Page:David Baron – The History of the Ten "Lost" Tribes.djvu/22



UT now discarding the whole heap of Anglo-Israel fiction, let us glance at the question of the so-called "lost" Ten Tribes in the light of Scripture history and prophecy. Anglo-Israelism first of all loses the Ten Tribes, for whom it claims a different destiny from the "Jews," whom it supposes to be descendants of the Two Tribes only, and then it identifies this "lost" Israel with the British race. But there is as little historical ground for the supposition that the Ten Tribes are lost, in the sense in which Anglo-Israelism uses the term, as there is Scriptural basis for a separate destiny for "Israel" apart from "Judah."

The most superficial reader of the Old Testament knows the origin and cause of the unfortunate schism which took place in the history of the elect nation after the death of Solomon. But this evil was to last only for a limited time; for at the very commencement of this new and parenthetical chapter of the nation's history it was announced by God that He would in this way afflict the seed of David, but not for ever (1 Kings xi. 39).

A separate kingdom, comprising Ten of the Twelve Tribes, was set up under Jeroboam in B.C. 975, and its whole history, of about 250 years, is one long, dark tale of usurpation, anarchy, and apostasy, unrelieved by