A Latter-Day Prophecy Of A Forgotten People Ephraim, The House Of Israel In Psalm 83
The Bible titles Psalm 83,“A Song or Psalm of Asaph,” and it has been called, “The Psalm of Psalms.”The Concise Bible Commentary adds: “…it relates to the ten tribes, as the preceding psalm [72] does to Judah. The next several psalms are much alike in this respect and may easily be interpreted from that point of view.” The Ten Tribes are the biblical House of Israel, also known to the prophets as Ephraim, and Psalm 83 is a prophecy relating specifically to them as distinct from Judah.
Biblical Mideast scholar Gary A. Rendsburg also verifies that there is “a northern provenance for…selected Psalms, the largest collections being the Asaph and Korah collections…” (“Israelian Hebrew in the Book of Kings,” p. 19). The Asaph Psalms include 50 and 73-83; all of them concern the so-called “Israelian” or “northern” Ten-Tribe House of Israel, not the Jewish people, the tribe of Judah, or city of Jerusalem.
The King James translation of Psalm 83:4 says, “They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.” True to prophecy, following the Assyrian exile of 732-676 B.C., the House of Israel became “The Lost Ten Tribes.” The Jews, in contrast, have never been lost to memory.
The phrase “cut them off” is translated from the Hebrew kachad (Strong’s #H3582), “to secrete by act or word, conceal, hide.” The result of this hiding or concealing is that the existence of the House of Israel, known as Ephraim or the Ten Tribes, is virtually unknown in the world today. This is a prophecy that has truly been completely fulfilled.
Their existence would be “no more in remembrance” in spite of all of the wonderful Divine prophetic promises explicitly and unambiguously given to them (see list of 100 in The Story of Celto-Saxon Israel, appx. 1, now back in print in a new edition). The Contemporary English Version renders this “make sure that no one remembers its name!” The Hebrew text used the word, zakar (Strong’s #H2142) meaning “to mark so as to be recognized, to remember, by implication to mention, be mindful, make to be remembered, recount, make mention of record.” No mention or recognition of Ten-Tribe Ephraim and its wonderful prophecies and promises is made in our churches today.
This effort to conceal Ephraim and its prophecies has been exceptionally successful. After a talk at a church I visited on a lecturing tour of England, the lay minister said she had been in Church ministry for decades and “never knew there was a biblical House of Israel separate from Judah.” This truth, so clearly taught in the Bible, is hidden even from the eyes of many church leaders and ministers in the pulpit!
Psalm 83:5 (KJV) says,“For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee.” Like the proverbial flock of lemmings, church leaders “go with the flow” instead of challenging popular conceptions, even those they know are in error. Modernist theologians generally choose between two equally erroneous and conflicting answers when pressed about the existence of the House of Israel: They were either killed off in exile, or they survived exile but intermarried out of recognition. Neither answer is true but does confirm that the Ten Tribes passed out of the world’s remembrance, as Psalm 83:4 foretold.
They were not killed off in exile. Amos 9:9 says, “For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.” The Speaker’s Commentary says, “The image employed here expresses at once the dispersion and preservation of Israel. The people are to be scattered, yet not one individual is to be overlooked.”
They did not intermarry out of national existence. Genesis 48:16 promised Jacob national descendants. “And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.” This was not fulfilled by the kingless single nation of Judah, but by the many nations of Europe traditionally ruled by kings and known as Christendom. The famous Rabbinical scholar Moses Maimonides, writing in 1131 A.D., confirmed this as Jewish belief in his assertion, “I believe the ten tribes to be in various parts of Europe.” (National Message and Banner, April 13, 1929, p. 229). Similarly, the late Jewish-Christian biblical commentator Rev. F.B. Meyer, in a letter to the Jewish Chronicle Newspaper, 18th February, 1916, said, “I confess also, without absolutely committing myself to it, a strong attraction to the view that the Saxons have close affinities with that ancient [Hebrew] stock. Without doubt the ancient prophecies have yet to be fulfilled, and the closing chapters of the prophecy of Isaiah contain the true forecast of the immediate future.” (Banner of Israel, March 15, 1916, p. 126).
Does this prophetic psalm apply today? The late Bishop J.C. Ryle of Liverpool in his book, “Coming Events and Present Duties,” wrote, “For centuries there has prevailed, in the Churches of Christ, an unwarrantable mode of dealing with the word ‘Israel.’ It has been interpreted in many passages of the Psalms and Prophets as if it meant nothing more than Christian believers. Have promises been held out to Israel? Men have been told continually that they are addressed to Gentile saints. Have glorious things been described as laid up in store for Israel? Men have been insistently told that they described the victories and triumphs of the gospel in Christian Churches. In reading the words which God addressed to His ancient people, never lose sight of the primary sense of the text.”
Nearly a century ago, Rev. W.H. Stuart-Fox, M.A., wrote, “The seeker after truth has only to sift the evidence, compare the Scripture plan of the Divine Architect with the unique structure known as the British Commonwealth of Nations, and he will feel the thrill of a great discovery. Bible study will become for him a new and glorious adventure; life, from the national standpoint, a great and sacred responsibility, which the British-Israel-World Federation will afford boundless scope for service in proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom.” (National Message and Banner, April 23, 1927, p. 268).
