Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/194

182 crees, returned from their captivity, one of the earliest cares of their leaders seems to have been to collect as correct a genealogy as they could of the several families. In this however it is clear that they were obliged to be contented with very general statements, as not being able to prove distinct descents. The First Book of Chronicles has been always supposed to be of Ezra's compilation; and it was undoubtedly compiled, if not written, after the return from captivity. This book commences accordingly with long lists of genealogies, which led the writer or compiler to refer to events passing in his time. Referring then to the return from their captivity, he writes in the 9th chapter, "So all Israel were reckoned by genealogies, and behold they were written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, who were carried away to Babylon for their transgressions. Now the first inhabitants that dwelt in their possessions in their cities were the Israelites, the priests, Levites, and the Nethinims. And in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Judah, and of the children of Benjamin, and of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh." (v. 3.) Many of the names in the following verses are identical with those in Ezra and Nehemiah, as Sallu, the son of Meshullum, and others, showing they referred to the children of the captivity; and therefore we can have no hesitation in concluding from the passage above cited, that while the Israelites generally after their return were scattered abroad in their cities, Jerusalem itself was peopled by a mixture of the descendants, not only of Judah, but of a certain portion of the other tribes also, principally Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh. Of the other tribes of the Israelites we have no specific mention after the captivity, with one exception; but in direct opposition to the assumptions of those who imagine the Afghans to represent the tribes as lost, we are thus more particularly able to connect the tribes of Simeon and Joseph distinctly in their correct nomenclature of Ephraim and Manasseh, as above stated, with the restoration. The proofs in respect of the other tribe, that of Simeon, are still stronger; and in establishing them, therefore, we not only destroy the theory of their having to be found among the Afghans, but also raise a strong presumption of the probability of the other tribes having in like manner returned by the side of them.

Our argument is intended to show, that after the return from their captivity the different tribes amalgamated with Judah and Benjamin to form one people. From the above passage it is clear that Ephraim and Manasseh especially did so amalgamate, and therefore could not be included among