“Israel is Swallowed-Up”
In the early 700’s BCE, YHWH had the Kings of Assyria make several incursions into the Land of Israel. Around 722 BCE, the Ephraimite capital city of Samaria fell, and the Assyrians then carried the Ephraimites out of the Land, and deposited them in the lands that now make up modern-day Syria and Iraq:
6 In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria (the capital of Ephraim) and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7 For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against YHWH their Elohim, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they had feared other gods, 8 and had walked in the statutes of the nations whom YHWH had cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
9 Also the children of Israel secretly did against YHWH their Elohim things that were not right, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city.
10 They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill, and under every green tree.
11 There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom YHWH had carried away before them; and they did wicked things to provoke YHWH to anger, 12 for they served idols, of which YHWH had said to them, "You shall not do this thing.”
13 Yet YHWH testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His prophets, every seer, saying, "Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets.”
14 Nevertheless they would not hear, but stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in YHWH their Elohim (i.e., they did not obey Him).
15 And they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified against them; they followed idols, became idolaters, and went after the nations who were all around them, concerning whom YHWH had charged them that they should not do like them.
16 So they left all the commandments of YHWH their Elohim, made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served The LORD (Ba’al).
[Melachim Bet (2nd Kings) 17:6-16]
Verse 14 tells us that because the Ephraimites did not keep YHWH’s Commandments, they were like unto their fathers, who did not believe in YHWH either. While their fathers may have ‘believed’ in the Greco-Roman intellectual sense, since they did not obey YHWH’s Commandments, YHWH tells us that they did not (truly) believe.
The Assyrian policy was to assimilate newly conquered peoples by re-settling them in other lands, and bringing in others, to replace them. Therefore, when the Ephraimites were taken out of their Land (Samaria), other peoples took their place:
24 Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities.
[Melachim Bet (2nd Kings) 17:24]
The Assyrians took away all but a few of the poorest Ephraimites, and then brought in other peoples to inter-marry with them. The result was a new half-breed race called the ‘Samaritans.’
The Samaritans were a double-hybrid. They were the seed of Ephraim (which was itself a mixture between Joseph and Asenath), and now they became mixed with still more peoples. Being a double-hybrid, the Samaritans were wont to keep all sorts of practices that are not found anywhere in Torah.
Some of the Samaritan practices were very strange, and so YHWH sent lions to attack the people. Realizing that the Elohim of the Land (YHWH) was upset, the King of Assyria had one of the Ephraimite priests sent back into the Land, to teach the people the worship that Jeroboam originally concocted (not realizing that it was corrupt, and that it was the reason for Ephraim’s exile to begin with):
27 Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, "Send there one of the priests whom you brought from there; let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the rituals of the Elohim of the land.” 28 Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear (i.e., obey) YHWH.
[Melachim Bet (2nd Kings) 17:27-28]
YHWH did allow Himself to be appeased, but verse 33 tells us that even though the Samaritans feared YHWH, they were still serving their own elohim (exactly as the Church would later do):
33 They (Samaritans) feared YHWH; but they were serving their own mighty ones, according to the ruling of the nations to whom they had been exiled.
34 To this day they are doing according to the former rulings: They are not (truly) fearing YHWH, nor do they (truly) follow their laws or their right-rulings, which YHWH had commanded the children of Ya’akov, whose name He made Israel….”
[Melachim Bet (2nd Kings) 17:33-34]
Since these departures from the Torah basically amount to apostasy, the Jews generally avoided the Samaritans. This is why the woman at the well was so astonished that Yeshua would even speak to her:
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
[Yochanan (John) 4:9]
We will read more about the woman at the well in future chapters, but at the moment we need to know that while the Assyrians encouraged the Samaritan immigrants to learn Jeroboam’s worship, the converse was also true. The Assyrians encouraged the Ephraimites to adopt the religious practices of the lands to which they had been scattered; and (perhaps not wanting to suffer persecution or discrimination) they did so.
None of this escaped the attention of the Ephraimites’ Jewish brothers. When Israel was carried away for practicing false worship, the Jewish sages recorded their impressions of what had transpired in an important historical document called the Talmud.
At Talmud Tractate Yebamot 17A, the Jewish sages record that once the Ephraimites had been deposited in their new Assyrian lands, they had begun fathering what the sages called ‘strange children.’ The Jews called these strange children ‘strange’ because they no longer kept the Torah, or spoke Hebrew.
Since the Ephraimites were no longer living in the Land of Israel, no longer spoke Hebrew, and no longer kept the Covenant, the Jewish sages ruled that Ephraim’s children were no longer worthy to be called ‘Israelites.’ The sages ruled that since they were indistinguishable from the gentiles, they were legally classed as gentiles, and that they should be thought of as ‘Gentiles.’
Since the Jews considered the rulings of the Sages to be inspired, they also believed these rulings to carry the weight of law. For this reason, the Ephraimites were now officially thought of as Gentiles from the time of their Dispersion right on up through the First Century, when the New Covenant was written.
Scripture only concerns itself with Israel. It does not concern itself with the other nations of the world, except insofar as they form the backdrop of events happening to the Nation of Israel. Therefore, we can surmise that the references to the Gentiles of the New Covenant are actually references to the Gentile children of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
As Ephraim rapidly assimilated into the Assyrian national culture, the tribal genealogies that had always been so highly valued were soon lost. This had to happen, in order to fulfill Hosea 8:8:
8 Israel is swallowed up;
Now they are among the Gentiles
Like a vessel in which is no pleasure.
[Hosea 8:8]
When you swallow something, it soon becomes impossible to tell the difference between the food you swallowed yesterday, and you. This was fast becoming the case with the Children of Ephraim, who were being assimilated into the Assyrian Empire.
The Jewish sages knew from the Torah that the Lost Ten Tribes would have to be scattered to the ends of the earth, in order to fulfill the promises given to the Patriarchs. What they could not understand, however, was how the Lost Ten Tribes would ever be brought back to the Land, when their genealogies were so rapidly (and so completely) disappearing.
The classical definition of a messiah is that of a divinely-appointed leader who brings the lost and the scattered of Israel back to the Land, and to the Eternal Covenant. But how could any human being ever bring the Children of Ephraim back to the Land, when their genealogies were being erased?
How would anyone ever bring the Children of Ephraim back to the Land (and to the eternal Torah), when no one could any longer tell who they were?