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The House of Israel 79

whisperers, back bit ers, hat ers of God, de spite ful, proud, lee, all the land of Naphtali, and car ried them cap tive to
boast ers, in ven tors of evil things, dis obe di ent to par ents, As syria.”
with out un der stand ing, cov e nant break ers, with out nat u ral
af fec tion, im pla ca ble, un mer ci ful.” Inscription of Tiglath-Pileser

By “play ing the har lot,” mod ern Is rael has di vorced her - “The towns of Gil(ead) and Abel-(beth-Maachah) on
self from her God and has thereby cut her self off from the the fron tier of Beth-Omri [Sa maria], the wide spread
to tal ity of His pro tec tive care. Un for tu nately, the lon ger (dis trict of Naphta)li to its whole ex tent I turned into
she re mains es tranged, the more deeply she will be come the ter ri tory of As syria....The land of Beth-Omri...a
en meshed in sin and thus in creas ingly ex posed to the col lec tion of its in hab it ants (with their goods) I trans -
fast-grow ing threat of an ni hi la tion. Be cause YEHOVAH ported to As syria...” (Sayce’s As syria).
God can not for give Is rael and take her back into “wife -
hood” un less and un til she re pents of her wick ed ness and 1 Chronicles 5
be cause she re mains blind to her iden tity and her re la tion -
ship to YEHOVAH, a great re spon si bil ity de volves upon “And the God of Is rael stirred up the spirit of Pul king
those who have been cho sen by the holy spirit to share and of As syria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of
dis sem i nate this knowl edge. As syria, and he car ried them away, even the
Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of
In YEHOVAH God’s great mercy Chris tian Is ra el ites, as Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Har bor,
we are en ti tled to re gard our selves, have been sown and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.”
through out the Eng lish-speak ing and kin dred na tions.
Within these far-flung com mu ni ties they must be some - Josephus, Antiquities, Book IX
thing more than pas sive wit nesses to the eter nal truths of
the un cor rupted Chris tian Faith. They must be ac tive in “...But the king of As syria, whose name was
any sphere which will lead to a cru cial awak en ing in both Tiglath-Pileser, when he had made an ex pe di tion
church and state. against the Is ra el ites, and had over run all the land of
Gilead, and the re gion be yond Jor dan, and the ad join -
Our Ancestors Were Deported from ing coun try, which is called Gal i lee, and Kadesh, and
Palestine -- To North-West Iran Hazor, he made the in hab it ants pris on ers, and trans -
planted them into his own king dom....”
A suf fi cient weight of ev i dence is avail able -- from Jewish Encyclopaedia, article “Captivity”
the Bi ble nar ra tive, the in scrip tions
of the an cient
Assyrians, the early his to ri ans, and from other sec u -
lar sources -- to iden tify the re gions to which the cap tives “Tiglath-Pileser....While he an nexed these bor der -
from the Ten-tribed king dom of Is rael were taken fol low - lands of the tribes of Zebulon, Asher, and Naphtali, to -
ing their de por ta tion from Pal es tine. They were car ried to gether with such of the east ern ter ri tory of the Jor dan
the coun try south-west and south of the Cas pian Sea, in as be longed to Is rael, he led the in hab it ants of these
what is now Iran. This hap pened, chiefly, dur ing the 8th prov inces into As syria, and es tab lished them there (2
cen tury B.C. Kings 15).

2 Kings 15 2 Kings 17

“In the days of Pekah king of Is rael came Tigath-pilneser “In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of As syria took
king of As syria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, Sa maria, and car ried Is rael away to As syria, and
and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Gal i - placed them in Halah and in Har bor by the river

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