Who were the Samaritans? For much of my life I believed what I had been told–that they were foreigners who lived among and interbred with the Israelites who had remained in Samaria after the ten tribes had been defeated and carried off by the Assyrians. I was told that their half-breed status was the reason the Jews despised them in that Israelites were commanded to keep their bloodline clean. Let us consult God’s Word–“Prove all things”–in order to answer the stated question.

Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing in the Scriptures to back up the inbreeding theory. To the contrary, 2 Kings 17:18-23 tells us that “the Lord removed Israel out of His sight; that there was NONE left but the tribe of Judah (“Jews”-tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi) ONLY.” These Jews were careful to keep themselves separate from the “dogs”–their name for the Samaritans. Deuteronomy 11:12 tells us that God’s eyes are on the Holy Land continually, meaning that when He removed the 10 tribes “out of His sight” He removed them from the Holy Land. Note that He did not remove some or most of them–He removed all of them–NONE of the Israelites remained. Second Kings 17:24-41 tells us that the people of Samaria were pagans whom the Assyrian king had moved into the area “instead of (to replace) the children of Israel.” The Assyrians were known for removing defeated people from their homeland and replacing them with other defeated people whom they had removed from their homeland. So how did the Samaritans come to believe that they worshiped the same God as the Jews? God tells us in John 4.

Not long after replacing the Israelites in the region of Israel called Samaria, the imported people began to have serious problems with lions. In 2 Kings 17:25-27 we find them asking the king of Assyria to send one of the captive Israelite priests back to Samaria to help them with the lions that were killing them. They believed that the God of the Israelites had loosed the lions on them because they did not know His ways. They wanted an Israelite priest to teach them the ways of his God in hopes that He would then remove the lions. The Assyrian king granted their request and dispatched an Israelite priest to teach them the ways of the Lord.

However, the priest the king sent back to Samaria was not one of God’s priests from the tribe of Levi, but rather one of Jeroboam’s (the king of the ten tribes) appointed priests who taught them a paganized version of the Israelite religion. This “priest” used many of the right words (God, the Lord, etc.) but taught the people a perverted version of God’s Truth. Does this sound familiar? In Second Chronicles 11:14 we find that Jeroboam had forced all of God’s priests to flee to the land of Judah where they joined Rehoboam, king of Judah and the people called “Jews.” See White Fields. First Kings 12:31 reveals how Jeroboam, king of Israel, having forced the Levitical priests to leave, had then appointed to the priesthood “the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.” Many of these men purchased their priesthoods while others were appointed to their office by Jeroboam as favors.

Not only did Jeroboam replace God’s appointed priests with the worst among the people, he also changed some of God’s doctrines. In 1 Kings 12:28-30 we find that he made two calves of gold and presented them to Israel saying, “… these are the gods that brought you out of the land of Egypt. After placing the two statues at opposite ends of Samaria, one in Bethel, the other in Dan, he then forced the people to travel to these places to worship the calves, thereby taking their attention away from the Temple in Jerusalem and the God associated with that Temple. He feared that if they journeyed to Jerusalem to worship the true God they might not return to Samaria. The priest that was sent to the Samaritans had been thoroughly indoctrinated with a combination of pagan and Israelite religion. The Samaritans, believing that they were being taught the truth about the God of Israel, embraced the religion presented by the priest and began calling themselves God’s people. Jesus addressed this error when He dealt with the woman at the well as related in John 4:7-24. Here we find the Samaritan woman telling Him that her people did in fact worship the Israelite God–they truly believed that they were worshipping the God of Israel. Jesus replied that they did not know the God they thought they were worshiping, that they were worshiping a false god and receiving a false salvation. True salvation comes from the Biblical God for, as Jesus said, “… salvation is of (from) the Jews” (Jn. 4:22). To inherit eternal life one must believe in and believe the God of the Jews and obey His Word–the Holy Bible. Jesus told the woman that the Samaritans “… worship(ed) ye know not what.” Nothing has changed. In describing the spiritual condition of the Samaritans of His day, Jesus was characterizing the millions of modern day Samaritans who comprise Catholicism and Protestantism: “These people draw near to Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, but in vain (for nothing) do they (believe they) WORSHIP ME, teaching (substituting) for (My) doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat. 15:8,9). The woman and those whom she summoned believed the Lord. Their spiritual descendants do not. To be continued. L.J.