Revealing the Lost Tribes of Israel

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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.

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For some reason, the public has a great fascination with the lost tribes of Israel. Joseph Smith, you know, the founder of the Mormons, taught that the American Indians were the lost tribes, although I’m not certain what the importance of that information might have been. There was a television special not long ago that tracked down people into Asia who believed they were remnants of the Lost Ten Tribes. They were people who were really culturally indistinguishable from certain Eastern European Jews. But there is in the Bible a prophecy about all the tribes of Israel at the end time. It’s found in Genesis 49, verse 1. Old Jacob, the father of all the Israelites, whose name was changed to Israel in his old age, called all of his sons together. He says, get here, get together, boys. I’m going to tell you what shall befall you in the last days. Now, I suppose we could follow the New International Version on this. It says, Jacob called his sons and said, gather around so I can tell you what will happen to you in the days to come. The NIV translators are trying to tell you what they think the Bible means, but here they have done a step of interpretation for you instead of leaving it to you to make. The correct translation is last days. That’s what Jacob said. That’s all the Hebrew means. There’s no point in changing anything else. The Hebrew means last days or end days. The Hebrew word means last in the sense of the end. Now, the reader can interpret that to mean days to come if he wishes, but realize that’s an interpretation. The correct translation is last days, and the NIV and some other translations have just taken that idea away from their readers. Now, perhaps we could just take the Scripture as it is and consider the implications of it. Then Jacob called for his sons, and he said this, Gather yourselves together so I can tell you what will happen to you in the last days, whatever you take that to mean. Now, if old Jacob is really talking about the last days, then the distinct tribes of Israel should exist, all of them, as political entities in the very end of days. So let’s proceed on that assumption. The descendants of Abraham were supposed to continue to grow and to be as the sand of the seashore in number. Not only that, they were supposed to be a blessing to the rest of the world. Now all this implies a coherent people. And the prophecies of old man Israel also imply a coherent people at the time of the end. Now what did he have to say? Well, he actually starts before this verse I read to you. He starts in the 48th chapter of Genesis by promoting the two half-Egyptian grandsons he had who had been born to Joseph in Egypt. After all, Joseph had saved all of their lives, and I suppose the old man thought that Joseph had something special coming to him. Well, it came to pass, Genesis 48, that somebody told Joseph, Your father is sick. It doesn’t look like he’s going to make it. So he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And so he came to see Jacob. And the old man strengthened himself and sat up in his bed. And he said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Bethel in the land of Canaan. He blessed me. And he said to me, I’m going to make you fruitful. I’m going to multiply you. I’m going to make of you a multitude of people, and I’m going to give you this land, all of it to you and your seed for an everlasting possession. He didn’t mention it here, but along with this came the statement, and your seed shall be a blessing to the world and to the nations. Now, your two sons, Jacob is still speaking to his son Joseph. Your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who are standing right there, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came down here, are mine. Like Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. And your issue besides these boys, well, they can be yours, and they’ll be called after the name of their brethren and their inheritance. But these two boys are going to be considered not merely my grandsons. They’re going to be my sons. Elevating these two grandsons to the level of sons, he effectively is creating two heirs in the place of one, which has the effect, the odd effect, of creating 13 tribes of Israel instead of 12. You don’t hear about that very often, but that’s precisely what he did. Now later, when Levi, one of the tribes, takes over all the priestly responsibilities, Levi does not inherit land with the others. The result? It leaves the land divided into 12 parts for 12 tribes. Later on still, when the tribes of Israel are enumerated in Revelation, the part of the 144,000, Dan is omitted from that list. Because we have these two boys made into two tribes out of one, Ephraim and Manasseh make the number 12 once again. So it seems that God in this particular moment of time made arrangements that there would still be 12 tribes regardless of whatever happened somewhere down through history. So in verse 8 he continues. He looked at the boys and said, Okay, who are these? And Joseph said, They’re my sons whom God has given me in this place. And Jacob said, Bring them over here. I’ll bless them. Now the eyes of the old man were dim for age. He really couldn’t see anything. And as he brought them near, he kissed them and he embraced them, gave them a big hug. And Israel said to Joseph, You know, I had never imagined I’d ever see you again. And look, God has shown me your sons. So Joseph bowed himself before the old man, and the old man prepared to bless his two grandsons. Now something curious takes place here. Joseph, anticipating in the natural course of events that because Manasseh was the older of the two boys, he actually maneuvered him around so that the old man would put his right hand on Manasseh’s head and give him the blessing, the birthright, as it were, of the firstborn son. He then put Ephraim where the left hand would fall on him. Israel seems to be something of a prophet because he stretches out his right hand and lays it not on the head of Manasseh, but on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger. And he crossed his hands and put his left hand on Manasseh, guiding his hands wittingly. Manasseh was the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, who fed me all my life long to this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads and let my name be named on them. And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. These are going to be huge tribes. Now Joseph thought his father simply made a mistake crossing his hands. He reached out and tried to move them from one to the other. But the father says, no, I know what I’m doing. He also shall be a people. He will be great, talking about the older son, Manasseh. But truly, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. Now we’ve taken this thing to a whole new level. Nothing like this ever happened in the recognized history of Ephraim. They were always one tribe out of 12 living in an area the size of a small county. That’s what they always were. Now, Ephraim was the leader of the 10 northern tribes after the division with Judah in the south, but they never were anything like what’s described here. This prophecy never came to pass unless… Israel is talking about the last days. If he was talking about the last days, well, where is the great nation that would be Manasseh and the great company of nations that would be Ephraim? Where would you look, say, in the last 200 years of man’s history to find a great company of nations and a people who really are a blessing to the world around them? Say, an empire that girdles the globe, that rules over a quarter of the world’s land mass and over a quarter of the world’s population, an empire three times the size of the Roman Empire, far larger than the Spanish Empire ever achieved, far greater than the Soviet Union ever imagined being. Where would you look for an empire like that? Well, there has been one in the last 200 years.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:40

And when I come back, I’ll tell you where it was. You already know that biblical prophecy can be hard to understand. What you may not know is that without a grasp of history, it is next to impossible. Write for a free introductory program in our series on History and Prophecy. It will open up a whole new world of Bible study. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44.

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So where in the more or less modern world do we look for an empire three times the size of the Roman Empire, larger than the Spanish Empire at its peak, greater than the Soviet Union? There was such an empire. It was a company of nations that ruled over most of Africa, both ends of the Mediterranean, everything that mattered in the Middle East, the entire Indian subcontinent all the way from Afghanistan to Thailand, included Ceylon, Malaya, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, islands across the Pacific and the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and all of Canada. It was the British Empire under Queen Victoria. And it’s a small wonder in Victorian England there were those who believed fervently that they were the descendants of Joseph, one of the sons of Israel, and that the English-speaking peoples of the world were the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies to Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Israel, upon whom his name was to be named, and upon whom he laid his hands. You know, one has to wonder if the legacy of foreign aid so strong among the English-speaking people has its roots in a sense of obligation that goes with the idea. In other words, if you think you are those people, then you would realize we have an obligation to be a blessing to the nations around us. And one wonders if the legacy, it’s a marvelous legacy that our peoples have, of helping out the poor people of the world, if that goes back all the way to the idea that we carry this obligation from who we are. Most of the world, you get the feeling very clearly that they could care less if other nations starved to death or end up killing one another. But the English, the Americans, the Western Europeans, all seem to care. Not only do they seem to care, but they export a legal and economic system that seems to better those nations where it is applied. And you know, a surprising amount of our legal system finds its earliest expression in the pages of the Bible. So on this day, Israel blessed these two boys and said, All Israel shall be as a blessing. They’ll say, God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh. And he said Ephraim before Manasseh. The entire people of Israel will envy Ephraim and Manasseh, he said. You know, I can’t say that these conditions ever existed in the history of ancient Israel. Maybe it was something for the last days. And Israel said to Joseph, I’m dying, but God’s going to be with you, and he’ll bring you again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given you one portion above your brethren. In other words, he created a 13th tribe for Joseph’s sake. All of this, of course, depends heavily on whether we think old Jacob was talking about the last days or merely days to come. It depends on whether we think this was just so much wishing them a good future or whether it was a real blessing that would actually come to pass. Because you see, if it’s real and not just well-wishing, If it’s a real blessing, it almost has to be the last days. And this is especially true when we look at the prophets who unmistakably speak of the last days. Ezekiel, looking forward to the last days, sees the house of Israel and the house of Judah as two separate political entities at the end time. This is important because these two houses were separated shortly after the death of Solomon and have never at any time in history been reconciled with one another. Most people look at the nation of Israel today on the map and they assume when the Bible speaks of Israel at the end time, it is speaking of Jerusalem and Israel around them. But the fact of the matter is that what people today call Israel is the house of Judah. It is a Jewish nation, not one encompassing the entirety of the twelve tribes. For Ezekiel sees the twelve tribes divided into two separate houses at the end time. And God spoke to Ezekiel. You’ll find all this in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel. He said, Son of man, take one stick and write upon it for Judah and the children of Israel, his companions. The fact is that when the kingdom divided after Solomon, it was divided into the house of Judah, which comprised Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. He said, take another stick and write upon it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions. And he wrote on there Ephraim and all the other nine tribes that went along with him. Now, what Ezekiel was supposed to do was to stand before these people and hold these two sticks in his hand and make a proclamation. And the people would ask him and say, what do you mean with those two sticks? And he’s supposed to tell them. What he’ll tell them is that throughout all their lifetime, they have known the house of Israel to be divided. the house of Israel in the north, the house of Judah in the south. And they’ve all believed and known that the house of Israel in the north went into captivity many, many generations before. They had disappeared. They were gone. No one even knew where they were. They were the lost ten tribes. And what Ezekiel is telling these people is that at some time off in the far distant future, and in fact the whole context of Ezekiel 37 makes it clear, he’s talking about the last days, the end times. And he says at the end time, God is going to take these two sticks and make them one. He is going to finally reconcile the age-old division between the Jews and the rest of the tribes of Israel and make them one nation again. When? At the end time. At this time, he says, David is going to be king over them again, and they’ll all have one shepherd, and they’ll all walk in my judgments and observe my statutes and do them, and they’ll dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, and when your fathers have dwelled. They shall be there, they and their children, their grandchildren, forever, and David will be their prince forever. Well, David was dead and buried. The only time David could once again be their prince is in the resurrection. And if he’s talking about the house of David, he is still talking about a king, a ruling house, which never existed from that time forward. Moreover, I’m going to make a covenant of peace with them, said God. It will be an everlasting covenant with them. I will place them. I’ll multiply them. I’ll put my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore. My tabernacle will be with them. I’ll be their God. They shall be my people. And all the nations will know that I, the Lord, do sanctify Israel when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore. Well, we’re not there yet. This has never happened. It is yet for the future. And that’s why I think old Jacob was talking about the last days, not merely days to come, some nebulous time in the future. But what about the rest of the sons of Israel? What would become of them?

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We’ll talk about that when I come back after this message. If you would like to share this program with friends and others, write or call this week only and request your free copy of What Is God Doing? Number 24. Write to Born to Win, P.O. Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE44. And please tell us the call letters of this radio station.

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Jacob called all his boys together and said, Gather round, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days. And if that’s what he meant, then we should expect all of these to be a coherent people, each separate tribe, somewhere in this world at the last days, somewhere out there now. And I know it’s a curious question to ask. Well, how come if they’re out there, they don’t know who they are? And the answer, I don’t know. Sometimes God keeps things secret for his own reasons. Maybe someday he’ll tell us. But in the meantime, let’s have some fun. Get out your family atlas and spread it out on the floor and listen to what is said here by this old man prophesying what’s going to happen to his sons and all of their descendants in their tribes in the last days. Reuben, he said, you’re my firstborn. You’re my strength, the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. You’re unstable as water. You’re just not going to excel because you went up to your father’s bed and defiled it. Fact is, Reuben had slept with one of his father’s concubines. Not the one that was his own mother, we’re pleased to say, but nevertheless, he did something that, as far as old Israel was concerned, really was disqualifying. So where is the one who meets that description? Simeon and Levi? Well, they’re brothers. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, don’t go near their secret. Don’t get involved in their assembly. My honor, don’t be united. For in their anger they slew a man. In their self-will they dig down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce. And their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and I will scatter them in Israel. So, you know, I suppose you could look at Simeon and Levi and say you are not going to find them on the map. Because of the way they behaved in their early years and established the character of the tribes, he said, I’m just going to spread them out throughout Israel and dilute them in that way. Judah. And of all of the tribes of Israel, this is the one with which we are all most familiar. The Judah and his descendants, the Jews. You are he whom my brethren shall praise. Your hand shall be in the neck of your enemies. Your father’s children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp. From the prey, my son, you are gone up. He stooped down. He couched like a lion, like an old lion who wants to raise him up. The scepter, which is a symbol of rulership, shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.” and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. What he is saying simply is this, that the rulership, the kingship of Israel would be in Judah all the way until Shiloh come, whoever Shiloh may be. And most people think of Shiloh in terms of the returning Messiah. Binding his foal to the vine and his ass’s colt to the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk. Now, one thing you need to bear in mind as you listen to this. This is poetry. It is written as poetry, and it is full of the type of imagery that exists in poetry. These are all little icons, like the icons on your computer screen, that if you click on them, things happen, and predictable things happen. And so that people of old probably would have recognized more the symbolism of the asses’ colt, for example, and the symbolism of the wine, the blood of grapes. All this is very poetic. What does it mean? We probably can’t know entirely right now, but somewhere in the world at the time of the end is Judah. And, of course, we right now know where Judah is anchored, in Jerusalem. Another brother, Zebulun, shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he’ll be for a haven for ships. His border shall be to Zidon. Issachar is a strong ass crouching down between two burdens, and he saw that rest was good and the land was pleasant, and he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant under tribute. He was controlled by someone else. One can wonder and work his way through each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. But Dan will be a serpent by the road, an adder in the path that bites the horse heels so that the rider falls backwards. Whatever you may look for, for Dan, at the time of the end, he is going to be a lot of trouble to his friends, to his brothers, to the children of Israel, to the other nations round about him. He’ll bite them on the heel of the horse and throw the rider. Gad, a troop, shall overcome him, but he’ll overcome at the last. Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. Naphtali is like a deer let loose. He gives goodly words. And then comes another prophecy of Joseph, that Joseph is like a fruitful bough that has so many branches and so much that it just spreads over the wall and runs over the wall and spreads out in areas where it wasn’t intended to go. And one wonders about the spread of the English-speaking people around the world. This is what people who believe that those people are Israel say. They look at this and they say, see, they spread out. They ran over the wall. They didn’t just hang around in one location. They went everywhere. And, of course, the blessings of Joseph are head and shoulders above the blessings of all the rest. Benjamin shall raven as a wolf. In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall devour the spoil. We don’t know who these people are. But frankly, of all the peoples in the world who have raven like a wolf, the description certainly fits the Vikings. All these are the 12 tribes of Israel. And this is that their father spoke to them and blessed them. Everyone, according to his blessing, he blessed them. And so you can sit there and look at your atlas and you can wonder, who are these people? Where are they? For it seems plain enough that Joseph, that Jacob, that the prophets saw these twelve tribes existing at the time of the end. Finally, knowing he was dying, the last thing he said to his boys was, One thing I want. I don’t want to be buried in Egypt. Take me home and bury me in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the field of Machpelah, where Abraham bought it and where he is buried and where Sarah is buried, where Isaac and Rebecca are buried and where I buried Leah. That’s where I want my body to lie. And when he had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. And Joseph fell on his father’s face and wept upon him and kissed him. And he commanded his servants and all the physicians to embalm his father. And they embalmed Israel. And they mourned for him for forty days in Egypt. And all the Egyptians mourned right along with Joseph. When the days of the morning were over, Joseph went to Pharaoh and he asked if he could find grace in the eyes of Pharaoh that could he please go home to bury his father. And Pharaoh said, of course, go bury your father. And he went up there and Pharaoh sent with him all the servants of his household, all of the elders of Egypt, all the big people. This was a state funeral of enormous proportions of possibly what might have been the longest funeral procession in history. And all the people saw them come up and said, My, this is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians. And so they call this, to this day, Abel Mitzrayim, which is beyond Jordan. When the funeral was over, all Joseph’s brethren were frightened, because they thought maybe the day that Joseph will finally get his revenge has come. And they sent a messenger saying, Your father commanded before he died that you ask Joseph to forgive you for what they have done. And Joseph said, You don’t be afraid of me. I’m not in the place of God. You wanted to hurt me. God meant it for good. So they all returned to Egypt, and they lived there, and they grew there into a great nation. But that’s another story that we’ll have to wait for telling at another time. Until then, I’m Ronald Dart, and you, you were born to win.

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The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.