ISRAEL.
1. A name given to Jacob after wrestling with the Angel. 2. A term applied sometimes to all the descendants of Jacob. 3. In a spiritual sense, those who believe in Christ. 4. A name that covered and included the nine Tribes which went with Jeroboam and formed the kingdom of Israel. They remained a distinct kingdom, and till now a nationality. From 975 to
725 b.c. they had some 19 kings. They were finally carried captive into Assyria by Shalmanezer (2 Kings xvii.). From that captivity they have never returned; as a body they never can, only representatives, as stated in Jer. iii. 14, “One of a city, and two of a family.”
Now prophecy points out that it was Israel that was to be lost for a while, and come to light in the latter day. They are known in the Scriptures in contradistinction from others by such terms as the following: “All Israel,” “All the House of Israel wholly,” “The House of Israel,” “Men of Israel,” and God calls them His “Servants, Witnesses, Chosen People, Inheritance, and Seed.” The lot, course, and providential portion of this people are very marked from any other, especially from the Jew, with whom they are so often confounded. The history of the two peoples have been wide apart and as different as they well could be.
1. They were to be lost. 2. They were to be divorced from the Mosaic law. 3. They were to lose their name. 4. They were to lose their language. 5. They were to possess the isles of the sea, coasts of the earth, waste and desolate places, to inherit the portion of the Gentiles, their seed, land, and cities. 6. They are to be great and successful colonisers. 7. Before them other people are to die out. 8. They are to be a head nation. 9. To be a company of nations. 10. To be great in war on land or sea. 11. To be lenders of money. 12. To have a monarchy. 13. To be keepers of the Sabbath. 14. To have David’s throne and seed ruling over them. 15. They are to possess Palestine, and invite their brethren of Judah to return. And thus I might repeat some sixty positive marks and distinctions setting forth Israel; and yet men wilfully persist in confounding them with the Jews, or looking for this great and favoured people of the Lord among the lowest of human kind, Indians, Africans, and so on.
SAMARITANS.
The Samaritans were not Jews or Israelites, strictly speaking. They of course became Jewish in their customs and worship. Originally they were Assyrians. When the nine Tribes were carried captive, they were brought and put in their place. “And the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, instead of the children of Israel” (2 Kings xvii. 24). The Jews and the Samaritans never wholly mixed; one was always distasteful to the other. They never were taken captive, and to this day they live in and about Mount Scychar, numbering between three and four hundreds.