[Avodah] 10 tribes -- exile without redemption

[Lisa Liel via Avodah]

On 6/9/2017 6:06 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote:
> Why was the exile of the 10 Tribes permanent (putting aside any modern 
> day claims of people claiming they're descendants)?

Who says it was?

> What did they do that was so awful compared to Yehuda and Benyamin 
> (meaning so significantly worse that murder, sexual crimes, and avodah 
> tzara)? Yes, I know that they broke off but do the navi'im really work 
> to reprimand them and get them to go back to accept Davidic rule? It 
> doesn't seem to me that the navi'im spoke that much about it.

Avodah zarah (not tzara) was worse in the northern kingdom because of 
assimilation.  The northern kingdom had assimilated to the point where 
they were culturally as much Phoenician as they were Israelite.  But 
even that wouldn't be cause for permanent exile.

I don't think their much more lengthy exile was a punishment.  I think 
it was simply necessary.  Had they rejoined us, by which I mean all of 
them, and not just those who Jeremiah brought back, and we had been 
exiled as a single nation, things would have been different.  But 
viewing themselves as a separate nation from us, how would you envision 
things having worked in the ancient world?  I don't think it would have 
been significantly different from what happened with us and the 
Samaritans.  In fact, the Samaritans called themselves Israelites; not 
Samaritans.  (That's the root of the mistake in the Christian "good 
Samaritan" story, btw.)

> Or, did they seal their fate the moment they broke off and the time 
> before they went into exile was simply waiting time?

Not at all.  Jehu could have reunited the kingdom.  And there were 
people from the northern kingdom who came back to us when the guards 
that were first posted by Jeroboam I were removed.  But having two 
separate exilic populations of Bnei Yisrael would have been disastrous 
in very many ways.

Lisa


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