My speculation of the history….
YHVH had sent many prophets with His own words to the Northern Kingdom, warning them in love, and almost always the true prophets were eventually beaten, imprisoned, or killed. But alas, having given people free will, eventually, when it became apparent that they were mistaking the longsuffering of God’s grieved love for a lack of consequence for their sin, or possibly in some humanly reasonable way, they may have seen it as His allowance of their rebellious depravity, or possibly that He did not exist, eventually the time had come when He lifted His merciful arm of protection, and the hordes of the vicious and cruel Assyrian host began a long campaign of terrorism and vicious attacks, until their final destruction and captivity was at hand. According to the scriptures the Assyrian hordes carried them away to “the far countries“, and even as far as “the coasts“.
In this, one can see the testimony of their utter dispersion in the record Ezra bears in 1 Chronicles 5:26 where He describes four extreme directions of their placement, each one being very far away from the other. In effect, the Assyrians not only enslaved the northern Israelites but spread them out all over the then known world so that they could never successfully band together against them in any significant way. After a couple of centuries, most were totally enculturated.
With the Assyrians, as was the practice of many of the pagans in that time, many of the male prisoners were slaughtered (especially the leaders). Families were often intentionally disunited and the women were often cruelly raped, and many times methodically impregnated producing sons to be raised in the culture and ways of the victor.
We saw these same heinous practices with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, and during the infiltration of the Nazi regime into the various Slavic countries, and again in the recent history of Sudan by the infiltration of militant Islamic, pro-government militias, who presently rule there.
All of these movements are of the same spirit, a spirit of hatred for God’s people. Just a simple perusal of recent Sudanese history reveals this to be a true and established fact! The once majority Christian community in Sudan, which is all but wiped out now, or else has been sold into slavery, was once a very prominent cultural influence there. But after merely a decade of torture, rape, crucifixion, burning, enslavement, and the intentional suppression of this information by the highly financed liberal western press since the 1980s, they are no more.
Regarding Ephraim’s kingdom, the total campaign of the Assyrian onslaught occurred in phases. Prior to the beginning of, and at the end of each subsequent campaign, the Ephraimites were again prophetically warned of their inevitable future, called to repentance, and given the opportunity for victory over their enemies and restoration of their fellowship with and the protection of YHVH, Lord of Hosts, but they would not, until finally God let them go their own way entirely. This brought about the inevitable end of their self as a kingdom and a people.
The first major falling out has been labeled “the Galilee Captivity“ which took place under Tiglath-Pileser around 735 B.C., but their ultimate demise, and the utter destruction of their Capital, came under King Sargon around 720 B.C., and by 705 B.C. the Ephraimites had been entirely “carried off “. The northern tribes of the Kingdom of Israel were no longer a congruent nation or state, or for that matter even a people unto themselves, but YHVH had not forgotten them, nor would He be untrue to His covenants with father’s Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He knew them all, from then even into our time.
In Isaiah 49, they are called “Jacob” and the scattered sheep (for Judah as of yet had not been carried away), where regarding His unique Servant, Messiah, the light unto the Gentiles, it is said that He “will bring Jacob back“! Isaiah here tells us one of the prophetic purposes of Christ’s coming. We would bring them back on our shoulders. It is believed by some to restore the unity between Israel and Judah. Judah at the time was fine though already being warned, but Israel (Jacob) was truly broken off.
Attacks continued unsuccessfully against the Kingdom of Judah for a time, but were very successful against the House of Israel. Sennicherib invaded Israel around 690 B.C.! King Assur-Banipal (during the time of Nahum) in Assyrian records we have unearthed, boasts of impaling the heads of his enemies on poles, and flaying the skins from their leaders while still alive, and hanging them on poles around the besieged cities for all to see.
Now, that all this really happened is not only outlined in history as revealed through the prophets, but much of it has also been Archaeologically confirmed in our time. From the few generations of moderate peace with Israel following the alleged time of Jonah under King Adad-Nirari. What we now know of some of these persons, and some of the campaigns of Tiglath-Pileser and King Sargon II (whose actual palace we have found wonderfully preserved), is a way of the stones crying out against those who would silence us, and in witness of the truth of our God. Blessed be the Name of our LORD!
Assyria’s Kingdom (from around 690 B.C.), which included much of northern Israel, was later conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, a second Nimrodian outgrowth, around 606 B.C. (the time of Daniel’s captivity)! By around 586 B.C. (20 years later) the Kingdom of Judah and Benjamin, was likewise utterly vanquished, and it’s kingdom and peoples were prophetically disposed of and carried off (the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel).
Already by this time many of the House of Israel subjected to Assyrian rule and local culture, had all but forgotten their heritage, and their God. Many of them were already free citizens of their new respective nations. Some were merchants, butchers, millers, fishermen, and many were a mixed breed, etc.! They were settled in, and intermingled with the goy (gentiles), and bore forth the children of mixed marriages, void of significant remembrance of the traditions of the forefathers.
70 years later, as spoken aforetime in the prophets, the captivity of Judah was more or less annulled throughout the known world by Cyrus and the Medo-Persian uprising. Many of the acculturated offspring had all but lost their heritage and became utterly sown in among the goy, just as the word had predicted. In fact, most of the children of Judah likewise never returned to the land but remained in Babylon till well after the time of Christ.
But how could such a terrible thing have happened? They had such an illustrious beginning. Joshua, who was an Ephraimite, and Caleb, a son of Judah’s line, who were chosen by God, to be as one stick, to lead the people of God to victory into the promise land! In addition, the Tabernacle, the first official house of worship, where the Shekinah of God would come and dwell with His people, was first placed in Shiloh, an area over which the children of Ephraim, the son of Joseph, later ruled. But alas, even then there was worship in the high places, yes even when God’s Glory tabernacled among them many went whoring after false gods that they themselves made out of stone and wood. From among Ephraim’s control over the tabernacle made with hands, the Glory departed, and to Ephraim, the Glory of God has returned, in His Tabernacle not made with hands, that is “in Messiah” to whom Ephraim has flocked being mixed in with the gentiles. Likewise just as His first call to gentiles of repentance and grace came from Galilee (Jonah), the captivity began in Galilee, so also God saw it fit that from Galilee should come forth He who would ultimately be the way of their liberation and reconciliation. Did He not come for the "lost sheep" of the House of Israel?
brother Paul
