The Two Houses of Israel

[DP]

SO HOW DO WE ACCOUNT FOR THE GENESIS 48 PROPHECY ABOUT EPHRAIM BECOMING "a multitude of nations"?

Gen 48:16-19
16 The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
17 And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head.
18 And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.
19 And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
KJV

In that prophecy Jacob put his name Israel upon Joseph's two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. And Jacob said Manasseh would become great, but that the seed of his younger brother Ephraim would become "a multitude of nations". That means... ISRAELITE nations folks, not Gentile nations!

Thing is, there has only been but one nation of Israel known to the world, and that's the one over in the middle east. Yet there in Gen.48 God's Word reveals that Ephraim, an Israelite of the seed of Joseph, descended from Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, that his seed would become "a multitude of nations"! So what gives??? Do you just skip over this prophecy and disregard it because you may not see it manifest in front of you? (That's what the unbelieving Jews would have us do, just pass over it, or say that's not what is meant when it most definitely is the meaning).

What you do is....

1. look at God's Promises to Israel
2. then look to see where the majority of them were established after the passion of Christ, and especially after the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
3. then look at Christian history in the west.

Even God's promise to king David that one of his seed would always sit upon the throne of Israel unto all generations ended in Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, sacked Jerusalem and killed Zedekiah king of Judah, and all of Zedekiah's sons. Still, even to TODAY... there is no one of the tribe of Judah house of David sitting upon a throne in Jerusalem like God had promised David forever (2 Sam.7). Not only that, but Gen.49:10, and prophecy through Jacob to his son Judah for the last days, shows there still will be one of Judah sitting upon the throne all the way up to Jesus's return! SO WHERE IS IT?!? WHERE IS IT, TODAY? It must still be manifest on earth, but where?

Another one of God's promises was about Israel given to rule the gates of their enemies. That means great military power in the earth. What nations after 70 A.D. would that be? Certainly not the state of Israel in the middle east then, because it no longer existed once the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and scattered the Jews out of the holy land!

Another promise God gave to Israel; that of plenty of corn and wine. That would mean like a 'waves of amber grain' type of idea, the best crop producing lands; so where was that after the passion of Christ? Was it in the areas of Russia, Siberia, and China? No, for Russia is so far north, as much land as it covers, a lot of it is not fit for farming. Same for China. And that's not to mention lack of agricultural technology which was led by what peoples and taught to those countries in Asia? Yeah, the western nations showed them. The western nations can produce much more crops than they are ever able to consume. So we give it away to poorer countries, because God has blessed the western nations so much!

Lot of the nations outside the west that struggle in these things, what do they think about our blessings from God in the western Christian multitude of nations? Some of them are our allies, and we work together. Then some of them are jealous because of how God has blessed the western multitude of Christian nations, bestowing His promises upon His people there, and its allies.

So when studying God's Holy Writ, it's important to focus outward to a birds-eye view of things also instead of only focusing on the trees to miss the forest.

 

[DP]

What does this Biblical event of God separating old Israel into two separate kingdoms, and scattering ten tribes among the Gentiles where they would lose their heritage as Israel mean for these days?

One thing it totally destroys, is men's ideas of Dispensationalism which tries to keep Israel and The New Covenant of Christ's Church separate from each other. The reality is that many of the scattered Israelites became part of Christ's Church; even the foundation of the Church begun by Christ's Apostles which were Jewish.

It also means the 3-tribed house of Judah which made up only the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Levi, and 'some' small remnants of the ten tribes, would become known as the Jews, which does not... represent the separated house of Israel (ten tribes majority).

Once also God's Promises to Israel are understood, we see them manifesting in the West with the historical Christian nations, and then with their allies outside the West. The Jews becoming an Israelite nation again in 1948 also reveals God's promise to David in 1 Kings 11 that He would always leave one tribe in Jerusalem.

Knowing these historical distinctions today helps us to understand Bible prophecy given to us about the end of this world, and what we may expect in our future.

 

[ZEEK]

I would say that Jesus ascended to the throne of David, which is how God fulfilled his promise that the throne would always have a King on it.

So when Israel expired as a physical nation in AD 73, Christ took up heavenly Kingship in Heavenly Jerusalem of Heavenly Israel.

 

[DP]

I would say that Jesus ascended to the throne of David, which is how God fulfilled his promise that the throne would always have a King on it.

So when Israel expired as a physical nation in AD 73, Christ took up heavenly Kingship in Heavenly Jerusalem of Heavenly Israel.

The throne of David is an 'earthly' throne. Our Lord Jesus is to inherit it, as He is now still sitting on the right hand of The Father's Throne in Heaven. When our Lord Jesus returns to this earth as written, that is when He will sit upon David's throne (Matt.25).

That means then... the Biblical requirement that one of David's line would always sit upon his throne through all generations, is being fulfilled by another seed of David upon that earthly throne today, and they will hand it to Christ when he comes.

That is also why the following Scripture is more info on that...

Ezek 21:26-27
26 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.

27 I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.
KJV

 

[prove-all]

The tribes that revolted against King Rehoboam’s burdensome regime.
The 10 northern tribes seceded, they selected Jeroboam as their king,
moved their capital from Jerusalem to Samaria and retained “Israel” as
their namesake. The two southern tribes, headquartered in Jerusalem,
became known as Judah.

During Shalmaneser’s three-year siege of Samaria in the eighth century b.c.,
the Assyrians uprooted the Israelites from their homeland and deported them
as slaves into the land of Assyria, then located between the Euphrates River
and the southern shores of the Caspian Sea ( 2 Kings 17:23-24).

After this event, many historians and scholars lose track of the Israelites. But they
didn’t disappear. They just lost their identity, as Jesus plainly confirmed a full eight
centuries later. As a direct descendant of King David, of the tribe of Judah,

Jesus had been born in a Jewish colony that was subordinate to the Roman Empire.
“He came unto his own,” it says in John 1:11, “and his own received him not.”

The Jews rejected Jesus and so He turned to the Gentiles instead, [some assume].
But he didn’t! Notice what Jesus said to a Gentile woman in Matthew 15:24:

“I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”

Jesus said His mission was to reach the house of Israel (not the house
of Judah) and that Israel’s identity (obviously not Judah’s) had become lost.
The Jews did not lose there idenifing mark the Sabbaths, but Isreal had.

Christ’s life was cut short soon after He made that statement—was that mission fulfilled?
Matthew 10:5-6. In that account, Jesus commanded His disciples not to preach the gospel
in Gentile regions (Paul would take care of that—see Acts 18:6), but to go instead to
the “lost sheep” of the house of Israel.

In Jesus’s stead, all the original apostles were sent to the lost sheep of Israel.

This is why, after Acts 11, you read very little about the original 12.
Once they went to the lost sheep of Israel, history lost sight of them.


The Apostle James introduced his epistle: “James, a servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

James didn’t even address the Gentiles. Nor is his letter exclusively directed at
the house of Judah. His target audience was primarily the tribes of Israel that had
been “scattered abroad” during their Assyrian captivity eight centuries earlier!

God could have easily inspired James to include more details about the whereabouts
of the lost sheep. But maybe He didn’t want their identity revealed yet. So the book
of James ends without any closing salutations about the people he was writing to.

It’s one of just three New Testament books (the others are Acts and 3 John)
that abruptly finishes without so much as an “Amen”!


In looking at the content of James, however, there is one important clue that sheds light
on the location of the lost sheep during the first century. It’s in James 4:1: “From whence
come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in
your members?” While this passage has a spiritual application that applies to God’s people
today, in James’s day, he was speaking about literal wars that were raging in the areas
where Israelites had been scattered.

James wrote his book around a.d. 60, about 10 years before the Roman Empire sacked
Jerusalem. It was a relatively peaceful time in the world, with Rome towering above regional
powers. At the time, Rome was engaged in just two major skirmishes—one in Britain and the
other in Parthia, located around the southern shores of the Caspian Sea!

These were the wars going on “among” the Israelites James addressed.
Maybe evidence as to Israel’s whereabouts?

Parthia has an intriguing history. They suddenly appeared around the Caspian shores soon after
the people of Israel had been exiled there as slaves in the eighth century b.c. According to
historian George Rawlinson, the meaning of the name Parthia is “exile.”

In fact, these exiles who rose to power and prominence in the land of Parthia around 250 b.c.
were none other than the “lost” tribes of Israel! They remained in the land of their captivity
until the early part of the third century a.d., when the Persians drove them northwest into what
is Europe today.

Josephus, the prominent first-century Jewish historian, was well aware of Israel’s settlement into
the land of Parthia. In his history about the days of Ezra and the construction of the second temple,
Josephus declared, “But then the entire body of the people of Israel [the lost sheep] remained in
that country [they never returned to Samaria]; wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe
subject to the Romans, while the 10 tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers.”

Jesus commanded Peter, James, John and the rest of His disciples to go to these “lost sheep.”
If you have a collection of maps at the back of your Bible, look at the one that illustrates
Paul’s territory. He was the apostle in charge of the Gentile region. His area basically covers
northern Palestine and every region that touches the northern border of the Mediterranean Sea,
including what is today southern Turkey, Greece and Italy. He also pastored congregations on
the islands of Malta, Crete and Cyprus. And in Romans 15:24, Paul said he intended to visit Spain as well.


That is a huge territory! But not as large as the regions the “lost sheep” of Israel had been
scattered into. For those territories, remember, had been reserved for the original 12.
And there was very little territorial overlap, as Paul confirmed in Romans 15:20.
Paul worked in his assigned territory—and the other apostles worked in theirs.

Now consider Peter’s assigned territory. One of his regions, judging by the opening remarks
in his first epistle, was northern Turkey. “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Peter didn’t use the
word “strangers” in the sense that they were Gentiles. It comes from a Greek word that
means resident foreigner or alien.

Peter was fulfilling his Christ-given commission. He was addressing Israelite “strangers”
who were dwelling in Gentile lands. And where? Throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia and Bithynia. Whereas Paul was expressly forbidden to enter the northern half Turkey
(Acts 16:6-7), Peter was commanded to reach the multitude of “lost sheep” that had been
scattered in that area.

Just as there was an immense multitude of “lost sheep” to be reached beyond the Euphrates
in the land of Parthia, so there was another multitude—one that Josephus was unaware of
—that had migrated northwest of Samaria into the region of northern Turkey.

And these are the territories we can pinpoint after examining just two epistles, one of them
written by one of the original 12 disciples.

How far the others must have gone, And what about the other war that was raging in Britain
at the time James wrote his epistle? Could it be that some of the apostles made it as far as
the British Isles?

Is now the time that God has chosen to reveal Israel’s true identity ?

-

Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God,
and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.

The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have
performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly.

When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in
the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;

 

[ZEEK]

Very good. But we are also saying (since I totally agree with you) that at the time of Jesus the identity of the Houses of Israel was not lost at all. It was very well known who they were and where they were. Furthermore, I believe that they had retained the covenant of circumcision.

Paul was not forbidden to go to Israel - in fact the angel had told him that his ministry was to "the nations, Kings, and Israel".

The tribes that revolted against King Rehoboam’s burdensome regime.
The 10 northern tribes seceded, they selected Jeroboam as their king,
moved their capital from Jerusalem to Samaria and retained “Israel” as
their namesake. The two southern tribes, headquartered in Jerusalem,
became known as Judah.

During Shalmaneser’s three-year siege of Samaria in the eighth century b.c.,
the Assyrians uprooted the Israelites from their homeland and deported them
as slaves into the land of Assyria, then located between the Euphrates River
and the southern shores of the Caspian Sea ( 2 Kings 17:23-24).

After this event, many historians and scholars lose track of the Israelites. But they
didn’t disappear. They just lost their identity, as Jesus plainly confirmed a full eight
centuries later. As a direct descendant of King David, of the tribe of Judah,

Jesus had been born in a Jewish colony that was subordinate to the Roman Empire.
“He came unto his own,” it says in John 1:11, “and his own received him not.”

The Jews rejected Jesus and so He turned to the Gentiles instead, [some assume].
But he didn’t! Notice what Jesus said to a Gentile woman in Matthew 15:24:

“I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”

Jesus said His mission was to reach the house of Israel (not the house
of Judah) and that Israel’s identity (obviously not Judah’s) had become lost.
The Jews did not lose there idenifing mark the Sabbaths, but Isreal had.

Christ’s life was cut short soon after He made that statement—was that mission fulfilled?
Matthew 10:5-6. In that account, Jesus commanded His disciples not to preach the gospel
in Gentile regions (Paul would take care of that—see Acts 18:6), but to go instead to
the “lost sheep” of the house of Israel.

In Jesus’s stead, all the original apostles were sent to the lost sheep of Israel.

This is why, after Acts 11, you read very little about the original 12.
Once they went to the lost sheep of Israel, history lost sight of them.


The Apostle James introduced his epistle: “James, a servant of God and of the
Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

James didn’t even address the Gentiles. Nor is his letter exclusively directed at
the house of Judah. His target audience was primarily the tribes of Israel that had
been “scattered abroad” during their Assyrian captivity eight centuries earlier!

God could have easily inspired James to include more details about the whereabouts
of the lost sheep. But maybe He didn’t want their identity revealed yet. So the book
of James ends without any closing salutations about the people he was writing to.

It’s one of just three New Testament books (the others are Acts and 3 John)
that abruptly finishes without so much as an “Amen”!


In looking at the content of James, however, there is one important clue that sheds light
on the location of the lost sheep during the first century. It’s in James 4:1: “From whence
come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in
your members?” While this passage has a spiritual application that applies to God’s people
today, in James’s day, he was speaking about literal wars that were raging in the areas
where Israelites had been scattered.

James wrote his book around a.d. 60, about 10 years before the Roman Empire sacked
Jerusalem. It was a relatively peaceful time in the world, with Rome towering above regional
powers. At the time, Rome was engaged in just two major skirmishes—one in Britain and the
other in Parthia, located around the southern shores of the Caspian Sea!

These were the wars going on “among” the Israelites James addressed.
Maybe evidence as to Israel’s whereabouts?

Parthia has an intriguing history. They suddenly appeared around the Caspian shores soon after
the people of Israel had been exiled there as slaves in the eighth century b.c. According to
historian George Rawlinson, the meaning of the name Parthia is “exile.”

In fact, these exiles who rose to power and prominence in the land of Parthia around 250 b.c.
were none other than the “lost” tribes of Israel! They remained in the land of their captivity
until the early part of the third century a.d., when the Persians drove them northwest into what
is Europe today.

Josephus, the prominent first-century Jewish historian, was well aware of Israel’s settlement into
the land of Parthia. In his history about the days of Ezra and the construction of the second temple,
Josephus declared, “But then the entire body of the people of Israel [the lost sheep] remained in
that country [they never returned to Samaria]; wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe
subject to the Romans, while the 10 tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers.”

Jesus commanded Peter, James, John and the rest of His disciples to go to these “lost sheep.”
If you have a collection of maps at the back of your Bible, look at the one that illustrates
Paul’s territory. He was the apostle in charge of the Gentile region. His area basically covers
northern Palestine and every region that touches the northern border of the Mediterranean Sea,
including what is today southern Turkey, Greece and Italy. He also pastored congregations on
the islands of Malta, Crete and Cyprus. And in Romans 15:24, Paul said he intended to visit Spain as well.


That is a huge territory! But not as large as the regions the “lost sheep” of Israel had been
scattered into. For those territories, remember, had been reserved for the original 12.
And there was very little territorial overlap, as Paul confirmed in Romans 15:20.
Paul worked in his assigned territory—and the other apostles worked in theirs.

Now consider Peter’s assigned territory. One of his regions, judging by the opening remarks
in his first epistle, was northern Turkey. “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Peter didn’t use the
word “strangers” in the sense that they were Gentiles. It comes from a Greek word that
means resident foreigner or alien.

Peter was fulfilling his Christ-given commission. He was addressing Israelite “strangers”
who were dwelling in Gentile lands. And where? Throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia and Bithynia. Whereas Paul was expressly forbidden to enter the northern half Turkey
(Acts 16:6-7), Peter was commanded to reach the multitude of “lost sheep” that had been
scattered in that area.

Just as there was an immense multitude of “lost sheep” to be reached beyond the Euphrates
in the land of Parthia, so there was another multitude—one that Josephus was unaware of
—that had migrated northwest of Samaria into the region of northern Turkey.

And these are the territories we can pinpoint after examining just two epistles, one of them
written by one of the original 12 disciples.

How far the others must have gone, And what about the other war that was raging in Britain
at the time James wrote his epistle? Could it be that some of the apostles made it as far as
the British Isles?

Is now the time that God has chosen to reveal Israel’s true identity ?

-

Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God,
and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.

The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have
performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly.

When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in
the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;

 

[DP]

Still, Paul was prevented by The Holy Spirit from going into Asia to preach, which he had wanted to do (Acts 16:6).

There's another aspect to Apostle Pauls' commission, because while in captivity to his own house in Rome, he was allowed to preach to anyone who visited him, for 2 years. The Roman historian Tacitus provided some interesting history about the royal family of the Bretons which were captive in Rome then and lived in a palace which the Romans built for them. Then he spoke of Claudius who was a Breton married to a Roman governor assigned to Britain, and how her religion (Christianity) had stirred up the people of Rome who wanted to kill her, but survived because of being adopted by the emperor. So like in Spain where there were brethren Paul wanted to visit, likewise Britain must have already had The Gospel.

 

[prove-all]

God promised to Abraham, way back in the 1800s b.c., that his physical
descendants would “possess the gate of his enemies” (Gen. 22:17; 24:60).
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/404.4.10.0/world/military/the-gate-of-his-enemies

During the past 200 years, at the height of their power and prior to their recent decline,
Britain and America between them possessed nearly every major sea and land gate
in the world


When Britain truly “ruled the waves,” her far-flung naval forces controlled Gibraltar,
Malta, the Dardanelles, the English Channel, Suez, the Gulf of Aden, the Andarman
and Nicobar Islands, Zanzibar, Capetown, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the Straits of Malacca,
Singapore, Hong Kong and the Falkland Islands.

To America went control of the great Pacific sea lanes via her island outposts the Aleutians,
Hawaiian Isles, Midway, Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines and the Panama Canal.

Panama is by far, of the greatest strategic importance to the U.S. as it is the gateway
controlling access to and from the two greatest oceans—the Atlantic and the Pacific.
This great sea gate has for almost 85 years controlled the bulk of the flow of goods by
sea from the eastern to the western hemisphere and from the West to the East.

Band of Brothers
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/4631.20.101.0/britain/band-of-brothers



The Vital Sea Gates
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/1128.20.66.0/world/energy/the-vital-sea-gates

“The Gate of His Enemies…”
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/404.4.10.0/world/military/the-gate-of-his-enemies



some of America’s and Britains Strategic Surrenders



China Buys Panama’s Largest Port
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/13973.18.0.0/world/military/china-buys-panamas-largest-port

China Controls Darwin for a Century-Australia relinquishes ownership of its port.
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/13365.18.0.0/economy/trade/china-controls-darwin-for-a-century

China Adds Port to Latin American Investments
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/...china-adds-port-to-latin-american-investments

Chinese Building Island Forts in the South China Sea
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/...-building-island-forts-in-the-south-china-sea

What China’s Air Defense Identification Zone Could Mean for the South China Sea
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/...ation-zone-could-mean-for-the-south-china-sea

-
Cyprus: Another Surrendered Sea Gate
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10915.18.0.0/britain/cyprus-another-surrendered-sea-gate

-
Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_dispute

Argentina at UN renews call for Falklands talks; Britain rebuffs
Argentina at UN renews call for Falklands talks; Britain rebuffs - Channel NewsAsia

-

Disputed status of Gibraltar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputed_status_of_Gibraltar

From Edinburgh to Gibraltar, Brexit vote sparks new claims
From Edinburgh to Gibraltar, Brexit vote sparks new claims | Reuters