{"id":66281,"date":"2019-11-27T16:49:41","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T14:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=66281"},"modified":"2023-06-19T18:13:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T15:13:36","slug":"the-ten-lost-tribes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-ten-lost-tribes-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ten \u201cLost\u201d Tribes"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[635,802,792],"acf":{"old_id":"66281","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"360","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Will they ever return?","content":"

Our chapter begins with:<\/span><\/p>\n

In that day, this song shall be sung in the land of Judah: Ours is a mighty city; He makes victory our inner and outer wall.<\/span><\/p>\n

The subject of the song is clearly the salvation of Jerusalem\u2014most probably from the Assyrian siege we read about in 2 Kings 18 ff. and about which we will shortly read again in this book, chapter 36 ff. And, for the record, we will encounter it yet a third time in 2 Chronicles 32.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is unclear, however, is: who will be singing? The medieval exegetes were all silent on this point, probably assuming that the singers were the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Malbim* tacitly accepts this as the likeliest interpretation, but also offers a striking alternative:<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the Ten Tribes who returned from exile during the reign of Hezekiah\u2026 will say: We have a fortress city, Jerusalem, whose ramparts are not fortified by the construction of men but whose salvation will be granted by God, who will serve as its inner and outer walls. God\u2019s salvation will serve as its deliverance and fortification.<\/span><\/p>\n

The return of the Ten Tribes from the Assyrian exile was already disputed in the Mishna, with R. Akiva arguing that \u201cthey will never return\u201d and R. Eliezer arguing that they [eventually] would. Where did Malbim get the idea that some\u2014let alone many\u2014of them had already returned at the time of Isaiah\u2019s prophecy?<\/span><\/p>\n

Conceivably, he drew his conclusion from this verse: \u201cHezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah; he also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the House of the LORD in Jerusalem to keep the Passover for the LORD God of Israel\u201d (2 Chronicles 30:1). Since the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh belonged to the exiled northern kingdom of Samaria, the only way Hezekiah could have invited them to Jerusalem was if some of them had, indeed, returned.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem with this inference, as already noted on the verse by Rashi, is that the context in which this verse appears is indicative of the early years of Hezekiah\u2019s rule, i.e., a time at which the ten tribes had not yet been exiled. We shall have more to say on this subject when we reach the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.<\/span><\/p>\n

*For the significance of Malbim\u2019s commentary to the Book of Isaiah,<\/span> see our introduction to chapter 1.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: James Tissot, The Flight of the Prisoners, c. 1896-1902 \/ wikimedia<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64185,"id":64185,"title":"2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners","filename":"2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings16-Tissot_The_Flight_of_the_Prisoners.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/short-term-gain-long-term-disaster\/2kings16-tissot_the_flight_of_the_prisoners\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2kings16-tissot_the_flight_of_the_prisoners","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64184,"date":"2019-10-08 06:49:08","modified":"2020-01-01 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