Who and Where Are the Twelve Tribes of Israel
According to Strong’s Concordance, the name of God’s servant people Israel appears over twenty five hundred times in the Holy Bible. Unless we correctly identify who and where these people are in today’s world, the Bible becomes a book of confusion when we study the Bible prophecy. When we consider the great national promises that the Lord made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and try to apply these great promises to the Jewish peoples of today, it becomes very confining, and as a result of this type of Bible application and interpretation, such men as Thomas Paine, David Hume, and Charles Bradlaugh came to the place of unbelief in the Holy Scriptures. They arrived at this conclusion because the Jewish people bad never fulfilled and are not now fulfilling these promises. Charles Bradlaugh stated that the British peoples had fulfilled these promises more than had any others. Had these brilliant men known and understood that the great and precious promises God made with the house of Jacob were being fulfilled among the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic and kindred peoples, and had they understood that this was so because they are the “People of the Book”, they would not have denied the Bible and its Divine revelation.
There is only one race of people that has made the Bible their book of religious faith, and that is the
Anglo-Saxon-Celtic and kindred peoples.
There is only one race of people that has made the Bible their book of religious faith, and that is the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic and kindred peoples. Wherever they have been scattered throughout the world, whether it be in Africa, Asia, or South America, you will find the Holy Bible with them. Of course, personal salvation is for anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but when it comes to fulfilling the great national promises, they are the only race of people who consistently do that.
With this in mind, let us consider some thoughts as they relate to the language of the Bible. In Rev. John Heslip’s book, Who And Where Are the Lost Ten Tribes?, we read the following remarks on page 17: “The ancient British language is closely related to the Hebrew. The Welsh Cymry is so closely kin to the Hebrew that a Welsh writer, Charles Edwards, was ‘so much struck with its similarity, when he first commenced the study of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, that he felt he must make known this discovery. Another has written, ‘Scarcely any Hebrew root can be discovered that has not its corresponding derivative in the ancient British language’. An eminent Cornish scholar of the last century, who devoted a great deal of time to prove the affinity between the Hebrew and Welsh languages, observes: ‘It would be difficult to adduce a single article or form of construction in the Hebrew grammar, but the same is to be found in Welsh, and that there are many whole sentences in both languages exactly the same in the very words.’ Canon Lyson finds 5,000 Hebrew roots in the English tongue. And William Tyndale, who gave us the English translation of the Bible says: ‘The English agreeth one thousand times more with the Hebrew than the Latin or the Greek.’ This is quite understandable in the light of the fact that the British Isles were peopled by the descendants of the Ten Tribes. On any other premise, it is hardly understandable.”
This basic truth that the ancient British and Hebrew languages have so much in common has been withheld from our peoples, and for a very good reason, by those who want this truth to remain unknown. During the two years that I attended Hebrew classes, this similarity in the two languages was never mentioned. This oversight can be understood when we realize that most Bible colleges and seminaries teach that the Jews of today are the Israelite people.
In respect to the ancient British and Hebrew languages, we received a letter from one of our listeners who made the following comment — “As far as I’m concerned, the Lost Tribes are represented in all of the White Christian European nations. No one alive today can with absolute certainty prove which nations represent which tribes.” Then here is the interesting part. He states, “Strange, isn’t it that not one of the Christian West retained the knowledge of the Hebrew? Explain that if you can.” We sent him, of course, information which we hope will be helpful in explaining this to him.
“Sir Arthur Keith tells us that he has had to revise his opinion of the origin of the British people…”
Referring once again to Rev. John Heslip’s book, we note that the following remarks are of great importance as we study the identity and location of the twelve tribes.
“Professor Huxley, in Racial Origins says ‘The invasions of the Saxons, the Goths, the Danes, and the Normans changed the language of Briton, but added no new physical element. Therefore we should not talk any more of Celts and Saxons, for they are all one. I never lose an opportunity of rooting up the false idea that the people are different races.’ Again, he says: ‘I miss no opportunity of uprooting the notion that the people who form the British nation are descended from various nations. All the detachments who flowed into Britain are branches of the self-same stock.’ And, we may add, all can be traced, and have been traced, to the self-same place, the territory where the Ten Tribes were placed by the Assyrians.
“Sir Arthur Keith tells us that he has had to revise his opinion of the origin of the British people. Facts obliged him to revise his opinion. He tells us that he is satisfied that ‘the early British, the early Scots, the early Ulstermen, the Welsh, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans are all part of one common stock which have come from the east.’ Prof Max Muller gives the same testimony; so does John Richard Green, the historian.
“If all this testimony is contrary to what we have believed, we may quote Sir F. Palgrave again. He says: ‘The fundamental rule of science, whether in history or elsewhere, is not what has been believed, but what is true. The inquiry into what is true on the present subject discovers a strong link of relationship between the Cymry and the English.”
Quite often when discussing the gospel of the Kingdom, and what God Almighty has ordained concerning His coming Kingdom, well meaning Christians will ask, “What difference does it make if we know we are Israel, just as long as we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour?” To know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour is first and most important, and we pray that everyone who reads our paper is a born again believer, but not to the exclusion of knowing their identity as Israelites, the people of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Unless we understand this basic Bible doctrine, it is hard to understand Bible prophecy, and as was mentioned earlier, some of the most brilliant minds of the past two hundred years (Thomas Paine, for example) became disillusioned with the Bible because they could see that the Jewish people were not fulfilling the great national promises that God had made with the Israel people.
The apostles knew where the twelve tribes were in their time. Peter, writing to the scattered twelve tribes, was concerned for their welfare and spiritual development. In Chapter Two, Verse Nine of his first Epistle, we read these comforting words that he has for them “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest-hood, a holy nation, (i.e., a nation or people set apart by the Lord to do His Will and purpose) a peculiar people (or a people of His own) that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
The only nations or peoples that fulfill this verse are the twelve tribes, or the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic and kindred peoples who have shown forth the praises, i.e., the excellencies unto His glorious light. May the Lord Jesus Christ help us to turn back to His holy laws and commandments so that He will heal the Christian nations and bring God’s blessings upon us once again.
You may have noticed a discrepancy concerning the number of tribes that we feel migrated from Assyria and the number mentioned in the title of Rev. Heslip’s book. We’ll share a few verses here to explain our position. According to Isaiah 36:1, we read that all the fenced or fortified cities of Judah were taken by Sennacherib, King of Assyria, during the first invasion, about 702 B.C. We read the following: “Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.”
This verse is repeated almost word for word in II Kings 18:13. It was during Sennacherib’s second invasion and attempt upon Jerusalem some ten to fifteen years later that he was defeated when God intervened on behalf of Hezekiah.
In addition to the foregoing, it is important to note that during the reign of King David, who ruled over the twelve tribes of Israel, that there were five hundred thousand fighting men from the tribe of Judah alone, as recorded in II Sam. 24:9, which states: “And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto the King; and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.”
When we consider that there were only a few thousand captives taken from Jerusalem one hundred and twenty years later in the Babylonian captivity, it stands to reason that there must have been an earlier exodus from this area. There must have been hundreds of thousands of Judahites, perhaps even millions, who had migrated away from their homeland before Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, marched west laying siege to the city of Jerusalem. This is why we have chosen to use twelve tribes, instead of ten tribes, as many from the tribe of Judah were already gone and scattered among the other nations.
