Introduction:
Hosea: A Prophetic Standard for the House of Israel
The Prophet Hosea’s book is the first of what are known
as the “minor” or short prophets of the Old Testament, whose writings
were shorter in length than the writings of the “major” prophets such
as Isaiah and Jeremiah. Yet Hosea’s prophecies were not only important,
but of especial interest for us today in the lands of Western Christendom,
for as the Biblical Encyclopedia (Gray and Adams) tells us, “The prophecies
of Hosea were addressed to the Ten Tribes.” (iii:713)
Nevertheless, many commentaries seem to overlook the historic and prophetic
importance of the division of Israel into two nations, which Hosea labels
“Ephraim” and “Judah.” The nation of Ephraim constituted the northern
ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, receiving this name from their largest
tribe and inheritor of the national birthright blessings (1 Chron. 5:1-2).
Bible reference books often simply refer to them as “Israel,” or “the
House of Israel,” in contrast with two-tribe Judah.
Yet some commentaries attempt to make Hosea’s prophecies fit the return
of the House of Judah to Canaan after the Babylonian captivity. This
does such violence to the meaning of the prophecies that even well-known
dispensationalist author, Arno C. Gabelein, rebuked such a view and declared,
“His [Hosea’s] prophecy is directed almost exclusively to the house of
Israel.”
The book of the Prophet Hosea could in fact be described as the redemptive
history of the ten tribe House of Israel. Here the prophet presents an
account of her sin, punishment and restoration, beginning his first chapter
with a concise synopsis using prophetic and symbolic language. He has
little good to say of Israel’s then current moral condition in the opening
verses of this first chapter; his terse, harsh, sad words remind one
of his later Judean counterpart, the Prophet Jeremiah. In fact, the Biblical
Encyclopedia says, “he was the Jeremiah of Israel.”
Although Hosea had a similar moral message to Jeremiah, calling for repentance
from sin, yet the House of Israel’s prophetic prospects were significantly
different from those of Judah. The dissimularity, however, is not clearly
understood at all by modern expositors, who fail to give the nation of
Ephraim-Israel any future in the plan of God. One strangely declares,
“The prophets of Judah could look forward to a restored people and a
repaired polity. The ten tribes had no separate future. Their temporal
punishment was irreversible.” (ibid. p.712)
Or was it? A closer look at Hosea’s prophecies sharply contradicts that
claim. Despite Ephraim’s sin, Hosea forecasts what can only be considered
a magnificent future for the House of Israel. They were to rid themselves
of their idols, become the Lord’s bride, receive mercy, be saved by the
Lord’s might, and expand greatly in numbers as the sand on the seashore.
To ignore all of this—and more—is to be blind indeed to Hosea’s tremendous
prophetic promises. Yet the expositors who recognize only the Jews as
legitimate Israelites after the end of the Babylonian captivity have
just such blind confusion. And their confusion can only increase as Hosea’s
blessings upon Ephraim-Israel increase.
Other mysteries for the expositors: In the parallel passages Hosea 1:11
and Jer. 3:18, if Judah and Israel were taken into two different exiles
by two different enemies, how is it that Judah shall walk with Israel?
The Keil-Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary maintains that verse eleven
“presupposes that Judah will find itself in the same situation as Israel;
that is to say, that it will also be rejected by the Lord.” (x:47) Yet
this we know for a fact did not happen, for Hosea records, “I will have
mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God”
(i:7). Instead, Scripture informs us that the Assyrians who conquered
Israel also captured all of the “fenced cities” of Judah in 701 B.C.
(2 Ki. 18:13), and so a main body of Judah went into Assyrian exile along
with Israel. Thus, Judah walked with, or to, Israel in their exile.
Yet this was not yet the prophesied reunion of Israel and Judah, for
(as Keil-Delitzsch states), “the object of the union is to appoint themselves
one head, and go up out of the land” (x:47), according to Hosea 1:11.
Where then did they together go? Some leading commentaries recognize
that they did not return to old Canaan!
For example, the Keil-Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary (x:49) says,
“So far as the fulfilment of this prophecy is concerned, the fact that
the patriarchal promise of the innumerable multiplication of Israel is
to be realized through the pardon and restoration of Israel...shows clearly
enough that we are not to look for this in the return of the ten tribes
from captivity to Palestine, their native land....the numbers of the
ten tribes, who may have attached themselves to the Judaeans on their
return, or who returned to Galilee afterwards as years rolled by, formed
but a very small fraction of the number that had been carried away; the
attachment of these few to Judah could not properly be called a union
of the sons of Israel and of the sons of Judah, and still less was it
a fulfilment of the words, ‘They appoint themselves one head’...this
fulfilment falls within the Messianic times, and hitherto has only been
realized in very small beginnings, which furnish a pledge of their complete
fulfilment in the last times...(Rom. 11:25-26).”
This eminent commentary contradicts much of the popular teaching today
concerning Ephraim, the House of Israel. The ten tribes never returned
to Palestine, other than a tiny remnant, and therefore logically must
remain “lost tribes” in our world today. Further, the joining of the
two houses of Judah and Ephraim-Israel has not yet taken place, awaiting
the dawn of the millennial age. Yet, Keil-Delitzsch’s solution is that
Ephraim-Israel must only be a spiritual people in our world today. (x:49)
Another mystery: Verse eleven of chapter one concludes by saying, “for
great shall be the day of Jezreel.” These words cause untold consternation
for the expositors. “The day of Jezreel causes no little difficulty,”
admits Keil-Delitzsch (x:48). This is true, if the verse is made to refer
to the city and valley in old Canaan where Assyria broke Israel’s might
(2 Ki. 15:29). How could a place of tragedy for Israel be a symbol for
anything good? But taking instead the Hebrew meaning of “scattering”
or “sowing,” it makes eminent sense. Israel was to be scattered and sown
in the lands of her exile, so that Hosea could proclaim that she would
become as the sand of the sea for multitude (1:10). This cannot await
a millennial fulfillment, since Israel will not be in exile then.
The word, “Jezreel,” has a double meaning of sowing or scattering, yet
the latter meaning is often neglected by many commentaries, who thus
fail to see that Ephraim-Israel did not return to Canaan, but traveled
far afield in her exile down to the present day.
The New Testament treatment of Hosea’s tremendous prophecy in chapter
one, verse ten was given by the Apostle Paul in Romans 9:25-26. Paul
quoted this to show that Israel’s exile, her “sowing in the earth” still
continued to that time, and that Israel’s restoration still lay in the
future. Some expositors try to spiritualize this, but since the spiritual
fulfillment of prophecy parallels and augments the physical fulfillment,
Israel’s physical exile must have still continued to the time of Christ.
Has no one noticed the incongruity of giving Judah’s prophecies a literal,
physical fulfillment, while limiting Ephraim-Israel’s prophecies to the
spiritual realm? In actual fact, the physical and spiritual realms parallel
one another as a necessary double witness (Dt. 19:15; Mt. 18:16; 2 Cor.
13:1).
Furthermore, from other prophecies (such as Ezkiel 37) we know that Ephraim-Israel’s
spiritual restoration was to precede her physical reunion with Judah.
This true spiritual restoration could only begin to take place with the
coming of Christ, as Peter proclaimed in the New Testament: “Which in
time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had
not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Peter 2:10) Peter’s
language is lifted directly from Hosea 1:10 and 2:23, showing clearly
that these Old Testament prophecies of Ephraim-Israel’s restoration had
not previously been fulfilled.
Paul in Romans 9:26 also quoted Hosea 1:10, gave an emphatic reference
to their “place” of exile, and then in the next chapter declared that
the Gospel must go to them to the ends of the earth (Rom.10:18). Clearly,
Ephraim-Israel had not been regathered to old Canaan! Her scattering
took her to new lands of promise (2 Sam. 7:10) where her spiritual restoration
is now well underway.
EZRA AND THE LOST TRIBES:
An Eye-Witness To History!
In any important public or historic event, reliable eye-witnesses serve
as the primary authority concerning what has actually taken place. In
Biblical history, we can also call upon dependable and inspired first-hand
eye-witness accounts in the writings of the prophets.
When the Babylonian captivity of the House of Judah ended in 538 B.C.,
there was a return of God’s people known today as “the Restoration.”
Religious writers looking back upon this event 2,500 years later invariably
assume that virtually every one of the Israelites, all twelve tribes,
were soon reestablished in Canaan. But surprisingly, there are two very
creditable and inspired witnesses to the events of that period—Ezra and
Nehemiah—who sharply disagree with most modern historians.
In fact, these two prophets are the only reliable eyewitnesses existing
today concerning the Restoration period of Biblical history. Both agree
on an important point: They specifically refer to the returnees as being
only of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, corporately known as the House
of Judah. There is no mention at all of any of the other missing ten
tribes which comprised the kingdom of the House of Israel!
Ezra was looking for colonists to resettle Israel’s old homeland, yet
not only did he not send an embassy to the missing ten tribes, he strangely
did not mention their existence at all. We receive the definite impression
that Ezra had no idea where they were himself! In 2 Kings 17:6, we were
told that the house of Israel was exiled by Assyria “to Halah, and Habor,
and the cities of the Medes.” If they were still in the same location
in Ezra’s day, surely he would have sent emissaries there to encourage
them to return to the land of Canaan. Yet Ezra did not send an envoy,
nor did he seem to even know where they had gone.
Although only two tribes are ever mentioned throughout the Book of Ezra,
the common teaching today is that all twelve tribes of Israel, from both
Houses of Israel and Judah, were reunited at the end of the Babylonian
captivity. If so, why is there no mention of the rest of these tribes,
either in the early portion of the book (see Ezra 1:5 and 4:1, “Judah
and Benjamin”), or during events years later (Ezra 10:9, “Judah
and Benjamin”)? The prophet Ezra knew nothing of any return to old
Canaan of the exiled ten tribes of the House of Israel! Neither did his
contemporary, the prophet Nehemiah, who spoke only of the existence of
the “House of Judah” (Neh. 4:16) and the two tribes it comprised, Judah
and Benjamin (Neh. 11:4, 36; 12:34).
A leading Jewish Israeli scholar, Sara Japhet, agrees and says, “the
restoration [i.e. return from exile] and the subsequent renewal of Jewish
community life involved only three tribes: the lay tribes of Judah and
Benjamin, and the tribe of Levi.” (“From The Rivers Of Babylon,” p.82)
Levi was the priestly tribe whose members were divided and spread among
all of the other tribes. It therefore did not inherit land itself and
the majority of its members would be proportionately found among the
missing tribes of the House of Israel.
It is further very significant that out of all of King David’s descendants,
only one—Hattush—is listed (Ezra 8:2) among the returning exiles. Since
the land of Canaan was virtually emptied of Hebrews during the Babylonian
exile, apparently all of David’s other descendants remained in the diaspora
in other lands. One of them, King Zedekiah’s daughter, accompanied by
the prophet Jeremiah, escaped the defeated and plundered land of Judah
(Jer. 43) to go first to Tahpahnes, Egypt, and then (according to legendary
history) to the isles of the West. This wonderful story is told in Francis
Henking’s book, “The Tender Twig,” available from Bible Blessings www.bibleblessings.net.
Another very possible line of descent from King David provides an interesting
link with the Norse-Gothic tribes and their early leader Odin. We read
in 1 Chronicles 3:17-18 that Davidic descendant and king of Judah, Jehoiakin,
had one son, Asir (KJV: Assir), translated in the RSV and NIV as “captive.”
This Asir was therefore among those exiled from Canaan, and as noted
above, neither he nor any of his descendants were included in Ezra’s
list of those who returned from Babylon. Where did Asir, of the Davidic
royal line of kings, and his descendants go? In Norse history, although
encased in myth, Asir or Aesir was the name of the chief royal tribe
living at Asgard, the early Mideast homeland of the Norse people. The
Columbia Encyclopedia under the heading “Germanic religion” states, “In
early times there were two groups of gods—the Aesir and the Vanir. However,
after a war between the rival pantheons which perhaps reflects a war
between two rival tribes, the defeated Vanir were absorbed into the Aesir,
and the gods of both were worshipped in a single pantheon...of twelve
principal deities...The gods dwelled at Asgard.” Apparently, exiled Israelites
of the twelve tribes gathered around their Davidic leader, Aesir, before
leaving the Mideast for Europe. A later leader of these assembled tribes
was Odin, whose name is pure Semitic. The name Odin has been shown by
scholars to be a royal title meaning “Lord” (compare the Hebrew “Adonai”
and early Greek hero, “Adonis”). The Norse ancestral-line has been historically
reconstructed from King David to Odin in a chart available from the Servant
People booksite at www.migrations.info.
This should not be surprising, since Ezra informs us that only four courses
or divisions of priests returned from Babylon (Ezra 2:36-39), out of
a total of twenty-four courses (1 Chron. 24:7-18). These twenty-four
courses of priests were a prophetic foretype of the twenty-four elders
of the Book of Revelation (4:4; 19:4), showing us that they were not
eliminated in God’s Divine purposes. Simple math will show that well
over 80% of the priesthood of Israel therefore did not return from its
exile in foreign lands. This percentage would also be reflected in the
very low number of Israelites as a whole who returned to Canaan.
Respected scholar, Dr. W.F. Lofthouse, in “Israel After The Exile,” (Clarendon
Bible, Old Testament, Vol. 4), has this to say: “[Cyrus’ decree] did
not mean that any large number of Jews returned from Babylon to Palestine...it
is doubtful if many of the Jews (save the poorer members of the community)
would have been anxious to leave... Moreover, if there had been a considerable
company of returning exiles, our sources for subsequent events in Palestine
must have referred to its presence there. As a matter of fact, such references
do not exist.” (p.24) In other words, relatively very few Israelites
ever returned to the land of Canaan after being exiled.
The only place that you will read that all of the Israelite tribes reunited
in Babylon, and returned together as one body to Canaan, is in the false
and misguided theology of the religious opponents of the Anglo-Israel
belief! Neither the Bible nor history support the idea of a mass return
from Babylon of both Houses of Israel. Instead, the prophet Ezra stated, “...grace
hath been showed from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape...” (9:8)
Again he emphasized, “We are left this day as a remnant.” (9:15,
NIV) There is no question that Ezra, an eye-witness, documented that
the majority of Israel remained in exile in other lands!
Some of our critics claim that these exiled Israelites all intermarried
with the pagan nations of Assyria and Babylon and passed out of existence
as a separate people. To this, Dr. Lofthouse replies, “Were they absorbed
into the new civilization? If they had been, no one would have been surprised.
But they were not.” (ibid. p.5)
Other critics assert that although few Israelites may have returned immediately,
a mass exodus took place sometime later. This too, ignores the facts
of history. An interesting statement appears in Ezra’s last chapter which
bears on this. It reads: “And they made proclamation throughout Judah
and Jerusalem unto all the children of the captivity, that they should
gather themselves together unto Jerusalem; And that whosoever would not
come within three days, according to the counsel of the princes and the
elders, all his substance should be forfeited, and himself separated
from the congregation of those that had been carried away.” (Ezra
10:7-8)
Ezra stated that exiles who did not return to Jerusalem at that time
“forfeited” all of their property. The Hebrew word used here, yaharam, means
confiscated property. Any Israelite who returned months or years later
would have found his home and vineyard legally turned over to others.
He was disinherited! At that point, there was no incentive to return.
Those not present at the appointed time were “separated” or “expelled”
(NIV) from citizenship among the exiles. (Ezra 10:8) Those remaining
in exile were truly “lost tribes,” for they had lost their land, property,
and citizenship in their former homeland of Canaan.
The book of Nehemiah tells us that the whole community of exiles who
returned to Canaan was only 42,360. (Neh. 8:66) What happened to the
rest of God’s people, the Israelite majority who continued in exile?
They did not remain in Assyria and Babylon. As Dr. Lofthouse expressed
it, “[the prophet] Jeremiah...seems to imply a certain restlessness among
the exiles.” (ibid. p.5) The fulfillment of the numerous prophecies of
Scripture required that these restless wanderers be later found in the
coastlands and isles to the west, where they became a great multitude
and company of nations. (Gen. 15:5; 35:11; Isa. 42:4)