In 1 Samuel 8 we find that the prophet was getting on in years and his sons, whom he had made judges, were not what the people wanted them to be.  Instead of asking God to correct the situation, the people asked Samuel to appoint a king over them so that they could be like their heathen neighbors.  God told him that He would give the people what they wanted.  However, Samuel was to warn them that their king would not be at all like the Prophet Samuel, who was God’s man to the core.  The king they would be given would rule them with an iron fist and would not look after their needs, but would rather satisfy himself in all things.  He would take their fields and other possessions.  He would make the people his servants and tax them heavily.  The Israelites had long ago rejected their God and were serving other gods.  When out from under Samuel’s leadership they would do so even more under a king after their own kind.  God’s Words fell on deaf ears.  The people demanded a king and the Lord gave them Saul the son of Kish, a physically dominating man whose spirit did not match his stature.

God’s Words came true and for many years the nation was divided.  Some of the people aligned with Saul and some with David whom Saul tried to kill because many of the people preferred him over Saul.  There came a time when God had punished the people enough and it was time for a drastic change.   With that in mind He arranged for Saul and his son Jonathan to be killed in battle, leaving David alone as the king of a divided nation.  David soon won the people over and formed Israel into one nation which became the most powerful nation on earth at that time.  For many years the nation prospered and grew.

Upon David’s death his son Solomon was crowned king.  Under his kingship the nation grew even more powerful and extremely wealthy as he made alliances with other kings, placing them in subservient positions under his control.  Kings, queens and other high-ranking people came from distant nations to see the grandeur of Israel and the Temple Solomon had built for the Lord.  Solomon led the Israelite people into the depths of sin and degradation by taking many heathen wives.  Upon his death died the kingship over God’s chosen people fell to his eldest son, Rehoboam.

The Israel nation was geographically divided into two segments.  The Judahites (Jews) occupied the southern portion of the nation which included Jerusalem, the nation’s capital.  The southern portion was peopled by the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi.  The northern tribes lived in the region called Samaria.  Its main city was also called Samaria.

Sensing a chance to change the taxation situation Israel had been living under for many years, the northern tribes sent a committee to Rehoboam who asked him to lower the tax rate on the people.  He not only refused, but told them that he would tax them even more than his father had taxed them.  In anger, they left and, under the leadership of a man named Jeroboam, declared themselves to be a separate nation which they called Israel.  Thus Judah and Israel, geographically separated and independent of each other, became known as the House of Judah and the House of Israel (also called Ephraim).

Israel declared Jeroboam as their king and made the city of Samaria their capital.  The Northern Kingdom (Israel) flourished due to herlarge population and the richness of her land.  Plus, the nation was situated close to the trade routes of the Middle East.  Initially, though the two nations were politically and socially separated, they had remained aligned spiritually.  People from the north continued to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, Pentecost, Shavout and Sukkot.  The people of the northern tribes continued to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem periodically as commanded by the Lord where they would worship and make sacrifices for their sins.

Jeroboam came to resent his people’s attachment to Jerusalem and the Temple.  He became fearful that they would eventually want to rejoin the Judahites.  The king felt the need to separate his people from the southern tribes on a spiritual basis.  Wanting to separate the people from the Temple in Jerusalem, he created two temples in Samaria–one in Bet El and the other in Dan.  Once these temples were completed the spiritual separation was complete.  What the people had done in Jerusalem for hundreds of years they began doing in Bet El and Dan.

Over the next 200 plus years the House of Israel (Northern Kingdom) grew further and further away from God.  Four prophets were used by God to warn the people to return to the Lord.  Elijah, Elisha, Amos and Hosea repeatedly warned them that if they continued to reject the Lord He would bring about their destruction.  Things were going well so the people ignored the words of the Lord’s prophets.  Having run out of patience, He sent the Assyrians to destroy the House of Israel and enslave the people.  This left the House of Judah (the Jews) alone in the Promised Land.  The Assyrians brought other captive peoples to Samaria to replace the Israelites who had been taken to Assyria.

Later the tribes of Israel would be scattered throughout the world where they remain, unknown, to this day.  Numbering in the hundreds of millions, they are believed to be Gentiles and believe themselves to be Gentiles.  Having taken on the religions, beliefs, customs and characteristics of the Gentile (heathen) peoples among whom they had  settled, the Israelites came to believe that they were indeed Gentiles.   Traditionally, historians have identified them as The Lost (unrecognized) Tribes of Israel.  Recall that Jesus sent His apostles to “… the lost sheep of the House of Israel” (Mat. 10:6) where they were to tell them about Him and preach to them His kingdom message.  Hundreds of millions of Israelites continue to believe that they are Gentiles to this day.  But God knows who and where they are.  As Ezekiel 37 tells us, He will bring them back to Him in the future.

Some 150 years after the defeat, capture and scattering of Israel, the House of Judah was defeated by the Babylonians and taken as captives to the land of Babylon for the same reason as their northern brethren–sin.  Having been warned by the likes of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah and Isaiah, they, like their northern brethren, had rejected God and turned to the ways of the heathen Gentiles.  As were their brethren, the Jews were also scattered throughout the world.  Before their scattering some 42,000 of them were allowed to return to Jerusalem where they rebuilt the city and the Temple.  Today there are approximately 20 million Jews on earth.  Approximately 9 million have returned to the nation known as Israel today which occupies a small sliver of the land God promised the descendants of Abraham.  To this land all of Israel, plus spiritual Israelites from among the Gentiles, will return in the future when it will be known as the Kingdom of God.  Read The Kingdom of God and Who and Where is Israel Today?  Key words–Kingdom and Who respectively.

Today God’s true church is made up of both biological and spiritual Israelites who have heard the Gospel message preached by the original apostles, believed it and obeyed it.  God’s church, numbering only a few thousand world-wide, is not to be confused with the Catholic/Protestant Church System, which numbers some 3 billion world-wide.  Read Simon of Samaria: The Legacy.  Key word–Legacy.  L.J.