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80 The House of Israel

of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” The River Chebar equates with the mod ern Khabur
(an cient Chaboras), which en ters the Eu phra tes in east -
2 Kings 18 ern Syria.
Gozan is a trib u tary of the Khabur. Al ter nately, it is the
“And the king of As syria did carry away Is rael unto As - re gion west of the Khabur known to the Greeks as
syria, and put them in Halah and in Har bor by the river of Gauzanitis; so named many cen tu ries af ter the de por ta -
Gozan, and in the cit ies of the Medes.” tions.
Halah and Har bor are towns in the Khabur area.
Inscription of Sargon Hara Harran (Charran) is the Syr ian city where Abra -
ham so journed.
“(In the be gin ning of my reign) the city of Sa maria I be - The cit ies of the Medea were towns of north ern Iran.
sieged, I cap tured...27,280 of its in hab it ants I car ried
away;...” (Sayce’s As syria). The As syr ian mon archs -- who trans planted many
other na tions as well as Is rael -- were not con cerned
Apocrypha Book of Tobit merely with pu ni tive mea sures. Had this been the case
it would have been far sim pler to ex ter mi nate the van -
“...Tobit,...of the tribe of Naphthali; Who in the time of quished peo ples, for mass slayings were com mon -
Enemessar king of the Assyrians was led cap tive out of place. The Assyrians were de ter mined to con trol a vast
Thisbe, which is at the right hand of that city, which is em pire of sub ject peo ples and they used these
called prop erly Nephthali in Gal i lee above Aser...and I did large-scale en forced mi gra tions as a means of pre vent -
many alms-deeds to my breth ren, and my na tion, who ing pos si ble re sur gence on the part of the cap tive na -
came with me to Nineve,...And I went into Me dia, and left tions. Up rooted from their home lands, the pa tri otic
in trust with Gabael, the brother of Gabrias, at Rages a city urge was weak ened and the cap tives were oc cu pied for
of Me dia ten tal ents of sil ver.” many years in set tling down in their new ter ri tory,
though pay ing trib ute to their con quer ors.
Josephus, Antiquities, Book IX
The Assyrians usu ally took good care to place their
“...The king of As syria,...be sieged Sa maria three years,... cap tives in re gions re mote from their na tive lands. For
and quite de mol ished the gov ern ment of the Is ra el ites, and in stance, Tiglath-Pileser car ried the Syr i ans to Kir (the
trans planted all the peo ple into Me dia and Per sia;...” River Cyrus?), near the Cau ca sus in the “Up per Me -
dia” men tioned by Josephus (An tiq uities, Book IX)
Apocrypha Book of 2 Esdras 13 “and trans planted the peo ple of Da mas cus into the Up -
per Me dia, and brought a col ony of Assyrians, and
“Those are the ten tribes, which were car ried away pris on - planted them in Da mas cus”; whilst ac cord ing to this
ers out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, same au thor ity (An tiq uities, Book XI) the ter ri tory of
whom Salmanasar the king of As syria led away cap - the Ten Tribes was re pop u lated with peo ple of “Per sia
tive,...” and Me dia.” There could be no back-trail ing from
these far-off lands, for great rivers and lofty moun tain
Jewish Encyclopedia Article: Captivity ranges would have made any such ef fort hard in deed.

“...The sec ond de por ta tion took place af ter the con quest of A crit i cal ex am i na tion of the col lated in for ma tion con -
Sa maria...which con quest was fol lowed by the de mo li tion firms the fact that the Ten Tribes were car ried be yond
of the north ern king dom.” the Tigris and Eu phra tes. They were soon to trek west -
wards, via Scythia, to Eu rope. -- Bi ble Re search
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