#TINK (Things I Never Knew)
THE TRIBES – PART 1
I really encourage you to “get the gist” of this post. Reread it a couple of times if need be. It will change the way you read your Bible forever. I hope to build on this foundation in future posts.
BIG OVERVIEW 
Jacob, THE Jacob that 
dreamed of the ladder to heaven, whose named was changed to Israel….That Jacob had 12 sons. Those sons are the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. 
Sidenote: There are actually 13 tribes because Jacob adopted his grandsons, Joseph’s sons, and they were included in the inheritance: Ephraim and Manasseh. Joseph basically got a double inheritance because he was Jacob’s favorite.
Over the years, all of tribes sinned and failed to keep YHVH’s laws. They broke covenant.
Remember, back at Mt.. Sinai, YHVH had created a covenant (marriage) with those that came out of Egypt. YHVH presented the commandments and they all said “We will”. 
(Exodus 19:8)
When they later repeatedly sinned and refused His instructions, God plainly said that He was divorcing them for not keeping Covenant. They were adulterers in His eyes. As punishment, God sent them into captivity.
God said “And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she went and was a harlot also.” Jeremiah 3:8Eventually, the tribes were released from captivity and allowed to return to Jerusalem. However, only the tribe of Judah and Benjamin and some of the Levites came back. The remainder of the tribes had assimilated into their captive culture and had forgotten who they were. 
These tribes are known as “the lost tribes” or “the lost sheep”. This is who Jesus/Yeshua is speaking of in Matthew 15:24 when He says, “I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 
And in Matthew 10:6 He instructed His disciples “Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The entire book of Hosea, when Hosea marries the prostitute, is a picture of God and the tribes of Israel: the faithful husband and the unfaithful bride. I encourage you to read the book of Hosea with this context.
THE TRIBES – PART 2(Review & Summation of Terms) The original 12 tribes (13 with Joseph’s tribe split into his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh)They disobeyed God and God divorced them. All 12 tribes went into captivity in Babylon and Assyria.Years later, when granted freedom, essentially only 2 of the tribes came back to the land. Those 2 tribes were Judah and Benjamin. They are referred to in scripture as Judah, or the House of Judah or the Southern Kingdom. We know them as the Jews. The other 10 tribes, for the most part, never returned and were scattered among the nations. As God had predicted in Deuteronomy 4:27 “Then the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.”These 10 tribes are the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Sometimes referred to as Ephraim or the house of Joseph or the Northern Kingdom or The Kingdom of Samaria.
The two houses, then, are the house of Judah and the house of Israel/Ephraim.
Study the graphic. It’s a bit of a struggle to keep it straight at first, but it gets easier. If nothing else, write this down in the notes section of your Bible for later reference.
THE TRIBES APPLICATION TO SCRIPTURE Check out these scripture references speaking of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel.
THE TRIBES – PART 3 Who were the Samaritans?(BE SURE to watch the video in the comments AFTER reading the post 
)Samaria – Hebrew 8111- Shomron, literally meaning “watch mountain” Samaria – Greek 4540 – Small district of Palestine bounded by Galilee on the north and by Judaea on the south, situated in the tribe of EphraimDuring the time of Israel’s captivity, the capital of the Northern Tribe of Israel/Ephraim was the city of Samaria. In 722 B.C. Assyria invaded and took many of its people captive. (See 2 Kings 17) The invaders then brought in Gentile colonists from such cities as Babylon and Cuthah and resettled the land. The foreigners brought their pagan religions and idols, intermarried with the Hebrew tribes and continued worshipping their pagan gods. “And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.” (2 Kings 17:25)The pagans then sent to Assyria for an Israelite priest to teach them the law of the Jehovah. They began keeping God’s law but mixed it with their pagan traditions. They adopted their own version of the Holy Scriptures, what you may know as the Pentateuch, which included only the first five books of the Old Testament. “So these nations, feared the LORD, AND served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children.” (2 Kings 17:41)When the Jews also returned from captivity, the Samaritans requested to be acknowledged as Jewish citizens, and to assist in rebuilding the temple and Jerusalem (Ezra 4:1-24), but the Southern Kingdom refused them. This angered the Samaritan’s greatly. While Nehemiah was engaged in building the walls of Jerusalem, the Samaritans vigorously attempted to halt the undertaking (Nehemiah 6:1-14).
The Samaritans then built a temple for themselves on “Mount Gerizim,” in Samaria, which the Samaritans insisted was designated by Moses as the place where the nation should worship. 
In addition, those that wished to escape the strict adherence to the law of the Southern kingdom often moved to Samaria, (Joshua 20:6-7; 21:21). The Samaritans willingly received Jewish criminals and refugees greatly increasing the hatred which existed between the two nations.IN SUMMARY, because of their imperfect adherence to Judaism, their partly pagan ancestry, their shortened version of the scriptures, and their insistence on worshipping on another mountain, the Samaritans were generally regarded as half-breeds and universally despised by the Jews of the Southern kingdom.So, take all of that info and apply it to the scriptures you’ve read about the Samaritans. As we see in John 8:48 the Jews meant to insult Jesus by calling Him a Samaritan. “The Jews answered and said unto him, “Are we not rightly saying that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” …and in John 4:9 we read that the “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” 
Amazingly, rather than contaminate themselves by passing through Samaritan territory, the Jews who were traveling from Judea to Galilee or vice versa would cross over the river Jordan, bypass Samaria and cross over the river again as they neared their destination.In Luke 9:51-56 we are told that the Samaritan village rejects Jesus. Remember, the disciples asked Jesus if they could command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? At one point, Jesus instructed His disciples not to go into any of the Samaritan towns (Matthew 10:5), yet He used the good Samaritan as an example of how to be a good neighbor and to point out that he was no respecter of persons. (Luke 10:33)In John 4:4 we find that, despite the rift between the two kingdoms, it was necessary for Jesus to pass through Samaria. Here he sat down upon a well.But it wasn’t just any old well. It was Jacob’s well. It was near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph….the area of the tribe of Ephraim, Shechem near the foot of Mount Gerizim, where the Samaritan’s had built their temple. Jacob’s well was known for its great depth, and its soft, light water supplied through two underground sources that made it bubble and percolate on the surface perhaps prompting Jesus’ remark about living water. 
Notice though, and understand more clearly what the woman says in John 4:19, “Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”Jesus replied, “Believe Me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.“Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony…So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.”
