WHO AND WHERE ARE THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL
BY PASTOR KARL F. SCHOTT
Editor's Note: This is an article that should be passed around,
because it is an excellent treatise on the identity of True
Israel. Pastor Schott, recently retired from his church after
nearly fifty years of service to the Lord, is one of the most
knowledgeable scholars in the movement today. His monthly
newsletter, The Pathfinder" is eagerly read by readers around the
world. Lately, Pastor Karl and his equally devoted wife, Audrey,
have been beset by health problems and we ask our readers to keep
them in prayer, asking our dear Lord to reach out and touch them
with His Healing Hand. While age has caught up to them to some
extent, hopefully God still has much more work for them to do.
Certainly, there have been no greater friends of this Association
than the Schotts.
......
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 had 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. 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
centurv, 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. 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 up-rooting 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 selfsame 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 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. Pal grave 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 Amighty 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.
Peter was here using this OT verse towards Christians not
Israelites, but yes Peter and other apostles were well aware
where the 12 tribes were - Keith Hunt)
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. 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 2 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 2 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.
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Take from the July 2011 "Thy Kingdom Come" - a publication of the
Association of the Covenant People" Burnaby, B.C. Canada.
