Questions and Answers: How/When Will the Lost Ten Tribes Be Restored?

From: Questions and Answers in Christian Treasury

Narrator: Chris Genthree

• 3 min. read • grade level: 9

QUESTION: How and when will the lost ten tribes be restored, and can they presently be identified?

ANSWER: Israel, or the ten tribes, was taken to Assyria (2 Kings 17) about 130 years before Judah, or the Jews, was taken to Babylon. Idolatry and turning to Assyria for help, instead of to God, were the immediate causes of the deportation of the ten tribes to Assyria (see Hosea). Not being involved in the guilt of Judah in rejecting and crucifying the Messiah, their restoration to the land of their fathers will be accomplished in a special way. They will not pass through the awful trials under the Antichrist which their brethren of Judah will. Ezek. 20:33-39³³As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you: ³⁴And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. ³⁵And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. ³⁶Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. ³⁷And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: ³⁸And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. ³⁹As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God; Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me: but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. (Ezekiel 20:33‑39) records the restoration of the ten tribes by the Lord Himself. The mass of Judah will be restored by the aid of a seafaring nation (Isa. 18).

Whatever human instruments may be employed in assisting the return of the ten tribes, they are hid in the meantime, and God Himself is presented as the source and power of their return. It is to be noted, too, that God deals with the conscience of Israel, or the ten tribes, in the wilderness, not in the land. As the unbelieving and disobedient fell in the wilderness, and only the faithful entered the land, so will it be in the return of these tribes. The rebels and disobedient will be first purged out, and then the godly will be brought into the land to rejoin their converted brethren of Judah. This sifting will take place while the Jews are suffering under the Antichrist in the land. The wondrous meeting of the long-scattered tribes of all Israel is most touchingly described in Jer. 31:8, 9⁸Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither. ⁹They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. (Jeremiah 31:8‑9).

There is a later return of any scattered among the nations, whether of Jews or Israelites, when the Lord comes. It is He who sends out His messengers to gather His elect (Matt. 24:31³¹And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:31); Isa. 66:19, 20¹⁹And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. ²⁰And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. (Isaiah 66:19‑20)).

There was a return of certain remnants of Judah from Babylon to Jerusalem after the seventy years of captivity (see Ezra and Nehemiah), but there has been no return of Ephraim or the ten tribes. God has His eye upon them; He knows where they are, for He scattered them.

It is most remarkable that people will pretend to tell who and where the descendants of these long-lost tribes are. The truth is, no single people or nation can claim to be their descendants, for they were to be scattered among the heathen and dispersed through the countries. Their scattering and dispersion were to be world-wide (Ezek. 20:34; 34:12, 13³⁴And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. (Ezekiel 20:34)
¹²As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. ¹³And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. (Ezekiel 34:12‑13)).

God further declares them to be "lost" and that He will "search" and "seek them out." What God says, He will do. Man is daring enough to say he has done it. God says He will search for, and seek the lost sheep of Israel. Man says he has searched them out, and can tell you who and where they are.

You have only to read carefully Ezekiel chapters 20 and 34 to have all such thoughts dispelled. There is nothing like the sure and unerring testimony of God's blessed Word in meeting the foolish thoughts and vain speculations of men.

Young Christian

Click here to show subject links in the text for more information.