Hosea’s Prophecy, Scattered Tribes, and the Sand of the Sea (Cont’d)
Questions Concerning the Hiding and Restoration of the Northern House of Israel (Cont’d)
ONCE THE NORTHERN tribes of Israel were carried away into captivity, did God lose track of them in their lost condition? The prophet Amos gives us a hint of God’s perspective of this global drama.
See how I observe this sinful kingdom, having destroyed it from the face of the Earth, though I haven’t utterly wiped out the House of Jacob. Look at how I’ve commanded, so that I’ll sift the House of Israel throughout every nation, as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet I haven’t lost track of a single grain.
Based on this passage, then, it’s obvious that just because history lost track of the Lost Tribes doesn’t mean that God ever lost track of them. The prophet Hosea confirmed this, when he had God saying, “Israel isn’t hidden from Me, for I see that she’s defiled.” (Hosea 5:3)
In fact, God was so intent on Hosea conveying this message of Israel’s defilement, He commanded him to do the unthinkable. Just as Ahijah had done before him, in making his point absolutely clear to Jeroboam by tearing his new coat into twelve pieces, God would, with Hosea, up the ante even further. The first thing the Lord did—to ram His message down the proverbial throat of an entire nation—was to have Hosea marry a prostitute! Then He had His prophet name his three children by this woman according to a specific aspect of the divine judgment that, because of their idolatry and disobedience, would soon overtake them.
And Hosea’s wife bore him a son whom he named Jezreel, because God said, “Soon I’ll cause the kingdom of Israel to cease.”
Then his wife bore him a daughter whom he named Loruhamah, because God said, “I’ll no longer have mercy on the House of Israel, but will allow them to be carried away into captivity.”
And finally, his wife gave birth to yet another son whom Hosea named Loammi, because God said, “You’re no longer My people, and I won’t be your God.”
So, if you think Jeroboam was shocked when Ahijah handed him ten pieces of what had just been his new coat, just imagine the stunned look on the faces of those Israelites when they saw one of God’s own prophets had married a whore—and had three kids by her, to boot! The only thing more shocking, I’m sure, would’ve been the look on any of the faces of those who’d come to understand what God was trying to tell them through Hosea’s actions.
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Soldiers, Executioners, and the Police: Questions Concerning the Biblical Mandate to Not Kill
“A real shift… Cuts through simple guilt traps… An invitation to think deeper…”
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Story Continues From Above
Fortunately for all involved, though, the story of Israel’s disgrace was destined to not end on such a dismal note, because, as bizarre as it certainly appeared to the uninitiated, the Lord was still working out an important purpose in all of this. Just when all hope seemed lost, God interjected a remarkable twist to this ongoing drama—a grand soap opera of the ages, if you will. Without even pausing between sentences, Hosea then prophesied of the day when Israel’s downfall would actually lead to a new day of hope and restoration. On the heels of the previous passages of doom, the prophet declared:
Yet the number of the Children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea that cannot be measured or numbered, and someday, in the very place where it was said, “You’re not My people,” even there it will be said, “You are the children of the Living God.”
This, then, provides us with the answer to our third question: No, God doesn’t intend for the northern kingdom of Israel to remain lost forever. Though once a disgrace among the nations of the world, Israel, the desolate, Israel, the scattered, will one day be the recipients of one of God’s greatest acts of mercy and redemption.
“But when,” you might ask, “will these lost tribes be rediscovered? Has it already happened? Will it occur in our lifetime? Or is it likely to occur at some future point in time?”
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, the answer involves not so much the theology of The Bible but, rather, the science of archeology. It was during the mid-1800s that this amazing science of uncovering the past began to discover where in the world the Lost Tribes of Israel had disappeared to after they’d been taken into captivity.
As if from out of nowhere, the discoveries made famous by men like Henry Rawlinson and Austen Henry Layard began to blow the lid off the whereabouts of these long-lost people. Almost overnight, what had been considered merely myth began to, slowly but surely, edge its way into the arena of factual history.
Between 1835 and 1839, Rawlinson copied and translated an inscription on an ancient rock relief located in western Iran, which bore an account authored by Darius the Great, the Persian king best known for his role in the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity. It’s this relief, known as the Behistun Inscription, which provided the linguistic keys to determine the historical roots of the Lost Tribes of Israel. On it, three parallel narratives, written in Persian, Babylonian, and Scythian, describe events in the history of these scattered tribes, giving historians their first glimpse into the much sought after jumping-off point of these mysterious people.
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To hear Kent and Zen Garcia talk about correcting biblical misconceptions, from September 9th, 2021, CLICK BELOW.
Story Continues From Above
Next came Layard, who, in 1847, unearthed the Assyrian capital of Nineveh and with it the royal library of the Assyrian kings, containing a vast array of clay tablets. Written in the seventh century B.C., these tablets contained cuneiform texts referring to the captive Israelites. Tying together all the data gathered via these unparalleled feats of archeology, scholars soon learned that the people whom The Bible says were captured and relocated to Assyria had actually remained a distinct and vibrant people. In time, this new group, known as the Skythai, or Scythians, multiplied so quickly and exerted such an influence that, within a hundred years or so, they broke free from captivity to become the people that history now records as the Keltoi, or Celts, of Europe.
According to historians, the first reference to these Keltoi was by the Greek geographer Hecataeus in 571 B.C., who, in giving them this name, has provided us with a telling clue as to their true origins. To some it might seem incidental, but certainly not to those who believe that when the God of The Bible says something He means it. As it so happens, Keltoi, say these same historians, comes from the Indo-European root word kel, which means “hidden.”
Of course, there are always those who’d insist that none of this is even possible because once God punished them they were supposed to remain hidden, to wander life ever after as outcasts among the nations into which they were scattered. But not according to the prophet Jeremiah, who saw a far different fate for them:
For Israel is not forsaken, or Judah, of their God; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel… You are My battle-axe and weapons of war, and with you, I’ll break in pieces the nations. With you, I’ll destroy kingdoms, and with you, I’ll break in pieces the horse and the rider.
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Story Continues From Above
Far from being timid nomads, the Celts were fierce warriors that swept across the European continent, in wave after irresistible wave, terrorizing even the legions of Rome. They eventually grew so plentiful that they split into innumerable factions—among them: Gauls, Goths, Picts, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As such, these prodigious nations—as populous “as the sand of the sea”—came to inhabit the whole of Europe, including Italy, France, Belgium, Brittany, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
So much can be said about these vast migrations and the many volumes of scholarship concerning them that this work could never encompass it all. Suffice it to say, the cultural connections have been made, and they’ve been done by some of the most prolific scholars in the annals of history. For the sake of this essay, however, what we’ve provided still makes the point abundantly clear: Yes, God in His righteous indignation punished the northern House of Israel with dispersion. Yes, He even blinded them with a temporary form of “national amnesia,” as it were. But never did He intend to leave them in a permanent state of derision and destitution. As depicted in His word of promise and as revealed through the timely establishment of the science of archeology, both bear witness to God’s unique ability to guide and nurture those people who are called by His Name.
Thus, it appears the prophecy of Hosea has actually come true, and with it, another of the greatest misconceptions ever blamed on The Bible has come crashing down. After all, we only need to ask a series of questions to verify the preceding statements: Where did the message of Christianity spread like wildfire if not in every one of the nations just mentioned? And if not in those nations—though once hidden, yet restored in the fullness of time—then where else would you suggest that it was more fervently received? And if they did embrace the Gospel of Christ brought to them by ambassadors of truth like the Apostle Paul and his group, then what greater proof is there to verify the fulfillment of Hosea’s prophecy?
As it was written, and as it undoubtedly came to pass:
Yet the number of the Children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And someday, in the very place where it was said, “You’re not My people,” it will be said, “You are the children of the Living God.”
