We learned from the last study on the Ten Lost Tribes, how the ‘house of Judah’ also followed after the false worship of her sister, the ‘house of Israel’, and God removed Judah also from among His Presence in Jerusalem, the place where He chose to put His Name (I Kings 11:36). That the ‘house of Israel’ returned from Assyrian captivity in the land of Halah and Habor by the river Gozan, is not written in God’s Word (II Kings 15-17). And even since those other names of the ten tribes are not associated with being in Jerusalem thereafter, except during the final return of Shiloh (Christ), then who are we to believe? God or man? (see Rev.7; Jer.23).
Let’s cover one more source for those who returned from Babylon back to Jerusalem, to cement the knowledge of just which tribes came back to the land which God gave them. We ask a Word of Wisdom from our Father in Christ Yeshua’s Name, Amen.
Herein is a reading from the works of Josephus contained in his The Antiquities of The Jews, quoting Nehemiah’s words given to the Jews who would finish the building of The Temple and wall around Jerusalem after the captivity from Babylon:

    “You know, O Jews, that God hath kept our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in mind continually;  and for the sake of their righteousness hath not left off the care of you.  Indeed, he hath assisted me in gaining this authority of the king to raise up our wall, and finish what is wanting of the temple. (170)  I desire you, therefore, who well know the will our neighboring nations bear to us, and that when once they are made sensible that we are in earnest about building, they will come upon us and contrive many ways of obstructing our works,  (171) that you will, in the first place, put your trust in God, as in him that will assist us against their hatred, and to intermit building neither night nor day, but to use all diligence, and to hasten on the work, now we have this especial opportunity for it.”  (172)  When he had said this, he gave order that the rulers should measure the wall, and part the work of it among the people, according to their villages and cities, as everyone’s ability should require. And when he had added this promise, that he himself, with his servants, would assist them, he dissolved the assembly.   (173)  So the Jews prepared for the work:  that is the name they are called by from the day that they came up from Babylon, which is taken from the tribe of Judah, which came first to these places, and thence both they and the country gained that appellation. (emphasis added)¹

     The last section (173) is where I wish to draw your attention to. The historian Josephus, himself a Jew, living around A.D. 37-c.100, recognized that the word ‘Jew‘ is derived from the tribe ‘Judah‘, and that those living in and around the area of Jerusalem, in the province of ‘Judea’, were and are referred to as ‘Jews’. The various tribes of the ‘house of Israel’ which were taken captivity to Assyria around 140 years before this event, are not recorded in this return to Jerusalem in The Word of God, nor by Josephus in his Antiquities. And we know from Ezra 1 that those from the three Israelite tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levite, along with ‘the priests’, made up the ‘Jews’ who returned from the Babylon captivity. This means that after that captivity and return, the people living in Jerusalem or around it, i.e. the country of ‘Judea’, whether they were of Israelite blood or not, they are all called ‘Jews‘ from thereon (that is, those who ‘took’ the name ‘Jew’ and who were not Israelites – see Esther 8:17). Since the joining of all twelve tribes of Israel has not happened even to today, these three tribes and inhabitants of Jerusalem are known as ‘Jews’, even till now. Again, those who returned to Jerusalem from the Babylon captivity are specifically named in the Book of Ezra. But the Ten Tribes, or ‘house of Israel’ are not mentioned, for their captivity was to Assyria and not Babylon. Those were two separate geographic locations.

The House of Israel Scattered

      There’s a very important analogy to understand about the ‘house of Israel’ and the ‘house of Judah’ which God made through His prophets Ezekiel and Hosea.  In Ezekiel 23, God gives the analogy of two sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, who committed whoredoms which is all symbology for His People turning to idols in false worship. God doesn’t leave us hanging on who they represent, for He tells us in verse 4:

Ezek 23:4   And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were Mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.

You should know who this ‘Samaria‘ is by now. It represents the ‘house of Israel’, i.e. the ten tribes. And ‘Jerusalem‘ is the ‘house of Judah’. The Message there in Ezek.23 our Father is giving us is about how both ‘houses’ rebel against Him by worshipping anything and everything, except Him. All this is given in the sense of ‘spiritual adultery’. So ‘Judah’ is Aholibah, and the ‘ten tribes of Israel’ is Aholah.
Yehovah gave us more analogies in His Word about harlotry by the two ‘houses’, just like this one. In the Book of Hosea, our Father told His prophet to go marry a prostitute for wife.  And God named each one of Hosea’s children, for a symbol, and Message to His People, just like Aholah and Aholibah. “Well this is all Old Testament, and in Hosea’s time so it doesn’t apply for us today.” Wrong!  If you understand that not all twelve tribes have been gathered back to the land of Israel, and Christ (Shiloh) hasn’t returned yet, then yep!  This analogy God is giving us is still in effect today! If you haven’t yet understood this Truth from these studies on The Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, that the ‘house of Israel’ is still scattered, then you’ve wasted your time here. I’m not trying to be harsh, because there are those who actually believe and say that these two sister prostitutes of Ezek.23 were ‘imaginary women’, and they drop it at that! “That’s all ya’ get, there’s no more lesson from it to be found,” they might say. If you’ve never been taught this Message of the two ‘sisters’ from our Father, dealing with how His People have played the ‘spiritual harlot’, then stick around.  I’m going to pull several of them together right here and now. In order to understand the split of the two ‘Houses’, and where the Ten Tribes went, this analogy from our Father must be grasped.
Continuing with Hosea taking a prostitute for wife, by God’s command in Hosea 1:2, and He names the first son of Hosea ‘Jezreel‘, which is ‘Yizre’El’ in the Hebrew meaning ‘God will sow’ (Strong’s no.3157). That Hebrew word ‘Yizre’El’ sounds a lot like ‘Israel’ doesn’t it?  It should, because it’s used for the ‘house of Israel’ here.  God’s referring specifically to the ‘valley of Jezreel’ and Joseph’s seed (see Josh.17:16; Judges 6:33).  This all points to how God would take the northern Kingdom of Israel out of the land for their abominations with the like of old nations in the ‘valley of Jezreel’. And the next child of Hosea:

Hosea 1:6   And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, “Call her name Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.

‘Lorhuamah‘ is ‘Lo’Ruchamah’ in the Hebrew meaning ‘not pitied’ (Strong’s no.3819).

Hosea 1:7   But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”

God is consoling the ‘house of Judah’ here, so this analogy of ‘Loruhamah‘ is to the ‘house of Israel’, the ten tribes who went into captivity to Assyria, and not Judah. This is also a marker that the house of Judah would never become ‘lost’, always being known as God’s People, and so it is to this day.
    If our Father is not going to save the house of Judah ‘by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen’, then how is Judah and Jerusalem saved? They will be saved by Christ’s second coming, as God is going to fight this last battle, a spiritual battle, through His Son. The result will usher in Christ’s thousand year reign on earth, the next age of dispensation in God’s Plan (Zech.14; Rev.20).
    The next child of Hosea and his harlot wife is then given:

Hosea 1:9   Then said God, “Call his name Loammi: for ye are not My People, and I will not be your God.

      That’s exactly what that word ‘Lo-ammi’ means: ‘not My People’.  Why would our Father say that to His People of the ‘house of Israel’ or ten tribes under Ephraim? Because they followed the abominations of false worship as first setup by Jeroboam and the two ‘golden calves’ in the Northern Kingdom. You want to know where the idea of ‘Lost’, as in Lost Ten Tribes comes from? Well, this is it! 

Hosea 1:10    Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, ‘Ye are not My people’, there it shall be said unto them, ‘Ye are the sons of the Living GOD.’

     This next verse reveals much. God is saying that even though the ‘house of Israel’ is no longer His People, yet they will still become a multitude in the earth, and so vast that they ‘cannot be measured nor numbered’. Do you remember back in Gen.48 when Israel blessed Ephraim and said that his seed would become a ‘multitude of nations’? That Birthright Blessing, originally part of God’s Covenant to Abraham, went to the ‘sons of Joseph’, and that’s not the ‘house of Judah’ or Jews. Judah was to keep the Sceptre Royal Rule as written in Gen.49:10; Hosea 11:12; Psalms 60:7. This verse says more still!
The underlined passage is saying that when the ‘house of Israel’ travels to their first ‘place’, i.e. Assyria, they will be told that they are ‘Lo-ammi’, or ‘not My People‘. This happened historically, as the ten tribes, or ‘house of Israel’ took many different names as a people which we’ll cover eventually, and they migrated north and west, coming to the ‘isles‘, and settling in the lands we call Europe, and even to America.  That’s ‘the place’ where they have all been known as ‘Lo-ammi‘, or ‘Ye are not My People‘. And this is exactly what they have been told in the past, and still are yet today by false ones, and those who remain ignorant of The Word. But it’s now time to change all of that.
As some of the verses in God’s Word have long lengths of time or years separating the phrases, the last prophetic part of this verse: ‘there it shall be said unto them, “Ye are the sons of the living God”, is that time which began the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Messiah and Savior.  That Messiah Jesus Christ has already come as Savior, has been in effect for quite some time now, but His People still seem to be hard of hearing. The migrations of His People, the ‘house of Israel’ or Lo-ammi, from Assyria have produced the European nations with Kings and Queens.  And all this time, even up to now, Judah has kept their heritage and name as being a part of Israel, i.e. the ‘house of Judah’, or Jews. No matter what land Judah has gone to, they have always kept their ‘house’ as a separate People unto Yehovah, and thus have never been ‘lost’.

Hosea 1:11    Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

This next verse in Hosea 11 is talking about when Christ returns on the Second Advent to claim His Bride, and the gathering of both ‘Houses’ of Israel are brought back to the land which Yehovah gave them for to inhabit, forever. That’s why this Message of The Lost Ten Tribes keeps coming up, for our Father wants The Word out.  He’s saying to the ‘house of Joseph’, “Ye are the sons of the living God.” Return! This is good news for the Gentile also, for as they become ‘sons of God’ by believing on Jesus Christ as Savior, The ‘One Head‘, they also become adopted sons of Israel, the election of grace (see Romans 8-9). Let’s continue with this analogy of the ‘house of Israel’ playing the harlot into Hosea Chapter 2:

Hosea 2:1   Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.
2    Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not My wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

Hosea 2:4   And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.
5    For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.’

The word ‘Ammi’ meaning ‘My People’ is opposite in meaning of ‘Lo-ammi’, so this is God talking to Judah who was still in grace with our Father at the time. The word ‘sisters‘ is ‘achowth‘ in Hebrew meaning ‘a sister’, and thus applies to Judah’s sister the ‘house of Israel’ (Strong’s no.269). The word ‘Ruhamah‘ is also the opposite of the first child of Hosea which God named ‘Lo-ruhamah’ and applies also to the ‘house of Israel’. In the second verse ‘mother‘ represents the National Name for both ‘houses’, that is to say, all of Israel, the new name which God gave to Jacob for His Covenant purpose. Remember that Jacob was the father of all twelve tribes?  The word ‘Plead‘ is better translated as ‘to contend with, wrangle, hold a controversy’ from the Hebrew (Strong’s no.7378). God is saying to Judah, “Go tell the Kingdom of Israel, your brethren of the ‘house of Israel’ that she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband any longer.”
These ‘whoredoms‘ are symbolic for serving and worshipping the false gods of Baalism, for Baal or ‘bel’ is the source of the ‘other choice’.  Notice I said ‘other choice’.  Anyone not worshipping The One True God Yehovah, The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, through His Savior Messiah Jesus Christ, then ‘bel’ is their default. And this is whether they know it or not. Bel is also the father of ‘atheism’, and all worship of anything other than Yehovah, so even those who think they aren’t worshipping anything, and those who would even make joke at worshipping Satan, do so by default. They may not know it now, but they will come to know it, and many in shame when they see the Goodness they have denied for themselves.

Hosea 2:6   Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

Very important verse, for God is saying He will make the ‘house of Israel’ ‘not find her paths’. And historically the ‘way’ was ‘hedged up’ for the Ten Tribes, as they worked and strove their way to the lands where they are today. And she (house of Israel) has ‘lost’ her paths, for she has forgotten her roots and heritage. Not everyone has forgotten today, but most have. This refers back to the idea that God began with in Hosea, that the ‘house of Israel’ at the time of the casting out of His sight to Assyria are, ‘Lo-ammi’, ‘not My People‘.

Hosea 2:7   And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.’
8    For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

These ‘lovers‘ are all part of the harlot analogy God is giving us. They are the false gods of Baal. When the lost ten tribes sought after these false gods of Baal, they of course denied our True Father Yehovah and forgot where the Blessings were coming from.  All they could remember was that their first state seemed better than the latter state of false worship, but they didn’t know how to ‘return’. The ‘paths‘ to returning to our Father, and to the land He gave them, was now blocked, cut off!

Hosea 2:10   And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of Mine hand.
11    I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

     The ‘paths’ are cut off, there’s no return to the land of Israel; the ‘house of Israel’ truly became ‘lost’ as they mixed with the people of Assyria going after their ways and accepting new ‘names’, and yet choosing Baal. To complete the ‘darkness’ of this time, of the ‘house of Israel’ loosing their heritage and root as the ten tribes, God took away their remembrance of many of His declared ‘Feasts’ and Judgements which Judah still maintains today. Instead the ‘house of Israel’ took on new ‘feasts’ and new ritual dogmas to supplant their original knowledge of God’s Commandments. That’s what ‘mixing’ with other nations and belief systems will do to a Pure worship of Yehovah. Remember how Solomon fell with false worship, allowing his many wives of the nations to bring false gods into The Temple in Jerusalem? Aren’t we seeing the same thing happen today among this other ‘branch’ of God’s People, the Western Christian Nations? That’s why the kingdom being prepared today, the last false kingdom upon this earth, is again called Babylon which was the original seat of ‘Baal’.

Hosea 2:12    And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, ‘These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
13    And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat Me, saith the LORD.

Before Christ Messiah came for the first Advent, offering all The Way to Salvation, this was the state of the ‘house of Israel’ in the new lands which they migrated to.  This is why ‘Baal’ was the base of the pagan systems by the Druids of ancient Britain, of ancient Rome, Greece, etc. It doesn’t matter with all the fancy names given to the various ‘gods’ of pagandom by each nation, for each people of a different language had their own name and type of ‘Baalism’; it’s all the same ‘base’ of false worship. And it all reverts back to one source, Satan who is the author of confusion. Hence, the words Babylon, babel, bel, Baal…all mean confusion.

Hosea 2:14   Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
15    And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

This is when our Father began to turn the ‘house of Israel’ away from the land of their captivity in Assyria, beginning the migrations of the ten tribes over the Caucasus Mountains, through the Dariel Pass, becoming known as Caucasians, and to their now present land, in the ‘islands of the sea’. The ‘valley of Achor’ is symbolic of the new inhabitants of the ‘house of Israel’ in their new lands. Many are taught to hate Christianity by the false ones, because of these migrations of the subduing of new lands to which God allured His People. But all in all, the various nations of the Gentiles have been better off for it, as our Father gave the ‘unction’ for conquering these mostly uninhabited lands. And His Blessings followed them even spreading to the Gentile. I have part Cherokee blood, and I can’t be sore at this Plan, for I know it was and is our Father Yehovah’s Plan. If God punished His own People for false worship of idols, does that give those conquered by the ‘house of Israel’ any avenue of complaint for doing the same idol worship? True history is shown to those who understand God’s Plan and know that His Word is True, and always comes to pass as written.

Hosea 2:16  And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call Me Ishi; and shalt call Me no more Baali.
17    For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
18    And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

The ‘house of Israel’, i.e. the Ten Tribes settled in the ‘isles’ and lands of Europe, even to America, AND The Salvation by Christ Jesus was sent by our Father’s Apostles, for that’s the meaning of that word Apostle, i.e. ‘sent ones’.  When this New ‘Covenant‘ was given to us, which is where we get our word ‘New Testament’, then the various names of idols and false religions, the old ‘lovers‘ of the ‘house of Israel’, Baali, was replaced with the Pure Righteous Waters of Life, meaning Yehovah’s Savior, Jesus Christ. And here we are with the state of affairs given by GOD to today’s ‘house of Israel’, the Western Christian Nations. Yet, and for a moment, our Father is ready to cast us out again, for not following Him and His Word Jesus Christ, turning back to Baalism!

     I hope you see the difference today as compared with past generations within the ‘house of Israel’, as many of our young are being taught false doctrines, and to worship again the false pagan gods which caused Israel to backslide originally. Many may never have heard this Message of His People ‘Lo-ammi‘, the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, or thought it was some dream that certain theologians came up with. I know some at hearing these studies for the first time will now be able to pull together many missing puzzles with their studies of western history. I’ve not gotten to the real historical aspects of this study yet, so I hope you bear with me.
It’s important to understand God’s Word and His prophecy first, then being a believer that His Word is true, it’ll just be a matter of time for the historical discoveries to come forth. The difficult part of history is that the Kenites try to mask true history, hiding what really happened. But if you understand what God set forth, then false history becomes easier to expose. I’ll begin some of that in the next study with the migrations of ‘Lo-ammi’ to the west and north, from Assyria.
(For the deeper student of God’s Word:   This Message of ‘Loammi’ and ‘Ammi’ given by our Father in Hosea has two applications, or two separate timeline fulfillments. The first fulfillment, which I mostly covered in this study, involved the scattering of the ‘house of Israel’ to Assyria, their captivity there, and then their migrations to the isles and Europe, forming today’s Western Christian Nations. The second fulfillment of Hosea hasn’t happened yet. It applies to the future return of Jesus Christ as KING, and the gathering back of the ‘house of Israel’ to the land of Promise with Christ, to be joined into ‘one stick’ with the ‘house of Judah’ (Ezek.37). There it will be said to them at the beginning of God’s Millennium reign upon earth, “Ye are the sons of the Living GOD” [Hosea 1:10]. So I hope you see that the Book of Hosea has two applications, in like manner as the role of the historical Assyrian in Isaiah does for the future role of Satan as Antichrist, and the historical Babylon as an example for the future Babylon one world ‘beast’ system given in Revelation 13 – 18.)

Peace be with you in Christ Jesus,
Dave Ramey.

Footnotes:

¹  The Antiquities of The Jews, The Works of Josephus translated by William Whiston (1667-1752), (Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA,1987), Book 11/ Chapter 5, p.297. SEE NOTE*

* Warning to the Christian student:  This version of Josephus’ Works by William Whiston, contains much unreliable commentary by the same.  For example: Whiston’s work in the Appendix, Dissertation 4, contains Whiston’s declared attempt to prove the validity of the Old Testament manuscript texts which Josephus compiled his Works from.  In reality, it is an attempt to disprove the validity of later copies of The Old Testament manuscripts, or translations such as the Masorete, Greek Septuagint, King James Authorized Version of 1611 etc.  Mr. Whiston’s hypothesis is based upon the lack of comment by Josephus on certain phrases and clauses contained within later copies of The Old Testament.   By this he (Whiston) assumes, that since Josephus had in his possession older Manuscripts than today’s, and by the lack of Josephus’ personal historical comment of ‘certain phrases’, not necessarily ‘historical events’, contained in later Old Testament versions, that only what Josephus covered in his Works strictly parallel the Old Testament version he used at the time, and all else should be discarded.  By this then, Mr. Whiston is assuming that every idea or clause not contained within Josephus’ Works, should be left out of our now present later versions of The Old Testament, as being additions. That is a weak and very ‘general’ hypothesis that destroys the idea of Truth, not help preserve It, which should be the aim for all historians and scholars.  C.D. Ginsburg’s work The Massoretical Critical Texts of The Hebrew Bible can easily counter many of Whiston’s notions. (Dave.)