We begin this study with an often overlooked event by many in God’s Word, that is, the separation of all Israel into two specific regions, and two specific ‘houses’. After the twelve tribes of Israel sojourned out of Egypt led by God through Moses, they eventually settled in the land of Canaan after doing battle against God’s enemies. This land Jehovah gave to His People forever, and Mount Zion is where God said He will dwell and rule evermore (Psalms 125; 78; Obadiah 1…).
     At that first settlement and the establishing of the Nation of Israel, God’s People wanted a human king, similar to the heathen nations around them. This made God angry, for He was and is our Rightful KING. Jehovah warned His People that they would be oppressed under a human Monarchy but knew the people would err with this as He foretold in Deut.17 (I Samuel 8; & 12; Deut.17:14; Hosea 13). Saul, from the tribe Benjamin was selected to reign over all Israel, but God eventually chose David, from the tribe of Judah, (unbroken in blood lineage, all the way back to the ‘eth’ Ha adham’), which is in line with His promise that Judah would always keep the ‘Sceptre’ of rulership over Israel (Gen.49:10). After David, Solomon his son reigned in Jerusalem which King David conquered, and we begin the division of Israel with Solomon’s fall from grace in following false ‘gods’ of wood, stone, and metal. We ask from our Father a word of Wisdom in Christ Yeshua’s Name, Amen.

I King 11:1   But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;

2    Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, “Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods:” Solomon clave unto these in love.

As King Solomon departed away from following the ways of his father David who followed The LORD, this made Jehovah very angry, and it is no different today. There are many today who follow the same traditions which Solomon and his foreign wives established in the Temple. For one example, the Ashtoreth (the Phoenician goddess of love; Strong’s no. 6253), which Solomon followed after as written in I Kings 11:5, is still being followed after today by modern occultists.
God even ‘appeared‘ unto Solomon ‘twice‘ concerning these abominations, but he would not ‘return’ unto Him (I Kings 11:9). Is that an act of love from our Father directly to Solomon or what? For this reason of Solomon falling away, becoming apostate to our heavenly Father, God gave the following punishment:

I King 11:11   Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, “Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant.

12    Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father’s sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son.

13    Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom; but will give one tribe to thy son for David My servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.”

In these verses of I Kings 11 is given by God the reason for the split of the Nation of Israel into two separate ‘kingdoms’. The date this prophecy is given here in I Kings is around 897-890 B.C. Notice that God said He would not ‘rend away all the kingdom’ of Israel, ‘but will give one tribe’ to Solomon’s son Rehoboam. Which tribe would that be? It was Judah, the Royal Sceptre tribe. Since Levi is not to have any national heritage of land as the other tribes, i.e., their heritage being of God, they are always figured in with the tribe of Judah (Num.3 & 18). Benjamin will be also, as we will later discover in Scripture.
As can be seen with Solomon’s acts of turning away from our Father, and worshiping all sorts of idols instead, this is also the heart of the matter for us today. Many things can become an idol in our lives, a car, a house, even a loved one whom we put first instead of God. There’s probably no better way to create divisions among our loved ones, and literally bring misfortune upon ourselves than to deny God in our lives, turning to worship the things of the world. We justly deserve what we bring upon ourselves by not following Him. What is truly amazing to me is how Solomon, who had direct experience from our Father’s Holy Presence, and yet, he still refused to turn away from idols. I’m not judging Solomon. If it hadn’t happened, the western Christian nations would not exist as they do today. Thus, this event by Solomon is a very important link in the cause of the split between the two houses of Israel, and the method of this event should be weighed very carefully in our minds today.
     Which major Commandments from God were violated by Solomon? Exod.20:3: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”. Exod 20:4: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:”. Exod.20:5 “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;”. (Many forget to read the last part of verse 5: ‘of them that hate me’. Some would teach that God will punish a child for their parent’s sin, but that is a false traditional belief of man; it’s not written. Each person is responsible for their own actions with Jehovah; that is written (Jer.17:10).  If… each generation continues in following abominations, then they will be punished; simple as that.)

That prophecy given to Solomon was towards the ‘house of Judah’. Did God give another prophecy of the coming division to the ‘house of Israel’ (the then northern tribes of Israel)? Yes. It begins later in the same Chapter of I Kings 11. The prophet Ahijah, the Shilonite, then meets Jeroboam, an Ephrathite and a son from the ‘house of Joseph’, in a field and gives him the prophecy also (Ephrathite is Ephrathiy in the Hebrew, meaning from the tribe of Ephraim, and from Ephrath; Strong’s no.673). This Jeroboam was put “…over all the charge of the house of Joseph“ by King Solomon (I Kings 11:28). If you’ve been with me in these studies so far, then you should know who ‘the house of Joseph’ is; i.e., Ephraim and Manasseh, along with the remaining ten northern tribes of Israel, excluding Judah, Benjamin, and Levi who resided in the south in Judea near Jerusalem, then capital of all Israel. This verse of I Kings 11:28 is how we know that Ephraim, put for the largest of the ten northern tribes of Israel, represents all of those ten tribes in the north. Even during this time of Solomon and his son Rehoboam, the greatest population of Israel dwelt in the northern geographical land of Israel.
I put the two names of Rehoboam and Jeroboam in bold in the last paragraph for a reason; to bring your attention to the similarity in the two names, with each representing a different part of God’s Covenant Promise to Jacob, Rehoboam for Judah the Royal Sceptre tribe, and Jeroboam for Ephraim the leader of the northern ten tribes representing Joseph, the Birthright Blessing ‘double portion’, inheriting the national name of ‘Israel’. Do you think our Father caused that similarity on purpose? Kind of seems so doesn’t it? It’s there like an anchor and very difficult to miss, yet many do just that. Why? Is it because they’re not really serious when it comes to studying God’s Word? Or is it that Satan and his wish to hide this heritage link, which when understood, prooves that God’s Promises to His People are true? It’s almost taboo to mention the idea of bloodline lineage in some circles today. Wonder why? What’s being taught instead?
Continuing back with I Kings 11, the prophet Ahijah meets Jeroboam (Ephraimite) coming out of Jerusalem in a field, and Jeroboam had on ‘a new garment’:

I King 11:29  And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field:

30    And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces:

     What in the world did Ahijah do that for? He literally tore Jeroboam’s coat (salmah, an outer garment), and then began to rip it into twelve separate pieces.

I King 11:31  And he said to Jeroboam, “Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee:

God gives these types of examples on purpose, you can be assured. Why? To get our attention, because He’s trying to tell us something much deeper. This is the same prophecy given to Solomon, but the inverse, because this is to the ‘house of Joseph’, not ‘the house of Judah’ and Solomon’s offspring, which would stay in Jerusalem as written back in verse 13 of this same Chapter 11.

I King 11:32   (But he shall have one tribe for My servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:)

Again this ‘he‘ is referring to the prophecy God gave to Solomon concerning the dividing up of the twelve tribes, giving the lineage of David one tribe, which is Judah.

I King 11:33   Because that they have forsaken Me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in My ways, to do that which is right in Mine eyes, and to keep My statutes and My judgments, as did David his father.

34    Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David My servant’s sake, whom I chose, because he kept My commandments and My statutes:

Verse 33 is letting us know that Solomon was not alone in this false idol worship. God didn’t do this just because of one man’s sin. Following the idols of other nations has been the major problem by both ‘houses’ all along, so all blame can’t be put upon Solomon. If you’ll go back to during Solomon’s building of the Temple, and even during David’s time, many of the nations crept in and mixed with God’s People in Israel (see Judges 1 & 2 also). The Kenites (sons of Cain) would also eventually move to Judea and begin calling themselves Jews (Jer.35). So the People had a little help from Satan’s children who were beginning to really set into the Holy Stay of Judah during Solomon’s reign. Because Solomon was given Wisdom by God making him powerful upon the earth, all the other nations feared his Wisdom and strength from God, and thus peace and free trade between the heathen nations ensued. A mixing was the result.
Remember, this is God speaking through the prophet Ahijah to Jeroboam (Ephraimite), but this part covered here is concerning the fate of Solomon’s lineage Rehoboam, of Judah.

I King 11:35   But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes.

As I have said elsewhere in my Letters, the Truth dealing with the ‘lost ten tribes’ is not a myth, nor a legend, but it is God’s Word. It is written! Anyone denying this Truth here given directly from our Father through His prophet Ahijah has not the Light of The Spirit in him.
     This verse reverts back to Jeroboam (Ephraim), and he is to receive ‘the kingdom’ of ‘ten tribes‘, as Solomon’s son Rehoboam in Jerusalem will keep ‘one tribe‘. God made this message very simple, so I don’t know how anyone could miss it. There is more in this verse, though it will not be fully understood until later. There is importance behind the phrase ‘I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand’. This alludes eventually to Judah, specifically in Jerusalem, losing the Royal Sceptre later on.

I King 11:36   And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David My servant may have a light alway before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen Me to put My name there.

This reverts back to the subject of Jerusalem and the one tribe Judah again. Note the word ‘alway‘? This means God has set Jerusalem to always be inhabited by Judah, but not necessarily as ruler over all Israel. How is it today? Does today’s Nation of Israel have a King on the throne in the City of David in Jerusalem? No. The last king from the house of Judah in Jerusalem was King Zedekiah during the days of Jeremiah the prophet. Remember that God said the Royal Sceptre would always stay with Judah? (Gen.49:10). Then if the Nation State of today’s Israel does not have a king, then did God mess up with that promise? Absolutely not! Later in this Study on the Lost Ten Tribes, we’ll get into the story of the ‘scarlet thread’, meaning another bloodline offspring of Judah descended from Tamar in Gen.38. There are bloodline descendants from Judah elsewhere in the world today which do have kings and queens set up by God, and they rule over Israel! Hang on to that thought.

I King 11:37   And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel.

God is still giving this prophecy to Jeroboam the Ephrathite, who represents ‘the house of Joseph’ at this stage. Notice God is telling Jeroboam that he ‘shalt be king over Israel’? Does this mean then that wherever the majority of the ten tribes are located, those are to be known as Israel? According to God yes, but according to man no. The ‘true’ Israel which God set up is still split today, meaning the twelve tribes, even though the Nation State of Israel today in the middleast is known to the world as Israel. If you’ve understood God’s Covenant Promises concerning Joseph receiving the ‘Birthright’ and Judah the ‘Royal Sceptre’, then it shouldn’t be difficult to see.

I King 11:38   And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in My ways, and do that is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as David My servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.
39    And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever.'”

Again, this is God speaking through His prophet Ahijah to Jeroboam. This phrase ‘build thee a sure house’ means God will give Jeroboam a kingdom of ‘the right hand’, or of justice and moral followers. In other words, a righteous People unto God who will follow and seek Him and receive for their reward God’s Blessings.
The next verse let’s us know that by this prophecy God took the kingdom out of the ‘house of David’ and gave it to the ‘house of Joseph’, i.e., the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, later to be known as the ‘house of Israel’ as written in God’s Word. Before the anointing of David as king over the ‘house of Judah’ in II Samuel 2, the first occurrence of that phrase, the term ‘all the house of Israel’ applied to all twelve tribes. At this division of the kingdom by God with Jeroboam, the ‘house of Israel’ is to now apply only to the ten tribe northern kingdom of Israel, not Judah, and not the ‘house of Judah’, and not at Jerusalem. In this verse 39 of 1 Kings 11, God is telling us that He will not keep this separation between the two ‘houses’ forever. Consider the following when The LORD spoke to Ezekiel the prophet about the joining back of ‘both houses of Israel’:

Ezek 37:16   “Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:

17    And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.

18    And when the children of thy People shall speak unto thee, saying, ‘Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?’

19    Say unto them, ‘Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in Mine hand.'”

This joining back of the two houses of Israel will happen when Shiloh (Jesus Christ) returns, for He is KING of ‘all the House of Israel’, not just Jerusalem and Judah, or the Jews. This is why Christ would even suffer mockery at His sacrifice with a sign saying ‘THE KING OF THE JEWS’ (Mark 15:26; 15:32). That sign the Romans put up over His head. The Pharisees despised this act, for it insinuated that Jesus (who they taught was just a prophet), was their just King Messiah. But as we now know, many of these Jews have yet to this day to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. Pontius Pilate was the main instigator of this mockery, because he knew Jesus was innocent and he was doing it to mock the priests, elders, and Pharisees (Mark 15:9-10). As even some of the Apostles of Christ thought He had come to set up His Kingdom upon earth at His first Advent, they reckoned He would actually be ‘King of the Jews’ then. Christ’s Mission was as Savior for the sins of the whole world, to be sacrificed for us, becoming our Passover Lamb as written. For that Mission at His first Advent (coming), He was most Powerful, but meek as a little ‘lamb’ in order to fulfill prophecy.
     This next Advent, Jesus Christ will be coming into His Kingdom to Rule with ‘a rod of iron’ (Rev.2:27; 12:5; 19:15). He’s going to give out a lot of discipline when He returns this next time. Since Christ’s second Advent upon this earth is when His Kingdom will be established ‘everlasting’, It will be over all Israel and all the earth (Zech.14; Ezek.37). There are those in Jerusalem now who are preparing for the coming of Messiah, but there is one big problem; they haven’t accepted Jesus Christ’s first coming as Messiah, so they believe the appearance of a Messiah in our near future will be the first Advent, not the second and final. For this reason, for not loving the Truth, God is bringing a false one, ‘a spurious messiah‘, i.e., Satan himself in the attempted role of Christ, as ‘anti-Christ’, ‘strong delusion’, and then our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will appear to defeat that false messiah, returning to claim His Kingdom (II Thess.2; Ezekiel 28; Isaiah 14; Matt.24; Mark 13; Luke 21).
     After the prophecy given to Jeroboam by God, King Solomon died and his son Rehoboam reigned as king in Jerusalem (I Kings 11:43). Jeroboam who was over ‘the house of Joseph’ and an Ephraimite, came with the People of Israel (northern tribes) to Jerusalem in order to ask Rehoboam to lighten his father’s burden on them with the building of the Temple, etc. Rehoboam, son of Solomon, and the heir to the throne of ‘all Israel’ at that time, refused, and said he would make his father Solomon’s ‘yoke’ on the northern tribes of Israel even greater (I Kings 12). To this Jeroboam and the northern tribes responded with:

I King 12:16   So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, “What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David.” So Israel departed unto their tents.

17    But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.

     They refer to ‘David’ and ‘the son of Jesse’ because that represents the tribe of Judah at Jerusalem. The primitive text of the phrase ‘to your tents’ read ‘to your gods’ in the Hebrew, because by separating from Judah and Jerusalem, they were forsaking the proper worship of Jehovah, opting for the golden calve worship Jeroboam would then set up in the north.¹
After this event of rebellion by the northern tribes against the ‘house of Judah’, these tribes then set Jeroboam up as their king in the north:

I King 12:19   So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.

20    And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.

     At this consequence Rehoboam, the rightful king in Jerusalem, brought together the people around Jerusalem:

I King 12:21   And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.

At this God told Rehoboam not to do battle against their brethren, the ten tribes of Israel in the north, for this matter was of Him (I Kings 12:24). We know Solomon and Jeroboam knew about the division of the two houses, but this must have been the first time God had revealed it to Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.
Notice that Rehoboam ‘assembled’ Benjamin and Judah together? This means that Benjamin is also figured with the tribe of Judah, even as it is today in the modern Nation State of Israel. Well what about the Levites? When Jeroboam became king over the ‘house of Israel’ in the north, to prevent Judah and Jerusalem from becoming any stronger by the devout of the northern tribes migrating to Judah in the south, he set up ‘two calves of gold’ for Israel to worship, one in Beth-el (means ‘House of God’), the place where Jacob’s Pillar dwelt, and the other golden calf in Dan. He then promoted the lowest of the People to be priests over these idols for the People to serve (I Kings 12:27-31). These false priests were not of the sons of Levi, which was a requirement by God for proper worship. The Levites in these northern tribes areas then all moved down to Jerusalem, becoming joined with Judah and Benjamin, even to this day (II Chron.11).
Therefore, at this point forward, the ‘house of Judah’ always refers to the three tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, all dwelling in the south in Jerusalem making up Judea, and includes ‘some’ of those from the other tribes already living in Jerusalem, and some which moved to Jerusalem who refused the golden calf worship of Jeroboam in the north (II Chron.11:16). This means that the majority of Israel still remained in the north, the ‘ten tribes’ which God prophesied through Ahijah that He would take away from the ‘house of David’. Since Manasseh and Ephraim were half-tribes of the ‘double portion’ Blessing given to Joseph, they were larger than the others, with Ephraim being the largest, and already ‘ordained’ to be ‘leader’ over the remainder of the ten.
The capital city Jerusalem of all Israel which began with King David stayed with the ‘house of Judah’, i.e., Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. However, the capital city of the new northern kingdom of Israel under King Jeroboam serving the ‘house of Israel’, became Samaria. The words ‘Ephraim’, ‘Samaria’, and the ‘house of Israel’ became interchangeable in The Word after the split of the two houses:

Isa 7:9   And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.””

Amos 6:1   Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

     With the first verse example, the ‘head of Ephraim is Samaria‘, meaning the city of Samaria in the northern kingdom of the land of Israel is where the ‘head of Ephraim’ ruled. Well who is the ‘head of Ephraim‘ and who did he rule? The first king was this Jeroboam, the king God set over the ten tribes in the north, the ‘house of Israel’.
The next verse example of Amos is talking about the ‘house of Judah’ with ‘them that are at ease in Zion‘. The reference to ‘Samaria‘ is to Ephraim and the ‘house of Israel’, the ten tribes. Who might this be, ‘which are named chief of the nations‘, and also where the ‘house of Israel’ migrated to? It is to the modern western Christian nations of Europe and the Americas, with Ephraim (Great Britain) still as its head. This means that this verse of Amos 6, and much of the whole Book of Amos, and others, are all prophecy given to today’s modern ‘house of Israel’, the western Christian nations.

     This may have been a redundant study for many that are already aware of the split between the tribes of Israel into two separate houses, but for the sake of posing a solid foundation in God’s Truth, it must be covered for those struggling in The Word, because much of God’s Word will remain a mystery without this foundation on the two houses of Israel. If you’ve been with me so far in this study, a big ‘veil’ of mystery should be departing concerning today’s alignment of nations in the western world. Next time I’ll pull more of these verse links together for you, God’s Holy Spirit willing, and the veil of even many New Testament writings should also begin to be removed.

Peace be with you in Christ Jesus,
Dave Ramey.

Footnote:

¹   The Companion Bible. Kregel Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI., 1990, margin note, p.470.