The Bossier banner., 1880-12-30
Reported Discovery Of the Long"LOst
'5ssF Tribes,

Professor Sachau. who has lately re-
turned from the. East, brings news of a
discovery that can not fail to prove in
teresting to all Bible students. In IL.
Kings, xvii, 6, we read that ''the King
of Assyria took Samaria, and carried
Israeli away into Assyria. and placed
them in Halah, and in Habor by the
river of Gozan. and in the cities of the
Medes." In the 18th chapter and 11th
verse this is repeated. From the con-
text in both places one gathers that
Shalmaneser carried the Israelites away;
although he did in reality die during
the three years of the siege, which was
brought to successful conclusion by
his successor, Sargon, in 720. In I.
Chronicles, v. 26, the deportation of the
Israelites is ascribed to Pull and to Tig-
lath-P h-Pilneser-both, probably, names
for the same person, the predecessor of
Shalmaneser. The Reubenites, the
Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh
are mentioned as those whom he de-
ported, and Hara is added to the places
mentioned in Kings. 1t may be well to
recall, in passing, that Tiglath- Pilneser
actually did wrest the trans-Jordanic
8 territory from the King of Israel. In
the apochryphal Book of Tobit we find
the Israelites spoken of as dwelling in
the cities of Medes, and city, Rages,
is mentioned, place in the neighbor-
hood of the modern Teheran, south of
the Caspian Sea. r. Shortly after, or
about the time of the capture of Sama-
ria, Sargon conducted some campaigns
in Babylonia and Elan ON the Persian
Gulf, and from these regions he brought
inhabitants to supply the vacancy caused
by the deportation of the Israelites. h'
Halah was a portion of the city OF
Nineveh, the capital of the capital,
which had apparently, at the time Of
Sargon's accession been somewhat de-
populated by civil strife. The cities of
the Medes were southeast of the Sea of
. Urmia and south of the Caspian. But
where was" Habor, river of Gozan?"
Both names appear. twice. Habor ap-
r pears as tributary of the ,Euphrates,
u and Gozan as part of Mesopotamia.
Fora long time this was supposed to be
the region meant. There had, however,
been no wars or disturbances of any sort
to cause the depopulation of this part of
Mesopotamia and it is difficult to see
e
! them there. Further, to settle them in
aplace from which they could so read
q lily return to their home would have
been contrary to the Assyrian policy.
There was also scarcely known Habor
and Gozan in the neighborhood of the
Sea of Urmia and there is yet valley
J of Habor west of that sea. 81. The eXpe-
4 Editions of Tiglath-Plineser and Shall
maneser against Media against Namri,
about the Sea of Urmia and against
land that is unknown, because the in
-, scriptien is defective, but which lay APP
g parently in the same nOrtheasterly di-
rection from, Nineveh, would have made
room for the importation of people
from Samaria; and we find, in point Of
fact, "the cities of the Medes'' men,
toned as place into which the Israel
ties were settled. This locality would
$, have been far enough. removed from
j Samaria to preclude the possibility of
return. = 1t satisfies further the close
connection in the Bible narrative be-
tween Gozan and Media.
West of the Seaof Urmia, among the
mountains, dwells the small remnant
that sail speaks sAramaan. ~ While
travelling in this region, Professor
Sachau heard of some valleys inhabited
by Jews. After some difficulty, he
succeeded in visiting them. He found
4 people speaking the Turkish tongue,
but retaining the Jewish religion. They
had tradition that they belonged to
the ten tribes of Israel, and that they
had been brought hither by the AS
syrians. There seems no reason to
doubt the truth of their tradi-
.tion. The lsraelites in Ninevah and
in the cities Of the, Medes naturally
were lost in the population about them;
: but these Israelites, so isolated among
the mountain valleys, would Just as
naturally have preserved their identity
! in the same way IS the Arameans have
preserved their language. Hebrews
: they certainly are. They could not
have come out of Babylon, unless a
body of commercial Jews suffered ain
] impossible metamorphosis into agricul-
j, tura Israelites. Unless you derive them
from the ten tribes of Israel they remain
unexplained.
s.i,. 1t is pity that Professor Sachau, not
being an Old Testament scholar, did
not interest himself as to the Hebrew
text they use, nor as to any divergence
= of rites or ceremonies from those now
= in use among the Jews. 1t is, of course,
probable that they came under the in.
tluence of the ubiquitous mercantile
Jews, accepted their texts and were
rabbinized; but it is nevertheless posi-
bic that search among them might be
richly rewarded. thH '-s0
1t is interesting to trace the fate of
the different tribes. A part of Simeon
was absorbed in Judah. A part, as we
learn from l. Chronicles, iv., AZ, mi
gr&ted to- Mount Seir, and ultimately
were lost among the Arabs. The Recha-
bites seem to have taken the same di-
rection, namely, toward Arabia. Reuben
appears to have lost itself in Moab
i. Cad and the half tribe of Manasseh were
absorbed in other peoples. OF Ephraim,
probably Issachar and the other half of
Manasseh, the well-to-do people were
dePorted by Sargon; the poorer classes,
with settlers from Babylonia and Elam.
formed the Samaritans, sohated bv the
Jews. Asher, Naphtali, Zebulon and
hx,r %ar> g Il u