Before we begin to explore who were the lost of the House of Israel, it is appropiate to first look at who they were not. Many churches teach that God's destiny for the House of Israel - “In you and your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” - as promised to Abraham, has been transfered from the House of Israel to the Church because the former had turned away from God and his commandments.
It is a great mistake to imagine that God has altered course midstream, changed His intention, cast off His people, broken His covenant with Abraham, and substituted the church in place of Israel in the hope that it would accomplish what Israel failed to do. If we believe that, we have missed even the rudiments of spiritual understanding. God has neither cast off His people nor changed His purpose in any degree. Who could trust Him if He were not immutable? The New Testament church and the modern day Church that grew out of it has and continues to have its part to play in God's eternal plan, but that is supplementary to and not a replacement of the role God elected the House of Israel to fulfil.
The same must be said of the House of Judah, the descendents of which have returned to the land promised to Abraham and his seed, and established the modern day nation of Israel. It is impossible to rightly grasp the fulness of these truths until we clearly observe the important distinction between the two houses of Israel – the house of Judah and the house of Israel. Until we grasp this fact, we will always remain in darkness, because each house was given its own unique promise, different one from the other. Unless we distinguish between them, we are destined to end up in confusion.
Almost universally among church people we find the erroneous understanding which teaches that Israel is the Jew and only the Jew. This is a gross error which can only produce confusion and unbelief. It is true that many who call themselves Jews are Israelites, yet these Jews represent only a very small part of the house of Judah, and none of them – and I repeat, none of them – belong to the house of Israel. Until the searcher learns that the house of Judah and the house of Israel are two distinct and separate parts of one nation, each having different callings and different promises, he can never hope to understand their separate callings in the world today or embrace the verities of the covenant God made with them.
Until the end of the reign of King Solomon, the twelve tribes of the children of Israel composed one nation under God. Immediately following King Solomon’s death, because of his oppressive taxation, the ten tribes rebelled against the House of David, forming a completely separate nation, thenceforth known as the house of Israel.
These ten tribes crowned as their king the wicked, idolatrous Jeroboam, who led Israel into sin, turning away from the faith of their fathers. The tribe of Judah, along with the tribe of Benjamin and much of the priestly tribe of Levi, remained faithful to the house of David (that is, the Davidic line of kings) and from that day until now they have been known as the house of Judah. The occupiers of the modern day nation of Israel are their descendents.
This important distinction is recognized everywhere throughout scripture, and our failure to understand it will confuse us greatly as to the calling of each nation. Throughout scripture, where mention is made of the house of Judah, the reference is to Judah and Benjamin, the two tribes of the southern confederacy; but where mention is made of the house of Israel, the reference is to the ten tribes of the northern confederacy. This distinction never varies throughout the entire Bible. It should be easy, therefore, to understand that the future of these two Israelitish nations could be as diverse as that of China and Spain.
Long before the split which led to the establishment of the breakaway House of Judah, Ephraim, the younger son of Joseph, was given the family birthright and placed by God as the first born. Jer.31:9. Because of this the ten tribes of the house of Israel are sometimes referred to as Ephraim (Ezek. 37:16), and occasionally as Joseph (Ezek.37:19). Neither of these terms ever applied to the house of Judah, and when coming across them when reading the Scriptures, we must remember this to ensure we know exactly which group of people is being skonen about. This thought is borne out frequently in the book of Hosea. The house of Judah is mentioned thirty-seven times in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament. The house of Israel is mentioned approximately ninety-four times in the Old Testament and four times in the New. The fact that the house of Judah and the house of Israel were actually mentioned separately several times before the death of Solomon adds weight to the thought that the Lord had ordained their separation (2 Sam. 21:8).
After the house of Israel rebelled against the house of David and became a separate nation, king Rehoboam of the house of David raised an army, intending to force the rebellious house of Israel back into subjection to himself. After the battle preparations were made, however, Shemaiah, the prophet, forbad him to fight with them. In I Kings 12:19-24 the details of that rebellion and the reason for it are given in the following words: “So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day. And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only (and Benjamin, verse 21). And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.
"But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying, Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and the remnant of the people, saying, “Thus saith the Lord. Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from Me.” In other words, the seemingly tragic division between the house of Israel and the house of Judah was in fact ordained of God, because. In His eternal purposes these two brother nations were to inherit entirely different and distinct callings in their mission of blessing to all the nations and families of the earth. The division of the twelve tribes of Israel into two kingdoms – the house of Judah and the house of Israel – was not an unfortunate mistake or calamity, and everything would remain within the framework of the Abrahamic Covenant without any changes to God's eternal plan being necessary.
In the forty-eighth and forty-ninth chapters of Genesis, Jacob by prophecy outlined the future of all his twelve sons, emphasizing especially their place of greatness in the last days, which incidentally is correctly translated as "times to come" and not the end of time as many perceive it to be.
The possession of a birthright, in scripture is a very important thing, because through the birthright comes the principal blessing of the entire family. In Gen. 48:13-22 we read the account of Jacob’s blessing the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. In the prophetic blessing Ephraim, the younger, was set before Manasseh, the elder. Ephraim was to become a company (or commonwealth) of nations and Manasseh was to become a great nation. Gen. 48:19. “And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.” That is to say, Jacob made Ephraim the firstborn and heir of the blessings of the firstborn son. This is God’s doing and not man’s.
The prophet Jeremiah definitely states that Ephraim is the firstborn (Jer. 31:19). Ephraim and Manasseh are the two branches of Joseph, which are said to “run over the wall.” Gen. 49:22. Upon their heads fell all the wonderful blessings of their father Joseph, given in such detail in Gen. 49:22-26. These blessings were to prevail to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills. Verse 26. Ephraim became the head and often the name of the ten tribes of the house of Israel; therefore, his blessings fall upon the whole house of Israel.
The royal sceptre was given to Judah, as it is written. “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come;” (Gen. 49:10) but the birthright, with all the world-wide blessing it entailed, was given to the sons of Joseph. When the House of Judah was created, it did so by removing itself from the House of Israel, therefore removing it from being the recipient of the blessings of greatness and nationhood, given to the sons of Joseph. This in no way affected Judah's standing as the offspring of Abraham, and therefore all the promises given to Abrajham's seed, including the land God promised them, remained aplicable to them.
At this juncture, it important to note that when Jesus looked down over Jerusalem and spoke the words we read in Matthew 23:37, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing," has was speaking of the occupants of that city, who at that time was nation of Judah. "Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Within forty years of those words were spoken, Jerusalem was destroyed and their homeland ransacked. In recent times, they have returned to that homeland, but they are not at peace, as they have yet to acknowledge their Messiah.
The Nation of Israel, on the other hand, has always been “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” (Acts 7:51) and ever stubborn and rebellious, but God has never broken His covenant with them nor forgotten His agreement with Abraham. It was through the stubbornness and rebellion of the house of Israel that the nation was overrun and carried away captive to the land of Assyria in the year 721 B.C (2 Kings: 17). Though it is not generally realized, it is true that at this time a large part of the house of Judah was also carried away captive to Assyria with the house of Israel. Other portions of Judah, principally Jerusalem, remained in Palestine for another one hundred thirty-four years, then, through their evil, they were carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in the years 588 and 587 B.C. There they remained for seventy years, after which forty thousand of them returned to Palestine and rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra. It is from this remnant of forty thousand that the present day Jews are descended. The word Jew is an abbreviation for Judah, as Joe is an abbreviation for Joseph.
From the time of the captivity of the house of Israel in 721 B.C. unto this day, the ten tribes have been known as the lost tribes of the house of Israel. Jesus referred to them as the lost sheep of the house of Israel. They weren't lost as in they did not know where they were, rather they didn't know who they were. They had assimmilated into the communities to which they had travelled, and in so doing, within a generation or two had lost their indentity as a people chosen by God to fulfill a task - that through them would all the nation of the earth be blessed.
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