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Original Correspondence.
Original correspondence .
PROFESSOR RAWLINSON AND THE TEN TRIBES .
Professor Rawlinson , in laying a foundation for his anti-biblical theory of the absorption of the ten tribes , is necessitated to assume that only a small portion of the people were carried away by the Assyrian kings , and that the portion thus carried away were so widely scattered
through the Assyrian dominions , that they never could have formed any considerable people , but only a few " small communities , " who , perhaps , continued for a while , and were then lost . I call this an anti-biblical theory , because I believe it to be in utter contradiction to the plain and
obvious meaning of a large accumulation ol very emphatic passages , scattered throughout the prophetic writings , which , as " a light that shineth in a dark place , " are intended to guide our footsteps in the course of duty , and to sustain our faith in God's manifold promises made to
Abraham and his descendants , not only that they should possess " the land , " but that they should become the progenitors of many nations , and , finally , heirs of the world . And hence it is , I take it , that throughout the prophetic Scriptures , Israel AND Judah—that is , the Israelites or ten
tribes , and Judah and Benjamin—that is the Jews—are so markedly distinguished , and so emphatically represented as separate from each other , until after the final gathering , Christianization , and restoration of "all Israel , " as the mouth of the Lord hath said ; for " ye shall set
up an ensign for the nations , antl shall assemble the outcasts of Israel , and gather together the dispersed of Judah , from the four corners of the earth Ephraim , [ i . e . Israel ] shall not envy Judah , and J udah shall not vex Ephraim . " ( lsa . xi ) .
I think 1 have shown , in my former communication , that the first of the Professor ' s assumptions is plainly opposed to the text of the onl y authority to which he appeals , or can appeal ; i . e . the Books of Kings and Chronicles ; and 1
believe I can show that his second assumption is as baseless as his first—that it has no authority to rest upon , and that it is inconsistent with all the information and prophetic promises we have in relation to the captive tribes . He
says : — " In tile second place , those who were carried away , instead of being massed together ( us the Jews appear to have been about Bab ylon ) — in which case there might have been ri fair
chance ol their maintaining their ethnic unitywere at once scattered very widely . They were p laced in Haran , i . e . in Osrhorue , or Western Mesopotamia ; in Ilalah , or Chalcitis , the country about Ras-i . ' 1-ain ; in Gozan . or Mi gdonia , on the River Khabow-, and also in the cities of
the Medes . ( See 2 Ki . xvu . 6 ~ ; win . 11 ; 1 Chron . v . 26 ) . The tract over which they were spread extended twelve degrees ( nearly 900 miles ) , from east to west , anil was nowhere less than two degrees ( 13 S miles ) in breadth . In
other words , it was at least fifteen times as large as the territory from which they had been taken . Distributed over this wide space , they can have formed at no time more than an insignificant element in the p nidation . "
I hope I may be pardoned lor saying that the Professor could hardly hope , in making this statement , to " produce the slightest effect on the minds of those capable of forming an opinion . " " Such effect as it may have , can be only on the ignorant and the unlearned . "
The geography of the south-western region of Asia has certainly received much attention during the last few years , but that Professor Kawlinson , who undoubtedly holds a favourable position among the travellers and scholars who have devoted much lime and labour in exploring the country watered by the Euphrates and the
Tigris , and yielding some precious relics of Assyrian and Baby lonian art , should be in a position to fix so absolutely the identity of the places of Israel ' s captivity , is more than 1 can understand . It might be fairly presumed , from the peremptory way in which the Professor thus fixes the several localities named , that there is no doubt upon the subject ; and that their iden-
Original Correspondence.
tity is as well known as is that of Tyre ,, and Sidon , and Beyrout , and other places of which there is no dispute ; but it is far otherwise . Leaving this point , for a moment , I must ask why the Professor multiplies the places of the captivity ? Is it to make out as wide a
dispersion as possible , to dissipate the idea , that the people- were " massed together , " so that they might , " in course of time , " become a numerous people again ? I can find no other reason for the introduction of " Haran , i . e ., in Osrhoe ' ne , or Western Mesopotamia . " There is no such
location of the captives mentioned in the authorities to which the Professor refers . How then comes he by it ? The people of the first captivity were carried to Halah , and Habor , and Hara , and to the river Gozan , ( 1 Chron . v . 26 ) ; and those whom Tiglath Pilcser had left were afterwards
earned mto Assyria , " and placed in Halah , and Habor , by the river of Gozan "—whither the northern tribes had previously been carried—and some of them in the cities of the Medes , " ( 2 Kings xvii . 6 . ) There is nothing in either text , therefore , to justify the Professor in so extending the limits of the captives' location as to embrace
a portion of Western Mesopotamia . As to the places really mentioned in the Kings and Chronicles , they have been the subject of controversy and speculation for ages . But this is all ignored by the Professor , who fixes the several localities as oli-handedly as if there was not now , and never had been , the utmost uncertainty attaching to them .
As a specimen of the multiplicity of conjectures which learned men have put forth , I may state , that Halah , or Chalah . as it is in the Hebrew , is supposed , by Hyde , to be Hoi wan , and by Bochart to be the capital of Calacene , north of Assyria , while the editors of Cassell ' s Dictionary , though
inclined to think it a Median city , conclude that it is •' vain to speculate on its precise locality . " I labor , or Chabor , is a river falling into the Euphrates , according to some , in the south of Assyria ; whereas Major Rennel believes it to be a place in India ; i . e ., east of the Tigris , and near
to the Caspian Sea . Bochart takes it to be Mount Chaboris , between which and the Caspian Sea is the city of Gozan . Boothroyd and others take Habor to be part of a word , and render what our version has " Habor by the river Gozan , " Habor-nahar-Gozan . Gesenius makes
Habor , the river Chaboris , a river that flows into the Euphrates , near Ciicesiuni . But where or what is Go / . an ? The editors of Cassell say , " A part of Mesopotamia . Its position is doubtful , though , to a certain extent , indicated by its connection with the Khabour , ( Habor )
the great tributary of the Euphrates , upon which it seems to have been situated , for it is probable , as Gesenius thinks , that , in the ori ginal , 'Habor ' is separated from 'the river of Gozan' ( 1 Chron . v . 26 ) , by a word which has been interposed only through the lax construction of the . writer .
Others , however , believe that what is termed ' the river of Gozan' was further east in India , and seek to indentif y it with the Ki / . il-ozcn , which runs from the province of Ghilati into the Caspian Sea . From the passage in 2 Kings , ' the river of Gozan ' would appear to have been
the name of a district , situated on the 1 labor . " Basnage , after noticing the speculations of Bochart , and others , says , " the Jews , " as he designates till the tribes , without distinction , " were sufficiently numerous to form two colonies , and the Scriptures point out two different provinces
to which they were carried captive . The first of these is Assyria , and the sacred historian mentions 1 labor , Gozan , and Halah , as the cities which were assigned to them in that country . The other colony inhabited the cities of the Medes . Then we must seek for the Ten Tribes in these
provinces , which are indicated as the land of their captivity , both in the Chaldaie paraphrase and in the ori ginal Hebrew . The cities which were assigned to them in Assyria are easily pointed out . The river Chaboras , which is called by the Arabian geographers Alchabor , rises among the
mountains , runs through Mesopotamia , and falls info the Euphrates . The city of Halah , the Chalcite of Ptolemy , was situated on one bank of the Chaboras , and Gozan ( both the province and the city ) on the other . Thus , then , the ten tribes inhabited both banks of the Chaboras , and were separated from each other onlv by the
Original Correspondence.
river , which flowed through their territories . The sacred historian has not named the cities of of Medea , which were assigned to the captives . But this colony probably settled in the mountains , because their population was not so dense as that of the level countries . Indeed , Ezra indirectl y
states this fact , for he says that they were carried to Hava , a province of India , which derived its name from the Hebrew word for mountain . . . . According to Strabo , a colony of foreigners was sent to people the mountainous part of India , which the ancients describe as a prosperous and
happy country . " Basnage thinks that the Israelites spread from this part of India into the provinces near the Caspian Sea ; in this agreeing with Sir Isaac Newton , who places them in Colchis and Iberia . Now , on a question about which there is so
much uncertainty , as to the localities to which the captives were taken—a question upon which men of great learning and research so materiall y differ , and must continue to differ , there being no precise data that will bear a positive conclusionit is rather too much to expect that we should
unhesitatingly accept the authority of Professor Rawlinson , as settling , once and for ever , the question ; wide away as his decision is from the more modest conjectures of others . The matter is too doubtful to justify the Professor in resting a theory upon it—a theory which
is intended to help him to his second antibiblical conclusion ; i . e ., that the Israelites were , after a time , absorbed in the gentile populations amongst whom they were placed , or became united with the Jews , who were carried into Babylonia ; and so were ultimately "lost . " In
my book , on " Israel found in the Anglo-Saxons , " I have , I believe , shown how baseless is this notion of Israel—the ten tribes—being lost ; and I may not go over that ground again . It must suffice to say , that while the prophetic word foretels the dispersion , humiliation , and
isolation of Judah , or the Jews , throughout the nations of the earth ; Israel , or the tribes who adhered , to Ephraim , who inherited the blessing and privileges of the first-born , were " lo become "honourable , " " illustrious , " and distinguished above all other people . See lsa . lxi . 9-11 ,
where this is distinctly foretold ' of Israel , m contrast with Judah ; as also in chap , xxvii . 6 , where it is declared that " Israel shall bud forth , and fill the face of . the world with fruit , " a thing never promised to Judah , who are to be scattered abroad until the fulness of the Gentiles
shall have been brought in , through the instrumentality of Israel—for " all that see them shall acknowledge them , that they are a seed which Jehovah hath blessed . " ( Ch . lxi . 9 ) . Hence the representatives of the two nations , are to be kept separate and distinct until the time of their
restoration , when " Judah AND the children of Israel , his companions "—the few who may have joined him—and " j oseph , or Ephraim—that is , all the house of Israel , his companions , " shall be "joined one to another , and they shall become one . " ( Ezek . xxvii . 16-17 ) .
I think 1 have said enough to show that the Professor ' s assumption , that the Israelites carried into captivity were so scattered as , after a time , to become one with the Gentile peoples amongst whom they were placed , is as destitute
of proof , and is as much opposed to the whole tenor of the prophetic Scriptures as his other assumption , of only a partial deportation of the tribes forming the kingdom of Israel . The evidence is , in both respects , altogether against him .
Whatever uncertainty there may be as to the precise localities in which the captive Israelites were placed , the statement of their being so widely scattered is purely gratuitous , and not only is opposed to that of almost every other writer , but is not reconcilable with the many facts which
warrant the opinion , that the Getre , subsequentl y called Goths , were the descendants of the ori ginal captives , whom Sir Isaac Newton , Basnage , and others find in the western borders of Medea , between Assyria and the Caspian Sea , whence
they gradually moved north into Cochis and Iberia , between the Caspian and the Euxine , along the northern shores of which they have been traced to their settlement in Mn-sia , whence they were driven by Alexander across the Danube into Dacia . B . C 329 ; but subsequently over-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Original Correspondence.
Original correspondence .
PROFESSOR RAWLINSON AND THE TEN TRIBES .
Professor Rawlinson , in laying a foundation for his anti-biblical theory of the absorption of the ten tribes , is necessitated to assume that only a small portion of the people were carried away by the Assyrian kings , and that the portion thus carried away were so widely scattered
through the Assyrian dominions , that they never could have formed any considerable people , but only a few " small communities , " who , perhaps , continued for a while , and were then lost . I call this an anti-biblical theory , because I believe it to be in utter contradiction to the plain and
obvious meaning of a large accumulation ol very emphatic passages , scattered throughout the prophetic writings , which , as " a light that shineth in a dark place , " are intended to guide our footsteps in the course of duty , and to sustain our faith in God's manifold promises made to
Abraham and his descendants , not only that they should possess " the land , " but that they should become the progenitors of many nations , and , finally , heirs of the world . And hence it is , I take it , that throughout the prophetic Scriptures , Israel AND Judah—that is , the Israelites or ten
tribes , and Judah and Benjamin—that is the Jews—are so markedly distinguished , and so emphatically represented as separate from each other , until after the final gathering , Christianization , and restoration of "all Israel , " as the mouth of the Lord hath said ; for " ye shall set
up an ensign for the nations , antl shall assemble the outcasts of Israel , and gather together the dispersed of Judah , from the four corners of the earth Ephraim , [ i . e . Israel ] shall not envy Judah , and J udah shall not vex Ephraim . " ( lsa . xi ) .
I think 1 have shown , in my former communication , that the first of the Professor ' s assumptions is plainly opposed to the text of the onl y authority to which he appeals , or can appeal ; i . e . the Books of Kings and Chronicles ; and 1
believe I can show that his second assumption is as baseless as his first—that it has no authority to rest upon , and that it is inconsistent with all the information and prophetic promises we have in relation to the captive tribes . He
says : — " In tile second place , those who were carried away , instead of being massed together ( us the Jews appear to have been about Bab ylon ) — in which case there might have been ri fair
chance ol their maintaining their ethnic unitywere at once scattered very widely . They were p laced in Haran , i . e . in Osrhorue , or Western Mesopotamia ; in Ilalah , or Chalcitis , the country about Ras-i . ' 1-ain ; in Gozan . or Mi gdonia , on the River Khabow-, and also in the cities of
the Medes . ( See 2 Ki . xvu . 6 ~ ; win . 11 ; 1 Chron . v . 26 ) . The tract over which they were spread extended twelve degrees ( nearly 900 miles ) , from east to west , anil was nowhere less than two degrees ( 13 S miles ) in breadth . In
other words , it was at least fifteen times as large as the territory from which they had been taken . Distributed over this wide space , they can have formed at no time more than an insignificant element in the p nidation . "
I hope I may be pardoned lor saying that the Professor could hardly hope , in making this statement , to " produce the slightest effect on the minds of those capable of forming an opinion . " " Such effect as it may have , can be only on the ignorant and the unlearned . "
The geography of the south-western region of Asia has certainly received much attention during the last few years , but that Professor Kawlinson , who undoubtedly holds a favourable position among the travellers and scholars who have devoted much lime and labour in exploring the country watered by the Euphrates and the
Tigris , and yielding some precious relics of Assyrian and Baby lonian art , should be in a position to fix so absolutely the identity of the places of Israel ' s captivity , is more than 1 can understand . It might be fairly presumed , from the peremptory way in which the Professor thus fixes the several localities named , that there is no doubt upon the subject ; and that their iden-
Original Correspondence.
tity is as well known as is that of Tyre ,, and Sidon , and Beyrout , and other places of which there is no dispute ; but it is far otherwise . Leaving this point , for a moment , I must ask why the Professor multiplies the places of the captivity ? Is it to make out as wide a
dispersion as possible , to dissipate the idea , that the people- were " massed together , " so that they might , " in course of time , " become a numerous people again ? I can find no other reason for the introduction of " Haran , i . e ., in Osrhoe ' ne , or Western Mesopotamia . " There is no such
location of the captives mentioned in the authorities to which the Professor refers . How then comes he by it ? The people of the first captivity were carried to Halah , and Habor , and Hara , and to the river Gozan , ( 1 Chron . v . 26 ) ; and those whom Tiglath Pilcser had left were afterwards
earned mto Assyria , " and placed in Halah , and Habor , by the river of Gozan "—whither the northern tribes had previously been carried—and some of them in the cities of the Medes , " ( 2 Kings xvii . 6 . ) There is nothing in either text , therefore , to justify the Professor in so extending the limits of the captives' location as to embrace
a portion of Western Mesopotamia . As to the places really mentioned in the Kings and Chronicles , they have been the subject of controversy and speculation for ages . But this is all ignored by the Professor , who fixes the several localities as oli-handedly as if there was not now , and never had been , the utmost uncertainty attaching to them .
As a specimen of the multiplicity of conjectures which learned men have put forth , I may state , that Halah , or Chalah . as it is in the Hebrew , is supposed , by Hyde , to be Hoi wan , and by Bochart to be the capital of Calacene , north of Assyria , while the editors of Cassell ' s Dictionary , though
inclined to think it a Median city , conclude that it is •' vain to speculate on its precise locality . " I labor , or Chabor , is a river falling into the Euphrates , according to some , in the south of Assyria ; whereas Major Rennel believes it to be a place in India ; i . e ., east of the Tigris , and near
to the Caspian Sea . Bochart takes it to be Mount Chaboris , between which and the Caspian Sea is the city of Gozan . Boothroyd and others take Habor to be part of a word , and render what our version has " Habor by the river Gozan , " Habor-nahar-Gozan . Gesenius makes
Habor , the river Chaboris , a river that flows into the Euphrates , near Ciicesiuni . But where or what is Go / . an ? The editors of Cassell say , " A part of Mesopotamia . Its position is doubtful , though , to a certain extent , indicated by its connection with the Khabour , ( Habor )
the great tributary of the Euphrates , upon which it seems to have been situated , for it is probable , as Gesenius thinks , that , in the ori ginal , 'Habor ' is separated from 'the river of Gozan' ( 1 Chron . v . 26 ) , by a word which has been interposed only through the lax construction of the . writer .
Others , however , believe that what is termed ' the river of Gozan' was further east in India , and seek to indentif y it with the Ki / . il-ozcn , which runs from the province of Ghilati into the Caspian Sea . From the passage in 2 Kings , ' the river of Gozan ' would appear to have been
the name of a district , situated on the 1 labor . " Basnage , after noticing the speculations of Bochart , and others , says , " the Jews , " as he designates till the tribes , without distinction , " were sufficiently numerous to form two colonies , and the Scriptures point out two different provinces
to which they were carried captive . The first of these is Assyria , and the sacred historian mentions 1 labor , Gozan , and Halah , as the cities which were assigned to them in that country . The other colony inhabited the cities of the Medes . Then we must seek for the Ten Tribes in these
provinces , which are indicated as the land of their captivity , both in the Chaldaie paraphrase and in the ori ginal Hebrew . The cities which were assigned to them in Assyria are easily pointed out . The river Chaboras , which is called by the Arabian geographers Alchabor , rises among the
mountains , runs through Mesopotamia , and falls info the Euphrates . The city of Halah , the Chalcite of Ptolemy , was situated on one bank of the Chaboras , and Gozan ( both the province and the city ) on the other . Thus , then , the ten tribes inhabited both banks of the Chaboras , and were separated from each other onlv by the
Original Correspondence.
river , which flowed through their territories . The sacred historian has not named the cities of of Medea , which were assigned to the captives . But this colony probably settled in the mountains , because their population was not so dense as that of the level countries . Indeed , Ezra indirectl y
states this fact , for he says that they were carried to Hava , a province of India , which derived its name from the Hebrew word for mountain . . . . According to Strabo , a colony of foreigners was sent to people the mountainous part of India , which the ancients describe as a prosperous and
happy country . " Basnage thinks that the Israelites spread from this part of India into the provinces near the Caspian Sea ; in this agreeing with Sir Isaac Newton , who places them in Colchis and Iberia . Now , on a question about which there is so
much uncertainty , as to the localities to which the captives were taken—a question upon which men of great learning and research so materiall y differ , and must continue to differ , there being no precise data that will bear a positive conclusionit is rather too much to expect that we should
unhesitatingly accept the authority of Professor Rawlinson , as settling , once and for ever , the question ; wide away as his decision is from the more modest conjectures of others . The matter is too doubtful to justify the Professor in resting a theory upon it—a theory which
is intended to help him to his second antibiblical conclusion ; i . e ., that the Israelites were , after a time , absorbed in the gentile populations amongst whom they were placed , or became united with the Jews , who were carried into Babylonia ; and so were ultimately "lost . " In
my book , on " Israel found in the Anglo-Saxons , " I have , I believe , shown how baseless is this notion of Israel—the ten tribes—being lost ; and I may not go over that ground again . It must suffice to say , that while the prophetic word foretels the dispersion , humiliation , and
isolation of Judah , or the Jews , throughout the nations of the earth ; Israel , or the tribes who adhered , to Ephraim , who inherited the blessing and privileges of the first-born , were " lo become "honourable , " " illustrious , " and distinguished above all other people . See lsa . lxi . 9-11 ,
where this is distinctly foretold ' of Israel , m contrast with Judah ; as also in chap , xxvii . 6 , where it is declared that " Israel shall bud forth , and fill the face of . the world with fruit , " a thing never promised to Judah , who are to be scattered abroad until the fulness of the Gentiles
shall have been brought in , through the instrumentality of Israel—for " all that see them shall acknowledge them , that they are a seed which Jehovah hath blessed . " ( Ch . lxi . 9 ) . Hence the representatives of the two nations , are to be kept separate and distinct until the time of their
restoration , when " Judah AND the children of Israel , his companions "—the few who may have joined him—and " j oseph , or Ephraim—that is , all the house of Israel , his companions , " shall be "joined one to another , and they shall become one . " ( Ezek . xxvii . 16-17 ) .
I think 1 have said enough to show that the Professor ' s assumption , that the Israelites carried into captivity were so scattered as , after a time , to become one with the Gentile peoples amongst whom they were placed , is as destitute
of proof , and is as much opposed to the whole tenor of the prophetic Scriptures as his other assumption , of only a partial deportation of the tribes forming the kingdom of Israel . The evidence is , in both respects , altogether against him .
Whatever uncertainty there may be as to the precise localities in which the captive Israelites were placed , the statement of their being so widely scattered is purely gratuitous , and not only is opposed to that of almost every other writer , but is not reconcilable with the many facts which
warrant the opinion , that the Getre , subsequentl y called Goths , were the descendants of the ori ginal captives , whom Sir Isaac Newton , Basnage , and others find in the western borders of Medea , between Assyria and the Caspian Sea , whence
they gradually moved north into Cochis and Iberia , between the Caspian and the Euxine , along the northern shores of which they have been traced to their settlement in Mn-sia , whence they were driven by Alexander across the Danube into Dacia . B . C 329 ; but subsequently over-