Is it not amazing that the God of Israel took His “chosen ones” who rebelled against Him and exiled them around the entire face of this planet earth? Just when the “appointed time” had come for them to return back to their homeland, the land in which nobody wanted because it was a wasteland for two thousand years, now the whole world wants a “piece of the pie” of Zion.

What is equally amazing is that there are Christians or Islamists who serious think that their church, mosque or religious affiliations makes them eligible to take by defraud, as “spiritual Israelites” the inheritance of the “chosen ones”. Whether this inheritance is “temporal or spiritual”, many of them will be abrogating their own genetic rights to the possession of the Promised Land, whether on this planet or another dimension. Unknown to them, they are willingly giving up their birthright, not knowing that they are the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. It’s like the man, who sold his family estate, to spend his life prospecting for a diamond mine; not realizing that he had sold the largest diamond in the world that was in the backyard of his own family inheritance.

We can only begin to understand the vast destruction and desolation of the northern tribal regions of Samaria, 2700 years ago (conventional historical time), when we come to the realization that the land that the Palestinians, with the support of every nation of the world, except the United States, is demanding to be their “rightful homeland” is the land that the God of Israel has promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This same God prophesied through the prophets that someday it would be inhabited by the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel. You may very well be that one, whose prophetic ancestral homeland is destined to be yours, for you might be that “lost Israelite”.

Shavei Shomron

Today, in the Shomron region, the West Bank of Israel and also in the region of Galilee, is where the international world today is trying to force the modern Jewish State of Israel to give this land to the Palestinians for a homeland. It is true, that this land will not be the final homeland for the Jewish people. But it will be the prophetic homeland for the entire House of Israel when the House of Israel (Lost Tribes) and the House of Judah (Jews) seek together a united redemption and restoration by the Eternal One of Israel.

Tiglat-pileser III, king of Assyria

In the land where thousands of katyusha missiles rained down upon the Jewish population of Galilee, the land where the Palestinian Authority claims as its own possession surrounding Ramallah, the land of Damascus, Lebanon, plus most of the land of Jordan will someday possibly be your inheritance. If you don’t believe this, than you probably don’t believe in the prophets of Israel or the God of Israel. If you believe in the entire literal prophetic revelation of the God of Israel, from Genesis to Revelation, then you probably have been genetically stamped with the ancestral genes of the Lost Tribes of Israel. These next few chapters may very well be the story of your ancestors and their hope of redemption should be yours also.

When the prophetic day arrives, and the God of Israel opens up the international diplomatic gates for the repopulation and repatriation by the descendants of the “Lost Israelites” from the Americas, Europe, EuroAsia, India and China, do you truly believe that Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the Palestinian Authority, and even the Nation of Jordan will open up their lands, with open arms, for your inhabitation as descendants of ancient Israel? Do you think that the Jews in Israel will open up their arms for you to live in Galilee and the region of the West Bank? Your answer may determine your prophetic future!

In the 8^th century BCE, the homeland of the entire northern tribes of Israel became a wasteland. Except for a remnant of the Houses of Dan and Simeon, the entire population was taken captive and deported to the land of the Medes along the River Gozan on the southwest coastline of the Caspian Sea. This was about eight hundred miles northeast of Jerusalem.

The Afghan fort of Ali Masjid seen from the Khyber Pass where the British Battle of Ali Masjid was held against the Afghanistan troops in November 21, 1878.

As the biblical account was written, the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh were the first of the tribes of Israel to be exiled. It was the Assyrian monarch Tiglath Pileser, in the years of 745-741 BCE, who deported the first wave of exiles to Assyria. Other scholars state that the tribes of Gad and Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh that lived on the other side of the Jordan River were also included in this first deportation. According to the sacred writ, the areas of deportation were four regions;

1. Halah,

2. Habor or Lahlah

3. Hara,

4. River Gozan

Chitral, Pakistan - Chitral Paradise on Earth River Go’zan - According to Saadia Gaon, the Lost Tribes of Israel were sent to the “River Go’zan” which is “the river north of the city of Balach in the north of Afghanistan. The river is known today as the “AmufiDarya”, and is the border between Afghanistan and Russia. Afghanistan tradition states that the whole river was once known as the Gozen River. (Cited by Musiz Pakistan, “Ethnic Cleansing in Pakistan”)

The Mountainous Valley of Harat called “Chiltral Harat”

Habor – The area of Habor’s location is found in the mountainous pass (Habor) between Afghanistan and Pakistan that is called “Pesh-Habor”. It is believed that this is the famous mountainous pass, Khyber Pass. That city today is known as Peshawar, on the Pakistani side of the Khyber Pass is called the “city after the pass”.

Hara – The city of Hara is located near the Persian border called Harat. Today, it is the third largest city in Afghanistan. The prophecy of Isaiah gives some identification for it alludes that the deportation of the Israelites brought the 10-Israelite tribes to the land of “Sinim”.

As we analyze the following text we get the impression that the wanderings of the Lost tribes initially moved eastward towards the land of Pakistan, the mountainous land of Kashmir that is disputed by Pakistan and India today, and the mountain Buddhist kingdom of Tibet high in the Himalayas being fought over by China and the huge Nation of China beyond. Into all of these nations the Lost Tribes left their progeny and their spiritual traditions behind.

Isaiah 49:12 – “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you; I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people to restore the earth…Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the east, and these from the land of Sinim.”

These areas are critical to the area of our study because the Israelites, called the “Sak-Geloths”, the “prisoners of Isaac” were taken to the River Gozan that has been identified by many scholars as being the River Uzen. It flows northward through the land of ancient Media into the southeast corner of the Black Sea. This today, is the region of the Nation of Georgia which Russia attacked on Tisha B’Av (9^th of Av), on August 10, 2008 and renewed the “Cold War” between the East and the West. Suddenly the world was thrown again into the nuclear noose of global competition for world domination.

The Russian bear suddenly arose from hibernation and sent her armed nuclear fleet roaming the Mediterranean Sea, the Black and the Baltic Sea, the Atlantic Ocean along the Caribbean and South American coastlines. The Russian Aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov with a complete task force was sent at the Russian naval port at the Syrian city of Tartus just north of Lebanon and Israel. Russia also sent her nuclear powered Peter the Great, one of Russia’s largest warships and submarine destroyer Admiral Chabenenko to dock at the Venezuela port of La Guaira to participate in war games on November 25, 2008.

Queen Tamar of the House of David, Queen of the Greater Georgian Empire

Two Russian long range strategic bombers landed in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas for the first time in September. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev landed at Havana on the Caribbean Nation of Cuba where America locked horns with Russia during the 1962 nuclear missile crisis. Many speculated that Russia will seek to open a military base on that island nation in response to the US missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.

BibleSearchers, in the fall of 2008, identified the Nation of Georgia as the “Israel of the Caucuses” in the article subtitle, “The Georgian Israeli Puzzle”. This was a major empire during the Roman Catholic Crusades to the Middle East in the 11-12^th century. The Empire of Georgia was ruled by “The Ancient Royal Davidian Monarchy of the Caucasus Nation of Georgia.” The leading monarchs of this Davidian Empire had the names of King David and Queen Tamar for they were of the non-Solomonic royal lineage of the House of Nathan.

In the same region of this Jewish dynastic empire in the 12^th century CE, the God of Israel first planted his lost Israelites. They later emerged as the famous Scythians of the Northern Plains. They also would impregnate this region with Hebrew bloodlines, traditions, and folklore that would make this same land ripe for Jewish Davidian royal influence and authority twenty centuries later.

Not only that, it would also prepare this region to be the “firebrand” in the 21^st Century to erupt this planet into a new “Cold War” careening towards a “Hot War”. The time had come for the 21^st century global powers brokers seeking world domination to set their stakes and align all the global powers against each other in the Chess Game of Global Domination. The Red Internationale as the Red Communist Marxist-Leninist countries of Russia and China would be aligned in opposition against the Golden Internationale of the Western Internationalists and Economic Globalists of the European Union and the United States. Between them would stand the rising Shi’ite Nation of Persia-Iran seeking a global Islamic Caliphate under the rule of the returning Islamic Mahdi (messiah). The home of ancient Persia would soon become a destructive vortex (tornado) seeking to explode this planet into a nuclear caldron in her bid to destroy the Jewish-Israeli presence in the entire Middle East. The time of the end had finally arrived.

The First Assyrian Invasion by Pul, Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria

It was into this same region in the Caucasus, according to Professor Hannay (cited by Haberman, pg 123) the Nation of Israel earlier departed by forced exile, later migrated to as upwards to three million Israelis lived in virtual isolation except to pay tribute to the Assyrian Empire. They later disappeared from classical world history. The first of the prophets to predict the fall of the Kingdom of Israel and the first to predict the deportation of the Israelite nation was uttered by the words by Hosea the prophet upon the birth of his firstborn son, Jezreel:

Hosea 1:4 – “So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to him: “Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and bring an end to the kingdom of the House of Israel.

Hosea 1:6 – “And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him: ‘Call her name Lo-Ruhamah (Unpitied) for I will no longer have mercy on the House of Israel, but I will utterly take them away. Yet I will have mercy on the House of Judah, will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword or battle, by horses or horsemen.’”

Then there came the prophecy of Isaiah that was given when King Pekah of Israel was negotiating an alliance with King Rezin of Syria to take down the throne of King Ahaz of Judah.

Isaiah 7:8 – “Within three score and five years (65 years), shall Ephraim be broken so that it will not be a people.”

As we shall soon see, it was in the year of 741 BCE that the Kingdom of Israel was brought to the end of its autonomous and independent kingdom. Sixty five years later, in the year of 676 BCE, the 10 Tribes of Israel called collectively by the prophets as “Ephraim” would cease to be national people, and disappear into the mist of ancient history.

The first invasion by the Empire of Assyria came in the year of 741 BCE and initiated a series of four invasions by Assyria. This finally led to Israel’s vassalage under the rule of the evil King Menahem to the Empire of Assyria. As the Israeli royal chroniclers wrote:

II Kings 15:19-20 – “Pul (King Tiglath-pileser), king of Assyria came against the land; and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver (4000 pounds of silver) that his hand might be with him to strengthen the kingdom under his control. And Menahem exacted the money from Israel, from all the very wealthy, from each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and did not stay there in the land.”

The Kingdom of Israel remained a united and sovereign nation. There was no annexation of any territory to Assyria, and no deportations of Israelites were taken back to Assyria. Yet, a financial catastrophe hit this small kingdom. Everybody was affected from the rich to the poor. To many scholars, this invasion was not counted as an Assyrian invasion. The economic catastrophe spelled her final demise.

The Second Assyrian Invasion by Pul, Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria

The second invasion by Tiglath-pileser was devastating. Most of the region surrounding Galilee was lost and depopulated. The Trans-Jordanian tribes that lived on the “other side of the Jordan” were destroyed. The population taken into captivity and the Kingdom of Israel shrunk in size about 65%. Israel still remained as a nation with a much reduced population.

The Tribes of Israel

II Kings 15:29 – “In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel, Beth Maachah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.”

II Chronicles 5:26 – “The God of Israel stirred up…the spirit of Tiglat-Pileser, king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the River Gozan.”

In the fragmentary lines of the chronicles of Tiglath Pileser in the Assyrian cuneiform rolls, we find the following two accounts:

Tiglath Pileser – “The cities of…Gala’za, Abilkka, which are on the border of Bit-Humria (sons of Omri)…the whole land of Naphtali, in its entirety, I brought within the border of Assyria. My official I set over them as governor…” (D.D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon (1926) pg 292, cited by J. Llewellyn Thomas, “The Assyrian Invasions and Deportations of Israel” pg. 17)

Tiglath Pileser – “The land of Bit-Humria (Omri) all of its people together with all their goods I carried off to Assyria. Pakaha (Pekah) their king they deposed, and I placed Ausias (Hosea) king. Ten talents (seven hundred pounds) of gold, ten talents (seven hundred pounds) of silver, as their tribute I received from them, and to Assyria I carried them.” (D.D. Luckenbill, “Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon “(1926) pg 292, cited by J. Llewellyn Thomas, “The Assyrian Invasions and Deportations of Israel” pg. 17)

The Assyrian plan of attack and assault upon the land of Israel in Pul’s campaign shows that he invaded the Kingdom of Israel from the north coming down the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea through Phoenicia (Western Syria and modern day Lebanon), north of the Litani River. The troops swept in a diagonal pass through the upper half of Asher, the entire tribe of Napthali, the rebellious tribal portion of Dan straight north of Galilee, southwest of Mount Hermon, on the western side of Galilee. They then moved through the southwestern region of Manasseh, on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, and then through the entire lands of Gilead and Reuben on the east side of the Jordan River and the northern half of the Dead Sea.

The Prophet Isaiah speaking of these two invasions stated:

Isaiah 9:1 – “When at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali (first invasion), and afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles (second invasion).”

What was more important for here began the “sifting” of the Kingdom of Israel as the God of Israel began to sift and blend her genes into the nations of the world.

Amos 9:8-9 – “’Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom (of Israel), and I will destroy it from the face of the earth; yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,’ saith the Lord. ‘For surely I will command, and will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve; yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground. All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, who say, ‘The calamity shall not overtake nor confront us.’”

The Third Assyrian Invasion by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria

Eighteen years later, in the year of 723 BCE, the House of Israel was again invaded for the third time, this time by the Assyrian forces of Shalmaneser. The capital city of Samaria was put under siege and the people were permanently exiled from the land of their inheritance as prophesied by the Prophet Hosea fifty years prior.

This assault upon the Kingdom of Israel was disastrous. It terminated the Kingdom of Israel, an event that has not been reversed to this day (2009). The causation was because King Hosea refused not only to pay tribute to Assyria, but had appealed to Egypt which had a catastrophic effect upon their international relationships. The primary causation was because King Hosea refused to heed and obey the commands of the Lord.

King Jehu of Israel bowing down in Obeisance to Assyrian King Shalmaneser III – Black Obelisk, British Museum

II Kings 17:5-6; also II Kings 18:9-11 – “Then the king of Assyria came up through out all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor (by) the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."

II Kings 17:5-6; also II Kings 18:9-11 – “Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor (by) the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."

Sargon II of Assyria, the Commander in Chief, or the Tartan of Shalmaneser, confirmed that this siege and deportation occurred in 721 BCE when he left his memoirs on the wall of the palace of Sargon II at Nineveh which read:

The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III of Assyria

Sargon II of Assyria – “In the beginning of my reign the city of Samaria I besieged, I took by the help of the god Shamash…the city of Samaria. Twenty-seven thousand two hundred and eighty of its inhabitants I carried away… I took them to Assyria and put into places people whom my hands had conquered. I set my officers and governors over them, and laid on them a tribute as on the Assyrians. (Cited by Frederick Haberman, “Tracing our Ancestors”, pg. 123)

The Kingdom of Israel was completely destroyed forever. Never again would she rise again as a governing state until the day of the Messiah. At this time the prophet foretold that the House of Israel would return and be united with the House of Judah, and there they would be ruled by one ruler; the Messiah, David, son of David, save maybe the tribe of Dan, for eternity.

During these centuries, the House of Israel would be known by many different names. On the Behistun Rock, Darius the Great boasted on his inscriptions that he had taken the Nation of Israel. He identified Israel as the Saks, or Saki that went into rebellion first against Assyria and later against Babylon. They were depicted by wearing the typical conical cap of the Goths or Scyths and one was called the name of Sakunka.

The Behistun Rock

The Saki were also known by the name of Manda, named after one of their chieftains of which, according to Haberman, was ruled by Cyaxarses their king, and joined with the Babylonian king Nabopolaser, to destroy Nineveh in the year of 606 BCE. Here, the last “Zar” of Assyria, Ashur-Etililani. He perished in the “funeral pyre” of his court in flames. At this moment of time, at Nineveh, the House of Israel began to fulfill of its prophetic destiny.

Jeremiah 51:20-21 – “You are My battle-ax and weapons of war: for with you I will break the nation in pieces; with you I will destroy kingdoms; with you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider; with you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider.”

The Fourth Assyrian Invasion by King Sennacherib, son of Sargon II

After 721 BCE, Assyria once again invaded the land of Israel and Judah, for the fourth time in the year of 702 BCE. King Sennacherib, the son of King Sargon II, arrived into the land of Israel. He swiftly swept over the outlying garrison towns of Judah, 46 in number, but was never able to take down Jerusalem. It was not that Jerusalem was so formidable, but the God of Israel had a different plan. A large part of the towns and villages of Judah were destroyed and taken into captivity.

King Sargon, the Sargon Vase and the Palace of Sargon

The city of Jerusalem was spared, not by military might or diplomacy, but by a massive bolide, with millions of volts of electricity. It shot out of the heavens and struck the camp of the Assyrians with all their military metallic helmets, shields, spears, and coats of mail that attracted this high voltage flux of energy from the heavens and grounded it through them into the earth. It annihilated and charred the entire Assyrian force lying asleep on the Judean hillsides. King Sennacherib was burned and scarred extensively and upon returning to Assyria was assassinated in his court by his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, who fled and Esar-Haddon his son reigned in his place.

II Kings 19:35 – “And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty five thousand, and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses – all dead.”

The Fifth Assyrian Invasion of Esar-Haddon, son of Sennacherib

The fifth invasion by Assyria is usually not remembered by readers and students of the Israelite Exile. There was no mention of it in the Second Book of Kings and it received only brief notice in the Second Book of Chronicles. All the former citizens of the Northern Kingdom of Israel were now gone. They were both deported and sent into exile or migrated earlier or fled just right before or between the prior invasions.

The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon – Painting by Edward Poynter, 1890

And so it was in the year of 676 BCE that the Assyrian King Esar-Haddon, the son of King Sennacherib arrived. Though his name is not recorded in biblical history, the lineages of the Assyrian kings on the ancient inscriptions give us that information. Actually it was forty five years after the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel that Esar-Haddon traveled through the former now desolate land of Israel on his way to Jerusalem. He accomplished a military feat that his father failed so dramatically when Sennacherib’s military invasion force was completely disseminated. Strange as it may be, the biblical narrative does not speak of a war, a siege, or an invasion, but does state that the God of Israel sent the Assyrian King Esar-Haddon to capture and punish the most “evil” king ever to sit on the throne of Kings David and Solomon.

The King of Assyria, Esar-Haddon, arrived in Israel on the fifth invasion. Instead of deporting the Kingdom of Judah, Esar-Haddon bound up the wicked King Manasseh and took him in chains to Babylon. He punished and reprimanded him for being such a cruel and heartless king to his people that he later repented and reformed his ways. King Manasseh returned to rule and serve the God of his people.

II Chronicles 33:11-13 – Therefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon. Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed to Him; and He received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.”

The Eternal One use a pagan foreign king, whose empire had already destroyed the kingdom of Israel and this time, gave King Manasseh a mind-altering experience of reproof. For all the evil we might consider against the kings of Assyria for being such tyrants to God’s chosen people, it took an Assyrian king to give reproof for being such an evil ruler over his own people. King Esar-Haddon set the stage for Manasseh’s spiritual rehabilitation. It’s amazing how God had to use the enemies of Israel and even Judah to set judgment and to reprove their wickedness. King Manasseh was pacified and repatriated back to his rule as the king of Judah. What was the effect? He fortified the city of Jerusalem at the Ophel where the priests later lived south of the temple and “raised it to a great height”. Then Manasseh implemented a royal act of restoration of the temple to its original holiness.

King Jeroboam established the worship of the Golden Calf in the Northern Kingdom of Israel because He feared the Israelites would return to the House of Judah

II Chronicles 33:15-16 – “He took away the foreign gods and the idols from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city. He also repaired the altar of the Lord, sacrificed peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.”

This was a remarkable reformation and restoration and we wonder if this will be a shadow picture of the time of the end, when it will take the king of an “evil” empire, to reform the corrupt politicians, prime ministers and presidents of the Nations of Israel? Will it take an enemy of the State of Israel to “teach” the “ruler” how to have integrity, honesty, and how he is suppose to serve his God, the Almighty One of Israel? No Jews were killed, no Jews were deported and no land in Judah was annexed. Yet something strange happened; the king reformed but the people did not. Though all the official idols were taken from Jerusalem and the mount of the House of the Lord, the people still wanted to worship their own way. They could not believe that when God asks us to do something in a specific way, He means for it do be done that way.

II Chronicles 33:17 – “Nevertheless the people still sacrificed on the high places, but only to the Lord their God.”

In spite of the fact that Manasseh repented of his evil ways and restored what he did wrong, the kingdom and the people continued their autonomous, independent, and self-affirming ways of how to serve the Lord. It would not be for another 89 years, until 587 BCE that King Nebuchadnezzar captured and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the beautiful Temple of Solomon. If the people would not worship how God asked them to worship, then He would removed His presence from the city He called His own, and have His own “House” destroyed.

The complete exile of Israel and Ephraim had now been accomplished for beginning with the 1^st deportation beginning in the year of 741 BCE, to the last invasion into Israel in the year of 676 BCE, the prophecy of Isaiah the Prophet had been fulfilled and the deportations of Israel were permanently completed:

Isaiah 7:8 – “Within threescore and five years”, said Isaiah, “shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.

(741 BCE – 676 BCE = 65 years)

The Israelites were first identified in these deportations as the Sak-Geloths (“Prisoners of Isaac”) who eventually lived hour hundred miles east of Nineveh and eight hundred miles northeast of Jerusalem. The Sak-Geloths would later be identified as the Saki (“children of Isaac”) that eventually became the European Goths and the British Anglo-Saxons.

There was another purpose for the invasion through the Land of Israel. As the Israelites from the Northern Kingdom of Israel followed the Assyrian Kings Pul (Tiglath-pileser) and Shalmaneser (Sargon) out of the Land of Israel, so King Esar-Haddon followed the same imperial policy and as he arrived into the land of the former Northern Kingdom of Israel, he brought with him a massive importation of foreigners or gentiles. This cosmopolitan blend of people which we today proudly call diversity was an anathema for the God of Israel. It did not come with His blessing but with His judgment upon the children of Israel. Called the Samaritans, they made no claim to be Israelites, but were proud of their diversity of color, religious and cultural backgrounds. They also openly admitted that they were also forced to settle in the land.

The Adoration of the Golden Calf – Painting by Nicolas Poussin

Though they took many aspects of Hebrew lifestyle, they always stood in opposition to the Jewish people as they sought to reclaim Jerusalem after their Babylon and Persian exile. Like the Palestinians today, who were imported into Palestine by the major Arab states to counter-act the British Mandate by the League of Nations to create the Land of Israel for a homeland for the Jews, the Samaritans did everything they could to drive the Jewish presence out of the land of Israel.

II Kings 17:24 – “Then the king of Assyria (Esar-Haddon) brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel…”

This policy of deportation and importation continued into the next ruler’s reign, the son of King Esar-Haddon called King Asnapper. Years later, it was the Samaritans who recounted the history of their importation as they wrote a letter against the Jews back to the Shah of Persia, King Artaxerses.

Ezra 4:10 – “From Rehum, the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions – representatives of the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the people of Persia and Erech and Babylon and Shushan, the Dahavites, the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great noble Osnapper took captive and settled in the cities of Samaria and the remainder beyond the River – and so forth.”

The facts were now starkly clear. With the Jewish admission that these foreign gentiles were “placed in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel” was a vivid reality that the “House of Israel” was no longer “a people” in the Promised Land of Israel. At this moment of time, two prophetic streams converged into one larger stream. We remind ourselves of Isaiah’s prophetic insight that was given when King Pekah of Israel was negotiating an alliance with King Rezin of Syria to take down the throne of King Ahaz of Judah that in “three score and five years” shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people”. It once again affirmed Isaiah’s prophecy:

Isaiah 7:8 – “Within three score and five years (65 years), shall Ephraim be broken so that it will not be a people.”

Balaam invoked upon Baal (Lord) to “Conquer the People”

The prophecy of Isaiah was contrasted with Hosea’s family drama called the Lo-Ruhamah prophecy, “I will utterly take them away.”

Only a few years later, the Prophet Jeremiah wrote to the Jews about their fate, by reminding them of the fate of Ephraim (Israel):

Jeremiah 7:12, 14-15 (parts) – “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel…therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name…and I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren – the whole posterity of Ephraim.”

The prophetic era prophesied by the Lord of hosts was now complete. As we earlier learned, in the year of 741 BCE, the independent and autonomous Kingdom of Israel was brought to its end. Sixty five years later, in the year of 676 BCE, the 10 Tribes of Israel called collectively by the prophets as “Ephraim” ceased to be national people. They would disappear but their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would always be watching over them.

We will search, ponder, and watch for the tracing of the people that would be called by the nations of the world by the “name of Isaac” and represented by their leading tribe, Ephraim, the youngest son of Joseph, who would be represented by the “name of Israel”. Throughout the biblical prophecies they would now be known as the House of Israel.

Our first journey will take us to the recent years after the exile of the House of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar. We will see the “imprint” how the God of Israel was to use the “hidden” House of Israel that had disappeared, who would shape, mold, and then destroy the empires that would follow and oppress the visible remnant of the Hebrews; the Jewish people.

The Guti (Gadite Israelite) General of Cyrus the Great leads the “Bloodless” Takeover of Babylon

The last place of exile, the “cities of the Medes” is probably the easiest to identify. This Gobryas (Gaubarva) at the tomb of Darius the Great, Naqsh-i Rustam. From W. Hinz, Darius und die Perser (1976). region is important for within a century, the House of Judah would also be taken into captivity to the land of Babylon. Out of the land of the Medes would arise a “savior” for the Jews called Cyrus the Great, whose roots did come from the land of Media. Did not Isaiah proclaim and Josephus confirmed that Cyrus the Great read the prophecy about him that was written two hundred years before his day?

Was Gobryas, the Israelite lance bearer and General of Cyrus (Darius) as Portrayed on the Behistun Stone?

Isaiah 45:1-4 (parts) - “Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held – To subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut…that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, Am the God of Israel. For Jacob My servant’s sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me.”

BibleSearchers also took an unusual position to state that the Commanding General for the armed forces of Cyrus the Great, called Gobryas the Guti was an Israelite who was now returning to free his cousins, the Jews. He set the stage for their emancipation back to their homeland in Judea and Jerusalem. Let us review this evidence written in 2002 in BibleSearchers Reflections under the title of “Babylon, the Tower of Babel, Hanging Gardens, and the Fall of Babylon”.

BibleSearchers – “On October 12, 539 BCE, the forces of Cyrus II, the founder of the Achaemenian Empire entered the city of Babylon through the bronze gates of the Euphrates below the city walls, under the command of General Gobryas, leader of the Guti. The city was quickly pacified and this became histories’ most peaceful military conquest of a major imperial city.

It was earlier the same month when the Babylonian king Nabonidus in defense of his country met the Persian army under the command of the Persian king Cyrus the Great at Opis, claimed to be the site of ancient Baghdad in one of histories’ most important theaters of war. The Babylonian army was defeated and immediately the native population of the citizens of Babylon revolted against their king. According to Nabonidus Chronicle, Cyrus the Great continued on towards its victory under the walls of Babylon. The Nabonidus chronicle describes the event:

Nabonidus Chronicle – “In the month of Tashritu, when Cyrus attacked the army of Babylonia in Opis on the Tigris, the inhabitants of Babylonia revolted, but he (Cyrus, Nabonidus?) massacred the confused inhabitants. On the fifteenth day (October 12), Sippar was seized without battle. Nabonidus fled. On the sixteenth day, (the Persian commander) Gobryas, the governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle. Afterwards, Nabonidus was arrested in Babylon when he returned there.

Cyrus did not actually enter the gates of the city for over a month. On November 9, 539 BCE, Cyrus rode through the Ishtar Gate while the masses of the city layered a pathway of green twigs welcoming him with their sign of peace and honor. The invincible city that hosted the largest remnant of God’s chosen people from the Nation of Judah was invaded and conquered in a bloodless battle.

Who was this Gobryas and who were the Guti? We find in western Iran, the land of the ancient nation of Media, was the primary home of the displaced tribes of Israel. Here we see the home of the Guti or Catti, a people or tribe the linguists of ancient tongues feel is a derivation of Gadil or Gad or in other words, of the Tribe of Gad. The Guti and the Catti (Gadites) intermingled with the Saki, or the other (12) tribes of Isaac can be seen as a collective term for the House of Israel and the House of Judah. The God of Abraham was using one part of His “chosen people, Israel” to protect the other part of His “chosen people the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah”.

The question many will raise is why the House of Judah was identified with the tribes deported to Media?” Was not Judah saved from the deportations of Sennacherib?

The Six-Sided Taylor Prism of Sennecherib

Take another look at the history of the deportation of Israel by Sennacherib and maybe you will also come to the same conclusion that a large part of the House of Judah was also deported to the Assyrian provinces. As Sennacherib and his war machine was roaring through the Nation of Judah, town after town was destroyed. Professor D.D. Luckenbill in his book, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon, gives the following translation of Sennacherib’s version of the siege against Jerusalem in the Taylor Prism of Sennacherib.

Taylor Prism of Sennacherib - “As for Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke, 46 of his strong walled cities, as well as the small cities in their neighborhood…by escalade and by bringing up siege engines, by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels and breaches I took. 200,150 people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, cattle and sheep without number, I brought away from them and counted as spoil. Himself, like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city.” (Luckengill, Prof D.D., Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon, recorded in Tracing Our Ancestors by Frederick Heberman)

Yes, he trapped Hezekiah ‘like a bird in a cage’. Over two hundred thousand Judaites were deported along with the Israelites from the Northern Kingdom. The only citizens spared in the Land of Judah and Benjamin were those that had sought protection in the city of Jerusalem. Here the Angel of the Lord smote the forces of Sennacherib and the remnant of the House of Judah was spared.

The Imperial Rise of Cyrus the Great

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great – Pasargad, Fars (Iran)

Looking at the Imperial rise of Cyrus the Great, we can now see the House of Isaac and Judah as the backbone to the power of the Median Empire. They are seen as the Saki or Saks on the Behistun Rock and it was they who became tribal leaders in the wars of rebellion and dissent against the Assyrians by the people of Media. It is believed that the Saks also came under the name of Manda, a title of a chieftain. It was the tribe of Mandi (Israelites) that Cyaxarses, the ruler of the Medes first became king before he joined forces with Nabopolaser, the father of Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian king who overthrew the Assyrians, when he marched against Nineveh in 614 BCE. The Assyrian capital was destroyed after a two year siege (612 BCE) and the last ‘Zar’ of Assyria, Ashur-Etihilani, perished and his court became a funeral pyre as the flames of war destroyed his capital city.

In the prior chapter, we witnessed the combined forces of the Babylonians under the rulership of Nabopolaser and the new Manda chieftain, and now Median ruler Cyaxarses attacking the disintegrating Empire to Assyria , first at Aššur in 614 and two years later destroying the main capital city Nineveh.

Out of the flames of the embers of Nineveh a new aspirant to the Imperial throne of Assyria, Aššur-uballit, made his new capital and kingdom at Harran, confronting Nabopolaser and Cyaxarses with his rebellion. As noted in the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle, Nabopolaser promptly 'marched to Assyria victoriously' in the fifteenth year of his reign (612 BCE) and drove Aššur-uballit’s and his military forces out of the city of Harran. The rebellion continued to smolder. In two years, Pharaoh Necho of Egypt (610-595 BCE) sent a large military force to the north to assist the Assyrian prince in his claim to the crumbling Assyrian empire.

The question was asked, why did King Josiah of Judah do the unexpected and try to sent a military force to block the transit of the Egyptian forces traveling up the coast of the Mediterranean to join forces with Aššur-uballit against the combined forces of Nabopolaser and the Median king Cyaxarses?

Necho sent a message to Josiah through the Egyptian ambassadors with the message:

II Chronicles 35:21 - “What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house (Babylonians and Medes) therewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroys thee not.”

Cyrus the Great Helping the Hebrew Exiles to Return and Rebuild Jerusalem

The scriptural text continues that Josiah “hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.” (vs. 22) went to battle not as a king, but disguised as a military warrior and was mortally killed by an Egyptian arrow.

If the thesis that the Mandi tribe and the Saki were closely related, then we also have the thesis that King Cyaxarses’ ancestry could possibly be linked to the House of Israel. Was King Josiah, who was pro-Babylon like his grandfather, Hezekiah, actually sending a military force to assist his distant relative of the House of Israel, King Cyaxarses of Media by trying to hinder the union of the Egyptian forces with the hated resurrection of the Assyrian forces under the rulership of

King Aššur-uballit, the aspirant to the throne of Nineveh?”

Who were Cyrus the Great, Darius the Mede, and Ahasuerus?

But the mysteries are not over. BibleSearchers has discussed in the past concerning the discrepancies of who were Cyrus the Great, Darius the Mede, and Ahasuerus, the king and husband of the Jewish Queen Esther? In the BibleSearchers study of the Hidden Treasures of the Temple of Solomon, we learned that the vast treasures of the Temple of Solomon were hidden by a secret commando force of temple priests before the arrival of King Nebuchadnezzar. This was revealed in the Emeq HaMelekh. This manuscript, called the “Valley of the Kings” was discovered in Amsterdam in 1992 by two rabbis, Rachnael Steinberg and his student, Mendel Tropper. It was written by a Rabbi Naftali Hertz ben Ya’acov Elchanon in Amsterdam in the year of 1648 CE from a Talmudic Tosefta called the “Massakhet Keilim” that was absent in modern day versions of the Talmud.

We explored the profound differences and discrepancies between the classical Persian calendar written by Roman Catholic monks and the Jewish calendar of the Lord concerning the dates of the Persian era in the sub-titled article, “The Jewish Rabbinic Calendar and the History of the Exile of the Jews”. Concerning who was Cyrus the Great, Darius the Mede and Xerses as the Ahasuerus of Queen Esther’s fame we quote:

BibleSearchers - “According to the rabbinic chronology initially written by Rabbi Yose b. halafta in his work, Seder Olam Rabbah (The Great Order of the World), Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple of Solomon in the year 421 BCE instead of 586 BCE by conventional chronology. Cyrus (Koresh) the Great conquered Babylon in 539 BCE and by the Jewish calendar it was the year 368 BCE. Two years later, according to the rabbi, Xerses (Ahashverosh / Ahasuerus) who ruled over Persia between 366 - 352 BCE married and ruled with Esther as his queen, while conventional chronology gives the reign of Xerses as 486-465 BCE.

According to Vendyl Jones to whom credit must be given on revealing the Emeq HaMelekh to the public, Cyrus (Koresh), Darius (Daryavesh) the Mede and Xerses (Ahashverosh /Biblical Ahasuerus) are all the same ruler.

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great

As such, according to Rabbi Yose b. halafta in his work, Seder Olam Rabbah, there was one Cyrus, one Xerses and one Darius until Alexander the Great swept aside the Persian Empire after he crossed the Cilician Gates and defeated the Persian Shah Darius II Nothus in the Battle of Issus in the year of 333 BCE (conventional time). The Oriental Empires of Babylon had 53 years of rule and the Persian’s had 51 years of rule until the Occidental Empire of Greece toppled the Oriental potentates, a total of 104 years. To the Jewish understanding in history Cyrus the Great was the same ruler as Xerses and Darius the Mede, for the name Darius actually meant ‘Lord’ and Xerses meant ‘monarch’.

Compare this with the Conventional Chronology. The Babylonian Empire ruled for 48 years and then under one Cyrus, one Xerses, two Darius and two Artaxerses plus several intermittent upstarts and rivals, the Persians ruled for 207 years, a difference of 156 years with the rabbinic calendar.

Another way of comparing the Rabbinic and the conventional chronologies, the date when the temple rebuilding began in 351 BCE (rabbinic) to 70 CE when the temple was destroyed by the Romans was a total of 422 years. As such, the seventy (70) weeks ‘to be determined among thy people’(Jews) prophecy to Daniel, known as the 490 year prophecy would have put the time from the destruction of the first temple in 421 BCE to the destruction of Herod’s temple in Jerusalem at 68 CE, a date favored by many rabbis. If we use the 68 CE date for the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, then in the conventional chronology the time period from the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE to 68 CE would be 654 years.

Xerses (Cyrus according to the rabbis), in the conventional chronology, has been suggested to be the Biblical Ahasuerus and the king who married Queen Esther. As such, the successor of Xerses, Darius Hystaspes the Great, if he was a son, would have been half Jew and half Persian. Considering this, the second and third return of the Jewish people with Ezra and Nehemiah would have occurred during the reign of a ruler of Persia that was of Jewish descent, because his mother was a Jew. The decree to rebuild the temple of Zerubabbel in 351 BCE (rabbinic calendar) would have been exactly seventy years after its destruction in 421 BCE.”

Was Cyrus’ General Gobryas the same as Darius the Mede?

Yet the mystery deepens, when we begin to challenge the conventional and orthodox thinking of history, we notice that it states in the scripture that Darius the Mede conquered and received the kingdom of Babylon for Cyrus the Great on the night of Belshazzar’s last palace banquet.

Daniel 5:31 – “That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans, was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.

Parthian & Sacian (Saki–Israelites) Cataphracts
1. Top: Sasanian Standard-Bearer
2. Middle: Parthian Cataphract, CE 3rd C.
3. Bottom: Early Sasanian Cataphract, CE 3rd C.

We have to ask the question with the understanding that Darius meant “lord” or “governor”; “Was Gobryas the Guti, the general of Cyrus the Great the same person as Darius the Mede?” This is not a novel question, for BibleSearchers was not the first to suggest this identity, as we have now learned. According to the rabbinic Jewish calendar of the world, Cyrus the Great ruled between the years of 368-352 BCE for a total of sixteen years. Fourteen of those years were in the marriage with the Jewish orphan, Esther, who became the Queen of Persia in 366 BCE. Their son, Darius Hystaspes, being half royal Persian and half Jewish, became the ruler as the protector of the Jewish people.

Frederick Haberman, in his book, “Tracing our Ancestors”, using conventional dating quotes the synthesis of understanding by Professor George Rawlinson, Herodotus and Diodorus, when he wrote:

Frederick Haberman – “It appears, that Cyrus himself was defeated and killed by the Saki in 529 BCE (352 BCE according to the Jewish Calendar). Herodotus and Diodorus tell us that Cyrus was killed by the Massa-getai, under their Queen Tomyris on the Jaxartes River. Another prominent name attached itself to lost Israel, that of Getai, which is the Median form of Guti or Catti, and likewise means “wanderers,” or “adventurers.” And so indeed, for the God of Israel sent His people wandering over Eastern and Western Asia for centuries and later into Europe. Massagetai, means, according to Professor George Rawlinson, (Canon of Canterbury and Camden Professor of Ancient History) “Great Wanderers,” and it was they who defeated Cyrus the Great when he attempted to invade their territory on the Jaxartes River east of the Oxus.” (Frederick Haberman, “Tracing our Ancestors”, pg. 125)

It appears that General Gobryas the Guti can possibly now be identified as Gobryas the leader of the Israelites, who were known as the “Wanderers” or “Adventurers” and whose people, the Lost Tribes of Israel, known as the Massagetai in turn sixteen years later, killed Cyrus the Great when he tried to turn against the Israelite nation in exile. Other scholars identify that the Massagetai tribes were actually the Tribe of Manasseh of the House of Joseph. As we shall soon see later, the identity of the Israelites will once again reemerge into a new identity called the “Scythians”, which also means “wanderers”.

It was these Saki or Saks, who were also known as the Manda, who were named after one their Israeli chieftains. With the fall of the power of Asshur (Assyria) came with the collapse of their capital at Nineveh, in the year of 612 BCE, by the Babylonian forces of Nabopolaser, the father of Nebuchadnezzar II, and the Median forces of Cyaxarses, the ruler of the Medes. Yet, it was during and after the rule of Cyaxarses, who ruled over the “Manda” tribes of Israel that a vacuum of power resulted in this region when the proto-Babylonian empire still in the making. The Saki, Guti, Ghomri coalition of Israelite tribes were to become the dominate power force of the Median Empire in the region below the Caspian Sea.

Parthian Warriors under the command of Ar-Sakes, the Ruling Sak (Israelite) - Left: East Parthian Cataphract; Middle: Parthian Horse-Archer; Right: Parthian Cataphract from Hatra

It is believed that the first of the migrations of the Saki, Ghomeri tribes occurred after the time when the Kingdom of Judah and the Temple of Solomon was destroyed in 586 BCE. The Jewish remnants were deported to the capital of King Nebuchadnezzar II at Babylon whose empire by then was under the able administration in the capital city of Babylon by four Jewish princes; Daniel, the Prince of Judah and his three Jewish government administers, Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo, whose Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Only forty seven years after the destruction of Jerusalem, in the year of 536 BCE (Jewish year 372 BCE), the Babylonian Empire was overthrown by an Israeli general, Gobryas the Gutti, the Military Commander of the Persian-Median coalition under the military rule of Cyrus the Great. If the histories are correct, then ten years later in the year of 529 BCE (Jewish year 352 BCE), the forces of Cyrus the Great, the husband of the Jewish Queen Esther, were defeated when Cyrus attacked the tribes of the Massa-getai, who were ruled by their Queen Tomyris near the Jaxartes River. According to Haberman, Cyrus the Great was killed at this time, by the Saki-Guti-Kummerian troops.

It would not be until the year of 301 BCE, that the division of the Grecian Empire of Alexander the Great, who died in the year of 323 BCE, occurred. It was Frederick Haberman, in his book, “Tracing our Ancestors” who explained the links between the Saki of the Israelite tribes and the Parthian Empire that erupted out of the Grecian Seleucid Empire.

Frederick Haberman – “After the Battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. the whole of Persia fell under the sway of Seleucus, and when his kingdom broke up fifty years later, there arose a new power, Parthia, whose very name, identical to Parthy, Prat, or Brat indicated that its people were of the Covenant race of Israel the Saki. The Parthian revolt against the Greeks was headed by Ar-sakes whose name, meaning “the ruling Sak” again proves who the leading element of Parthia were. It must be explained here that not all of the people of Ariana in those days were Saki; no indeed, the main population of that country was Hamitic and also Sarmatians of Japhetic strain and in the most eastern sections were even some Turanian or Mongolian people.” (Frederick Haberman, “Tracing our Ancestors” pg. 125-126)

It was the Saki-Israelite-Parthian’s invention of the light cavalry who were armed with bows and arrows and with their swords led them to be one of the most formidable warriors in ancient warfare. They were adept in skirmishes, hit-and-run warfare, very much like the British Cymric when they confronted the military power of Rome. It was the Parthian heavy cavalry called the cataphracts who wore steel helmets, coats of mail made of leather coated with iron scale armor that were used by the Sacians (Saki tribes) in Media at the Jaxartes River when they overthrew the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in the year of 130 BCE. This was the same place, the Jaxartes River where Cyrus the Great met his fate by the hands of the Massa-getai, by the troops of the Gutti, Catti, and Saki tribes.

As Haberman continued:

Frederick Haberman – “But it was the Saki who started what civilization that part of the world enjoyed. The Parthians were renowned as horsemen and archers. They were clad in mail, by which their steeds were also protected. Their military tactics were proverbial. For almost three centuries the Parthian power extended its sway, even into Syria, where they defeated a Roman army; but after 50 A.D. their power declined, for the good reason that the Saghs who had been the backbone of the nation departed and followed their kinsmen into Europe.” (Frederick Haberman, “Tracing our Ancestors” pg. 125-126)

Where was the River Gozan, the Land of Exile for the Deported Israelites?

Yet, it was not just to the western regions of Europe that the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel would eventually amalgamate into the nations of the world. We begin at the site of the last place of deportation for truly it was the site most far away from their invaders and as deportees they wanted to be as far away from Assyria as they could. Along the River Gozan, identified as the Volga River in the Collected Essays and Research of the veteran mythologist and catastrophist, the Jewish Psychiatrist Immanuel Velikovsky, in his article titled, “Beyond the Mountains of Darkness”.

Immanuel Velikovsky – “It appears that the places to which the Ten Tribes were removed by the Assyrian kings must have been far more remote than northeastern Syria. Assyria, with its capital cities of Nimrud (Calah), Dur Sharrukin (Khorsabad), and Nineveh—all on the Tigris—expanded greatly in the days of its warrior kings Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, and Sennacherib. Repeatedly, the Assyrian kings led their troops across the Caucasus northward. Not satisfied with the passage along the coastal road of the Caspian Sea, they also explored the mountainous passes. Sargon, the conqueror of Samaria, wrote in his annals:

Jewish Catastrophist and Biblical Historical Revisionist Immanuel Velikovsky

Sargon the Conqueror of Samaria – “I opened up mighty mountains, whose passes were difficult and countless, and I spied out their trails. Over inaccessible paths in steep and terrifying places I crossed . . .⁽⁵⁾

The descriptions of Tiglath-pileser and Sargon of their campaigns in the north lead us to recognize that they passed the mountains of the Caucasus and reached the steppes between the Don and the Volga. When the barrier of the mountains was overcome, they could proceed northward in a scarcely populated area barren of natural defenses, where they would have met less resistance than in the foothills of the mountains. It is unknown how far they may have let their armies of conquest march across the steppes, but probably they did not give the order to return homeward until the army brought its insignia to some really remote point: it could be as far as the place of the confluence of the Kama with the Volga, or even of the Oka, still farther north. The middle flow of the Volga would be the furthermost region of the Assyrian realm.

The Volga River at Samara, where the Lost Tribes settled, called the Russian Mississippi

The roads to the Russian steppes along the Caspian and Black seas were much more readily passable than the narrow path along the River Terek and the Daryal Canyon that cut the Caucasus and wind at the foot of Mount Kazbek, over sixteen thousand feet high. The fact that the “confluence of the river Gozan” is considered a sufficient designation suggests that it must have been a great stream. A large river in the plain behind the crest of the Caucasus is the Don, and a still larger river—the largest in Europe—is the Volga.

If the Assyrians did not make a halt on the plain that stretches immediately behind the Caucasus and moved along the great rivers without crossing them to conquer the great plain that lies open behind the narrow span where the rivers Don and Volga converge—then the most probable place of exile might be reckoned to be at the middle Volga. The distance from Dur Sharrukin to this region on the Russian (Scythian) plain is in fact much less than the distance from Nineveh to Thebes in Egypt, a path taken by Assurbanipal several decades later. Under Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, Assyrian armies repeatedly invaded “Patursi and Kusi” —Upper Egypt and Ethiopia (Sudan). But Assyrian occupation of Scythia is not a mere conjecture: it is confirmed by archaeological evidence. “The earliest objects from Scythia that we can date,” writes a student of the region’s antiquities, “referred to the VIIth and VIth centuries B.C., are under overwhelming Assyrian influence. . .” ⁽⁶⁾

The exiles who were removed from Samaria, a city of palaces and temples, no doubt, bewailed the capital they had heroically defended for three years against the army of what was, in its time, the world’s most powerful nation. Accordingly they might have called their new settlement Samara (in Hebrew Shemer or Shomron; Sumur in the el-Amarna letters).”

The Khazar Connection with the Lost Israelites

In the region of the Middle Volga, the tribes of Israel rested, settled and awaited the divine call to move to the lands closer to their final habitation. This place of resting was picked by the hand of the Lord, for here the footsteps of the Israelites and the Jews were left in the legacy of the Khazars that disputed ancient Russian land whose ruling leaders were Jewish and spoke Hebrew. Long blamed on the Jews as a conspiracy, Immanuel Velikovsky gives this ancient people who believed in the Hebrew way of life a new lease of historical understanding.

Immanuel Velikovsky – “On the middle flow of the Volga, a city with the name Samara exists and has existed since grey antiquity. It is situated a short distance downstream from the point where the Volga and the Kama join. Russian conquerors of the ninth century found this city in existence. The medieval Arab geographer Yakubi, basing himself on accounts of the ninth-century traveller Ibn Fadlan, speaks of the Khazars who dwelt in Samara.⁽⁷⁾ This people dominated southern and eastern Russia possibly as early as the third,⁽⁸⁾ but especially during the tenth and eleventh centuries. They passed the Caucasus mountains to participate in the wars of the Romans and the Persians, dominated the Ukraine as far as Kiev, concluded treaties with the emperors of Byzantium, and their influence and suzerainty sometimes reached as far west as Sofia.⁽⁹⁾

The Volga River at the 1.5 million city of Samara – On the West Side of the River Volga is where the Russians claim Europe Begins

The ruling class of the Khazars used Hebrew as its language, and the Hebrew faith was the official religion in the realm of the Khazars. There was a system of great tolerance, unique in the Middle Ages, in respect to other religions; the Supreme Court was composed of two persons of Jewish faith, two Moslems, two Christians, and one idolater of the Russian population; but it was not a confusion of creeds as it had been in old Samaria, which tolerated many creeds, the monotheism of Yahweh being a protesting ingredient of the confusion.

Were the Khazars or their ruling aristocracy converted to Judaism in a later age? This position was based on what was said in a letter of the Khazar king Joseph, written about the year 961, to the Jewish grandee, Hasdai ibn-Shaprut, at the court of Cordoba. ‘Abd-al-Rahman al-Nasir, the Moorish ruler of Spain, had asked the King of the Khazars to provide any available information about his people, Hasdai’s brothers in religion. In the letter of reply the Khazar king recited a tradition or a legend; advocates of three religions came to some prior king of the Khazars, and he picked the Jewish faith because the Christian and the Mohammedan alike gave preference to the Jewish religion above that of their respective rival.⁽¹⁰⁾

The story exposes its mythical character. In the seventh or eighth centuries of the present era, the adepts of the Jewish faith were persecuted by the Christians and also by the Moslems, and would hardly be chosen to become the religion of the state. A similar legend of “choosing” a religion is told about Vladimir of Kiev: in this legend the Khazars were the delegates representing the Jewish faith. Had the Khazars been converted to Judaism, it would be almost incredible that they would call their city by the name Samara. Samaria was a sinful city from the point of view of the nation that survived in Palestine after the fall of Samaria, and out of which eventually grew the rabbinical Judaism of later centuries. The conversion to the Jewish religion would also not imply the adoption of the Hebrew language. It is remarkable that the state language of the Khazars was Hebrew; the king of the Khazars was quite capable of reading and answering a Hebrew letter.

The Region of Samara (named after Samaria) along the Volga River north of the Caspian and Black Sea

Long before the correspondence between Joseph and Hasdai of the tenth century, the Khazar monarchs had Hebrew names. The dynasts previous to King Joseph were in the ascending order: Aaron, Benjamin, Menahem, Nisi, Manasseh II, Isaac, Hannukah, Manasseh, Hezekiah, and Obadiah.

A conversion to Judaism in the seventh or eighth century of the present era would bring with it names common to Hebrews in the early Middle Ages, like Saadia or Nachman; the Judaism of the early Christian age was rich in names like Hillel, Gamliel, while Hellenistic names like Alexander, or Aristobul were not infrequent. Again, the Biblical names of an early period would give prominence to names like Joab, Gideon, or Iftach, and still an older group of names would be Gad, Issahar, Zwulun or Benjamin.

It is peculiar that some of the kings of the Khazars were called by the names used in Israel at the time that Samaria was captured by the Assyrians. Hezekiah is said to have been the king of Jerusalem at that time (II Kings 18:10), and the name of his son and successor was Manasseh. Obadiah was one of the most common names at that time and in the preceding century. It seems not arbitrary to assume that the Khazars absorbed, or even originally were, the remnants of some of the tribes of Israel.

It is most probable that the religious reform among the Khazars, about which some tradition was preserved until the tenth century, is to be interpreted as an act of purification of the half-pagan religion that the exiles from Samaria brought into and developed in their new abodes on the Volga, and as an act of return to the old Hebrew religion of Yahweh. This might have been performed with the help of some Hebrews who perchance left the schools of Sura and Pumbadita, where the Babylonian Talmud was composed. Old Jewish authors⁽¹¹⁾ actually mention the fact that teachers of rabbinical Judaism were invited to the kingdom of the Khazars as early as the eighth century. Possibly, the name “Khazars,” despite a difference in writing, is to be interpreted as “Those Who Return.” A long, probably illiterate period, when Hebrew was used only in speech, may have preceded the period of revival of learning and purification of faith.”

The Unfolding Appointed Destiny of the Lost Tribes of Israel

We have seen so far that upwards to 3,000,000 from the 10-Tribes of Israel plus over 200,000 citizens of the Tribe of Judah were exiled from their capital city, Samaria, and the 46 northern cities and border fortresses of Judah. Slowly the entire land of Israel was becoming depopulated as they were deported into the lands in the east to the north of modern Iran. There in these bordering buffer zones they protected the outlying regions of Assyria.

The City of Samara at the Junction of the Confluence of the Samara River and the Volga River

For over one hundred years (721 – 606 BCE), members of all the 12-Tribes of Israel lived along the southern borders of the Caspian Sea, called the “Silver Sea” in Hebrew. Many of their warriors participated in the anti-Assyrian rebellions by the Medes and the Babylonians within the regions of the Land of Media. We saw the Mandans, who were Israelites under the command of a tribal chieftain called Manda, whose ruler was the king of Media, Cyaxarses. When the last of the Assyrians appeared to be declining in power, the revolts and counter revolutions against the last of the monarchial forces of Aššur-uballit and his son, Ashur-Etililani, the last “Zar” of Assyria. They united under the united military coalition forces headed by Nabopolaser, the king of Babylon and Cyaxarses the king of Median. With the Israelite warriors, the last “Zar” of Assyria, Ashur-Etililani, perished in the conflagration and destruction of Nineveh in the year of 606 BCE. Eight years later (598 BCE), Jerusalem and their internationally famed temple of Solomon were destroyed in a similar pyre of destruction by the son of King Nabopolaser of Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar I.

Yet, the God of Israel already had the time appointed mark for the destiny of Babylon. Like Assyria of old, regardless of what each emperor or Zar thought of himself, each ruler was destined to fulfill the assigned destiny of the God of Israel. When the seventy years allotment for the empire built by King Nebuchadnezzar and the walls of the most impregnable fortressed city in the ancient world, Babylon, were actually breached by a descendant of the deported Israelites, the time of the end for Babylon was now over.

From the beginning invasions scouting and depopulating the “young princes and rulers” of Jerusalem to learn and become pacified and assimilated into Babylonian society beginning in the year of 608 BCE, seventy years would pass, and in the most spectacular bloodless takeover of an impregnable city in history, a brilliance Israeli General Commander Gobryas, of the combined forces of Media and Persia under Cyrus the Great, walked under the opened flood gates along the Euphrates River. After penetrating the perimeters of the city, the Persian forces quickly captured the entire upper echelon of the military and government of King Belshazzar. They were celebrating in the royal banquet room the seventy years since the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by drinking of the wine of the coming wrath while desecrating the golden chalices and goblets that were consecrated and dedicated to be used only for the sacred worship to the Almighty One of Israel.

The Domes of St. George Cathedral in Samara, Russia

As the “finger of the Lord” spelled out the destiny of doom for the Babylonian empire, it took an Israeli general to take over the city and liberate it with the coming Messiah, Cyrus the Great, the “destined one” who would redeem and repatriate the Jewish people back to Jerusalem, their homeland. It was time for the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel to move to their next destination, the Land of Samara along the Middle Volga River. There where the River Samara flows into the Volga River, the House of Israel rested, protected and isolated north of the Caucasus Mountain. A new transformation was about to take place. The identity of the Nation of Israel was disappearing. As Israel became “lost”, there arose on the plains north of the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea a new vigorous and potent geo-political force. As the Nation of Israel disappeared, the Scythian race appeared upon the EuroAsian landscape to take their place.

Go to Section Eight –

“The Early Israelite Migrations”

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To understand more about the Return of the 10 Tribes of Israel, contact

Kol Ha Tor, the Voice of the Turtledove,

As a Reception from the House of Judah is forming to await the returning House of Israel

e are Associated Supporters of the Kol HaTor Vision

Tor today

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The Divine Mission to Restore the Lost Sheep (Tribes) of the House of Israel

Part Eleven

Go to Section One –

“Joseph of Arimathea, the Jewish Metal Merchant and Apostle to Britannia”

Go to Section Two –

“The Jewish Nazarene Refugees Flee to the Isle of Avalon”

Go to Section Three –

“The Jewish Nazarene Culdee Yeshiva and the British Cymric Druids”

Go to Section Four –

“The Early Formative and Lost Years of Jesus”

Go to Section Five –

“The Vetusta Ecclesia – The Ancient Synagogue built by the Hand of God’s Messiah”

Go to Section Six –

“The History of the Vetusta Nazarene Synagogue (Ancient Ecclesia)”

Go to Section Seven –

“The Exile of the Ten Tribes of Israel”

Go to Section Eight –

“The Early Israelite Migrations”

Go to Section Nine –

“God’s Battle-Axe – Mystery of the Pashtun Israelites of Afghanistan”

Go to Section Ten –

“The Durrani Pashtun Afghan Bani-Israel Empire and its Legacy –

the Islamic Messiah, the Mahdi and the anti-Messiah, the Dajjal”

Go to Section Eleven –

“The Israelite-Scythian Migration to Europe”

Go to Section Twelve –

“Finding a New Home for the Lost Tribes of Israel”

Go to Section Thirteen –

“Rothschild Sabbatean Zionist State of Israel preparing the Future Home for the Returning Ten Tribes of the House of Israel”

Go to Section Fourteen –

“The Final Days of the Labor Zionist State of Israel as the

Messiah calls the Lost Tribes of Israel to come Home”

Message from BibleSearchers

BibleSearchers scans the world for information that has relevance on the time of the end. It is our prayer that this will allow the believers in the Almighty One of Israel to “watch and be ready”. Our readiness has nothing to do trying to halt the progression of evil on our planet earth. In our readiness, we seek to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah of Israel so that goodness and evil will be manifested in its fullest. Our preparation is a pathway of spiritual readiness for a world of peace. Our defender is the Lord of hosts. The time of the end suggests that the Eternal One of Israel’s intent is to close out this chapter of earth’s history so that the perpetrators of evil, those that seek power, greed and control, will be eliminated from this planet earth. The wars of the heavens are being played out on this planet earth and humans will live through it to testify of the might, power, justice and the love of the God of Israel. In a world of corruption and disinformation, we cannot always know what the historical truth is and who is promoting evil or mis-information. We cannot guarantee our sources but we will always seek to portray trends that can be validated in the Torah and the testimony of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament.

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