Okay, so I hope you’re all enjoying this little review of the origins and history of the Hebrew people.
Again, the reason I’m doing this is because I see it as a necessary preparation to prepare us before we enter into those books known as the “Former Prophets” or Joshua and Judges.
Before we continue, let’s pause for a moment to get our bearings.
Over the past week I’ve discussed one of the most profound prophecies in the Bible called the “Cross-Handed Blessing of Jacob” that the gentile church doesn’t even know exists.
This was the blessing that Jacob bestowed upon his grandchildren Ephraim and Manessah who were the Egyptian sons of Joseph.
They were Egyptian because they were born from Joseph’s wife who was an Egyptian.
What Jacob achieved with this cross-handed blessing was that he literally transformed Ephraim and Manessah from being his grandchildren to making them his very own sons.
This gave Jacob the legal right (talk about a loophole) to give Ephraim (the younger of the two brothers) the rights of the firstborn that under normal circumstances would have gone to Reuben who was the true physical firstborn son.
As a result of this prophecy, Judah and Ephraim became the dominant tribes out of all the 12 tribes of Israel.
After King Solomon passed away, what was a united Israel fell into a civil war and became split up into two separate Kingdoms called the House of Ephraim and the House of Judah.
Again, keep in mind that most of our English Bibles refer to the Kingdom of Ephraim as the Kingdom of Israel.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that’s a mistake because Jacob’s name was changed to Israel but it’s much more accurate to call the Northern Kingdom Ephraim…
…which was literally a conglomerate of 10 of the 12 tribes while Judah was a conglomerate of the 2 tribes Benjamin and Judah.
The big difference between these two kingdoms or houses of Israel is that Ephraim wanted to throw off what they perceived to be the shackles of being God’s chosen people and wished to become like their heathen gentile neighbors.
The Lord finally became fed up with Ephraim and told them…
“You wanna become gentiles, well here you go homies” (That’s a paraphrase)!
Hashem allowed the powerful Assyria to conquer the Kingdom of Ephraim and they were scattered all over Asia and to a smaller degree the African continent.
The result of this is that the Hebrews of the Kingdom of Ephraim were swallowed up by the gentile nations and lost their chosen identity.
They became a LO AMMI or a “no-people”.
This event was the birth of the legend we call the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.
Onward.
Fast forward to the Book of Ezekiel and we’re told of a time when both the house of Judah and the house of Ephraim will be brought back from exile and reunited in the land of Israel once again.
And that is exactly what is happening right now.
In fact, I witnessed the presence of Ephraim when I visited Israel about 2 years ago.
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