or Caractodus (Latin name) [The Annals of Tacitus). The known genealogy of Carodok shows that he was either a descendant of Pharez or, more likely, Zerah, following the pattern that God had put forth in Genesis 48.

At this point I would like to make a clear statement of what appears to be unquestionable fact here. The "lost tribes" are NOT lost at ANY time in history and they were not lost to Ezekiel either, as the facts will show. In fact, they are very much known to God today and were known by His prophets and God was still speaking to them through His prophets throughout the Old Testament, particularly Amos and Hosea who were sent to tell them of their impending doom prior to the Assyrian bondage. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel warned them. Hosea was to prophesy their doom through the similitude of marrying a prostitute and then having children whose very names foretold the fate of the Northern Kingdom (not the Southern House of Judah); they would be without God's mercy, Lo-ruhamah, NOT HIS PEOPLE, Lo-ammi (lose their name that identified them with El or Yahweh), and they would be scattered, Jezreel.

Micah prophesied (750-686 BC) to them after they had been taken away and was giving them hope of becoming a great nation again (Micah 4:7). Micah lived in the time of Isaiah (750 BC to 686 BC during the earliest days when the first captives east of the Jordan were taken away captive in 738 BC and after the last were taken in 721 BC). Micah mentions the House of Israel three times but never the House of Judah. Micah speaks of Judah four times as a people but obviously not to Jews in Babylon as Micah's prophecies were in the seventh to eighth centuries.

If the ten tribes were ever lost, and I say IF, then it will be to later modern-day historians. I will also say now, before I give the evidence, they were not lost to ALL historians. Their names changed as God's edict required ("not my people") and finding them today at various times in ancient history requires knowing their new names as historians recorded them. Adequate records of many Empires exist to identify these people without any guesswork. They would not be known by their former name, Israel, that identified them with God (Hosea 1:9). A way of understanding this is that there is considerable difficulty in reading history of Russia today for a city like Leningrad, which was previously known as St. Petersburg, now today is St. Petersburg again! The same thing happened to the great city Constantinople. It became Istanbul. Anyone who studied history before the Russian revolution had to learn a new name for St. Petersburg. Likewise, after the fall of the USSR, we have to learn about St. Petersburg again!

God had forewarned in Hosea that they would lose their old names and never be identified with His name (EL or YAWAH - Israel). That will prove to be true as their names reverted to the name of the Kings of Israel (Imrie or Omri-Cimmerians) or the tribal chieftians and prominent families or clans of the most powerful tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh (Anflei, Eglei, Massagetae or Getae). They would even get names that only identified them by various ways of life such as moving around in wagons with all of their belongings (Sychians). England would even get its name from Anglei land, substituting the Hebrew word for man or people, "ish," you get Angle-ish, or Engli-ish. Some would even revert to the name of one of the oldest family patriarchs, Isaac, through the various names Saki, Saki-sooni (literally, "sons of Isaac"; remove the vowels from Isaac and Saka and you have SC or SK, the "I" dropped from Isaac and the vowel "a" rearranged; there is NO Hebrew letter "C"). They became Saxons. The Jews caught up in the captivity would even lose their name and be renamed Jutes. The JEWS ALSO CARRIED captors of the tribes in Assyria OFF BY ASSYRIANS gave them their names for the historians of the day in Assyria.

The Persians would then employ them as mercernaries in their war with Assyria and they would rename them through their historians. The name that would stick with them all the way through later migrations would be Angles and Saxons; also Scots, a derivation from Scythian, Scoothians or Scotians (The name of one of the daughters of Zedekiah, Scotta, who settled in Northern Ireland with her Milesian king husband from Spain is an intriguing one.) Scotta is mentioned as being in Ireland later in the Chronicles of Ireland. One large group in Europe became known by the name Germani during the time of Julius Caesar. Of course the name Dan, Dun, Din and other cognates followed the Dannites in their migrations. The Dannites would rename every place they went by adding dan, dun or din to the name: the Danube River, the Dniepper River, London, Denmark, and Scandinavia and so on. That is a separate story from the House of Israel and their migrations and will be covered later.

JEWS ALSO CARRIED OFF BY ASSYRIANS

Sennacherib carried out three campaigns against Israel (II Kings 18:13; II Chronicles 32:1; Isaiah 36:1, 37:37; II Kings 17:5-6), completing the removal of all but Jerusalem by 721 BC and replacing them with "men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim" (II Kings 17:24). Sennacherib had captured all the unwalled cities of Judah by the 14th year of Hezekiah and exiled their inhabitants. Through the many attacks a large portion of Judah went into exile with the Ten Tribes and was mixed amongst them. Even so, "Judah" in Biblical terms refers to those Jews who remained and kept their religion and whose identity is known. Those whose identity is unknown are counted together with the northern Israelites who are referred to separately. The Judahites would carry various other names of their own depending on geographical location and in time they acquired a particular name such as Jutes or Britons (from the Zarahite Brutus).

I will be following the migrations of these people later along with the House of Israel and see if what God said about them in Genesis 48, in the song of Moses in Deuteronomy and in I Chronicles 5 has any fulfillment. I will also see if that magical number 2520 years has any meaning as applied to them. I will also look at the Jews who went back to the land with Ezra as well as the ones who remained behind AND the ones who migrated alongside the Northern Kingdom from their places of exile in Media.

Hosea points out clearly that the Northern Kingdom lost its position as being "not my people" (Hosea 1:9-11) but will become the sons of God." In verse 11 they are referred to as the children of Israel and the children of Judah on the return to the land of Israel. So it seems that this people, "my people Israel," lose their name as prophesied by Hosea but regain it when they become the sons of the living God.

Although the Jew is among them, it appears they are a distinct people and Amos 9:15 indicates that the land they are in is "their land." Amos leaves out the words "that I gave to their fathers." I don't know but I think that is important. The Jew is to be "plucked up" from out of the land of the inheritance of "my people Israel." Again, it appears that the writers are always making a distinction between the Jew and the House of Israel and the Jew is considered as "my people Israel" only when the Jew is among this people, "my people Israel."

Jeroboam II gave Uzziah control of Cilicia in southeast Turkey where a colony of Judaeans was established alongside a colony of Dan. Dan and Judah were frequently together. Later in Denmark the Danes (from Dan) were accompanied by their Jewish neighbors who were to take on the name, Jutes, from Judah. The change was a linguistic anomaly that is noted between the letter T and the letter D. The Assyrian T replaced the Hebrew D in Judah and became Jutah and shortened to Jute in a shortened form. Many other ancient Judahites migrated with the rest of the Assyrian captives into Eastern Europe. Several hundred thousand Jews were taken captive by Samaria (II Chronicles 28:8) and they along with many other Jews during the sieges of Tiglath-Pileser, Sennacherib and Shalmanezzer eventually were removed all except Jerusalem. That Bible account is borne out by the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser in the British Museum, in the Assyrian Galleries.

I have in the past regarded that the 50,000 who returned under Ezra as "all Israel" since they are the only ones found in scripture. If that is the case then why did Ezra send a request to Iddo, the chief of Casiphia, to send him Levites. Casiphia is stated in Dr.Henderson's Russian researches to be a country bordering on the Caspian Sea. Ezra found that he did not have adequate numbers of Levites to carry out the service in the second Temple.

It is not a surprise to see that we find "Levites" in this area. Ezra upon making the rebuilt temple ready for service did not have adequate numbers of Levites and sent word to Iddo the chief of "Casiphia" to send him Levites. Casiphia was in the region of the Caspian Sea, the place where the ten tribes were exiled. Ezra knew exactly where the ten tribes were. These people had gotten there and an epigraph found on tombstone in this same region describes how they moved here. Below is Coffin's translation of A. E. Harkavy's German version (published in Academia Scientiarum Imperialis Memoires, St. Petersburg, vol. 24, no.1, 1863, p. 9):

I Jehuda ben Mose ha-Na-golon of the East country, ben Jehuda ha-Gibbor of the tribe of Naphtali, of the generation Schillem, who went into the exile with the exiles, who were driven away with Hosea, the king of Israel, together with the tribes of Simeon and Dan and some of the generations of the other tribes of Israel, which (all) were led into exile by the enemy Shalmaneser from Schomron [Samaria] and their cities to Chalach [Halah], that is, Backack and to Chebar [Habor], that is, Chabul and to Hara, that is, Herat, and to Gosan [Gozan], the cities of the exiled tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half of Manasseh, which Pilneser [Tiglath-Pileser] drove into exile and settled there (and from there they scattered themselves over the whole land of the East as far as Sinim [China]) - when I returned from wandering in the land of their exile and from journeying in the dwelling places of the descendants of their generations in their resting places of the Land of Krim [the Crimea].

This shows that the movement of the tribes to the Persian-Assyrian border placed the tribes along with many Levites in the area of the Caspian Sea and Lake Van (beyond the river Halah; II Kings 17:6). The journeyings of the northern Ten Tribes following their captivity carried them into Europe eventually but at the time of Ezra these Levites remained with their Danite and Simeonite friends. Ezra described his dilemma of finding none of the sons of Levi and writing to Iddo to gather those Levites who had been resettled in Casiphia.

Ezra 8:15: and I gathered them together to the river that runneth to Ahava...there none of the sons of Levi. 16 Then sent I...unto Iddo the chief at the place Casiphia, and I told them what they should say unto Iddo, >and to his brethren the Nethinims, at the place Casiphia, that they should bring unto us ministers for the house of our God.

John Rhys connected the Jutes with the names Judah or Jews in his book "Early Celtic Britain" in which he describes a region in the vicinity of St. David's or Mnyw, known by the Welsh as the Moni Iudeorum. Linguistically this is Judeorum in German where the letter I becomes a J. We see that in the name of Jehovah which in Hebrew is spelled Yehovah. So the Welsh definitely are stating that Jews were in that area in ancient times long before the Diaspora of 70 AD and appear that they migrated out of Media with the rest of the Israelites. They did not forget their name, Judah. Only the Northern Israelites forgot their old name, Israel. Those that settled in Northern Europe took on the name of Jute in the process of changing linguistics of the territories of Germany into English dialect.

In the German language the Jews, who are a part of the people of Judah, are called JUDEN (singular - Jude), which is equivalent to "Judes" in English. In the Low German dialects, which are more closely related to Old English (the English of the Saxons and Jutes) the name Jude is pronounced "Yut," which is equivalent to the English "Jute." By the time these Jews had migrated over the next two centuries into Europe they had taken on the name of Jutes. The Jutes first settled in to the north in Germany near Dannites. They later came to the English Islands along with the Saxons. They would also find sons of Judah, who had come there in the days of Solomon along with the trade with Seluria and Cornwell in metals like tin, only obtainable in those days at Cornwell and absolutely required in metallurgy and the production of bronze. Joseph of Arimathea was carrying on this trade in the time of Jesus Christ and he is reputed to have taken Jesus to Cornwell and Glastonbury on one or more of his voyages and the people of that area still have folksongs about "Joseph the tin miner." The Church at Glastonbury makes a claim that under its foundation are the remnants of a waddle hut built by Jesus, Himself, where Jesus and His mother lived for some of those missing 18 years of Jesus' life.

Whether that last statement is true or not is not important. What is important is that the people of Cornwell, Briton and Glastonbury have this tradition and it is ancient. The sure fact is that Joseph was a rich man, owner of a great fleet of ships that was important to the Romans and that explains why Joseph of Arimathea had such access to Pilate that he could make requests of Pilate on the spur of the moment as he did on the day of the crucifixion of Jesus. Any lesser of a man would have probably lost his head as Pilate had had his fill of the Jews and the whold day. Joseph's wealth placed him on the Sanhedrin Council also. British Royal Charts show Joseph of Arimathea to be the brother of Heli, the father of the Virgin Mary and therefore the great uncle of Jesus Christ. There was more than a casual relationship between him and Mary. Joseph, along with the Bethany household of Mary, Martha and Lazarus and the man blind from birth, all fled Jerusalem via a small oarless boat up to Tyre where they obtained sails and then sailed to the south of France. Joseph then traveled on to Glastonbury where he established the first church there. The Church fathers write of Joseph as having carried the Gospel to Briton early.

Briton possibly came from the name of the Judahite grandson of Zerah, Brutus, who migrated from Troy to the islands after the fall of Troy. The old name of London was New Troy. Interestingly, the very name "British" gives us a clue to who they were. It is a combination of two Hebrew words, Byr-ith [Strongs #1285, which means COVENANT and "ish" which means "man," in other words "covenant man." (Look up "covenant" and "man" in your Strongs.) How better to name a people who would fulfill the covenants that God made with Abraham.

To be continued . . . MY PEOPLE ISRAEL AND THEIR KING.