page_title: Ten Lost Tribes
section_title: The twelve tribes
hierarchical_section_title: Ten Lost Tribes / The twelve tribes
caption_attribution_description: Another viewEnglish: Black Obelisk side 4 Jewish delegation
context_page_description: The ten lost tribes were the ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been deported from the Kingdom of Israel after its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire circa 722 BCE. These are the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Manasseh, and Ephraim; all but Judah and Benjamin. Claims of descent from the "lost tribes" have been proposed in relation to many groups, and some religions espouse a messianic view that the tribes will return.
  In the 7th and 8th centuries CE, the return of the lost tribes was associated with the concept of the coming of the messiah.
  The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that "the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated in numbers".
  Historian Tudor Parfitt has declared that "the Lost Tribes are indeed nothing but a myth", and he writes that "this myth is a vital feature of colonial discourse throughout the long period of European overseas empires, from the beginning of the fifteenth century, until the later half of the twentieth".
context_section_description: The scriptural basis for the idea of "10 Lost Tribes" is 2 Kings 17:6: "In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes." According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob (who was later named Israel; Genesis 35:10) had 12 sons and at least one daughter (Dinah) by two wives and two concubines. The twelve sons fathered the twelve Tribes of Israel.
  When the land of Israel was apportioned among the tribes in the days of Joshua, the Tribe of Levi, being chosen as priests, did not receive land (Joshua 13:33, 14:3). However, the tribe of Levi were given cities. Six cities were to be refuge cities for all men of Israel, which were to be controlled by the Levites. Three of these cities were located on each side of the Jordan River. In addition, 42 other cities (and their respective open spaces), totaling 48 cities, were given to the Tribe of Levi. (Numbers 35)
  Jacob elevated the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh (the two sons of Joseph by his Egyptian wife Asenath) (Genesis 41:50) to the status of full tribes in their own right, replacing the Tribe of Joseph (Genesis 48:5). Each tribe received its own land and had its own encampment during the 40 years of wandering in the desert.
  Thus, the two divisions of the tribes are:
  According to the Bible, the Kingdom of Israel (or Northern Kingdom) was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy (also called the Kingdom of Israel). The Northern Kingdom came into existence in about the 930s BCE after the northern tribes of Israel rejected Solomon's son Rehoboam as their king. Nine landed tribes formed the Northern Kingdom: the tribes of Reuben, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, and Manasseh. In addition, some members of the Tribe of Levi, who had no land allocation, were found in the Northern Kingdom. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to Rehoboam, and formed the Kingdom of Judah (or the Southern Kingdom). Members of Levi and the remnant of Simeon were also found in the Southern Kingdom.
  According to 2 Chronicles 15:9, members of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon "fled" to Judah during the reign of Asa of Judah (c. 911–870 BCE). Whether these groups were absorbed into the population or remained distinct groups or returned to their tribal lands is not indicated.
  In c. 732 BCE, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III sacked Damascus and Israel, annexing Aramea and territory of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh in Gilead including the desert outposts of Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab. People from these tribes, including the Reubenite leader, were taken captive and resettled in the region of the Khabur River system in Assyria/Mesopotamia. Tiglath-Pilesar also captured the territory of Naphtali and the city of Janoah in Ephraim, and an Assyrian governor was placed over the region of Naphtali. According to 2 Kings 16:9 and 15:29, the population of Aram and the annexed part of Israel was deported to Assyria.
  Israel continued to exist within the reduced territory as an independent kingdom subject to Assyria until around 725–720 BCE, when it was again invaded by Assyria and the rest of the population deported. The Bible relates that the population of Israel was exiled, leaving only the Tribe of Judah, the Tribe of Simeon (that was "absorbed" into Judah), the Tribe of Benjamin, and the people of the Tribe of Levi who lived among them of the original Israelite tribes in the southern Kingdom of Judah. However, Israel Finkelstein estimated that only a fifth of the population (about 40,000) were actually resettled out of the area during the two deportation periods under Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V and Sargon II. Many also fled south to Jerusalem, which appears to have expanded in size fivefold during this period, requiring a new wall to be built, and a new source of water (Siloam) to be provided by King Hezekiah. Furthermore, 2 Chronicles 30:1-11 explicitly mentions northern Israelites who had been spared by the A
caption: Gift-bearing delegation of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, to the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser III circa 840 BCE, on the Black Obelisk, British Museum.
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