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النشر الإلكتروني

CHAPTER II.

THE

CERTAIN RESTORATION

OF

JUDAH AND ISRAEL.

THE subject of this chapter is introduced with a concise view of the expulsion of the ten tribes of Israel from the promised land. The ten tribes revolted from the house of David, early in the reign of Rehoboam, son and successor of king Solomon. They received from this young prince treatment, which was considered impolitick and rough; upon which they separated themselves from that branch of the house of Israel, who, from that time, have been distinguished by the name of Jews. They submitted to another king, Jeroboam. And this breach was never after healed. Jeroboam, to perpetuate and widen this breach, and apprehending that if the Jews and ten tribes amicably met for publick worship, according to the law of God, the rupture between them would probably soon be healed, set up two golden calves, one in Dan, and one in Bethel; and ordered that the ten tribes of Israel should meet there for their publick worship. He thus "made Israel to sin." And would to God

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he had been the last who has made the professed worshippers of Jehovah "to sin," by assigning them different places of worship, from motives not more evangelical than those of Jeroboam. The ten tribes thus went off to idolatry. line of kings succeeded Jeroboam; but none of them, to the time of the expulsion, were true worhippers of the God of Israel. By their apostasy, folly, and idolatry, the ten tribes were preparing themselves for a long and doleful rejection, an outcast state for thousands of years.This Moses had denounced; Deut. xxviii. And

this God fulfilled.

Tiglah-Pilnezer, king of Assyria, captured the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manassah, who lay east of Jordan, and placed them in Halah, Harah, and Habor, by the river Gozen.-1 Chro. v. 26. About twenty years after, (134 years before the Babylonish captivity of the Jews, and 725 years before Christ,) the rest of the ten tribes continuing impenitent, Shalmanezer, the succeeding king of Assyria, attacked Samaria, took the remainder of the ten tribes, in the reign of Hoshea, king of Israel, carried them to Assyria, and placed them with their brethren in Halah and Habor, by the river Gozen in Media-2 Kings, xvii. This final expulsion of Israel from the promised land, was about 943 years after they came out of Egypt. The king of Assyria placed in their stead, in Samaria, people from Babylon, Cutha, Ava, Hamah, and Sapharvaim. Here was the origin of the mongrel Samaritans.

From this captivity the ten tribes were never recovered. And they have long seemed to have been lost from the earth. They seem to have been indeed "outcast," from the social world,

and the knowledge of civilized man. The Jews, long after, were dispersed among the nations; but have ever been known as Jews. But not so with Israel. They have seemed strangely to disappear from the world; and for 2500 years to have been utterly lost.

What are we to believe concerning the ten tribes? Are they ever again to be known as the natural seed of Abraham? Are they now in existence as a distinct people? If so, where are they to be found? All parts of the world are now so well known, that one would conceive the commonwealth of Israel cannot now be found among the civilized nations. Must we look for them in a savage state? If so, the knowledge of their descent must be derived from a variety of broken, circumstantial, traditionary evidence. Who, or where, then, are the people who furnish the greatest degree of this kind of evidence?

An answer, relative to their restoration, will be involved in this chapter; and an answer to the other questions, may be expected in the chapter following.

That the Jews are to be restored to Palestine as Jews, seems evident from a variety of considerations. And that the ten tribes of Israel will there be united with them, seems also to be plainly predicted in the prophets.

Let the following things be considered:

1. The preservation of the Jews, as a distinct people, among the many nations whither they have been dispersed, now for nearly 1800 years, affords great evidence, to say the least, that the many predictions, which seem to foretel such a restoration, are to have a literal accomplishment. This their preservation is a

most signal event of Providence. Nothing like it has ever, in any other instance, been known on earth; except it be the case with the ten tribes of Israel. Other dispersed tribes of men have amalgamated with the people where they have dwelt, and have lost their distinct existence. And nothing but the special hand of God could have prevented this in the case of the Jews.The event then shows, that God has great things in store for them, as Jews. What can these things be, but the fulfilment of those many prophecies, which predict their restoration to the land of their fathers, as well as their conversion to the christian faith?

2. That people have never, as yet, possessed all the land promised to them; nor have they possessed any part of it so long as promised. Hence their restoration to that land, is essential to the complete fulfilment of those ancient promises. They were to possess the land to the river Euphrates, and forever; or to the end of the world. God promised to Abraham, Gen. xv. 18-"Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt, unto the great river, the river Euphrates." Exod. xxiii. 31-" And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea, even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river (Euphrates); for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands, and thou shalt drive them out before thee."— Deut. xi. 24-" Every place whereon the sole of thy feet shall stand, shall be yours, from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea, shall your coast be." Here, then, are the boundaries of this ancient divine grant to Abraham, and his natural seed. Beginning at the river of

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