This is another instance of breaking away an isolated text from its context, and giving it a meaning which was never intended. In that chapter we read how the leaders, not of the Ten Tribes, but of Judah, perverted the Word of God, which He intended should bring "rest" and "refreshing" to the weary (ver. 12), and turned it into so many isolated "precepts" and commandments. But because the words of grace and salvation He was speaking to them through the prophets were scorned and abused, God threatens that He will speak to them in judgment—"with strange lips and with another tongue"—in which there may be included also a reference to their being carried into captivity, "where they would have to listen to a strange language," which they understood not (Psalm lxxxi. 5; cxiv. 1).
The next references in proof that the "lost" tribes were "no more to be called Israel," but by another name, is a typical instance of the perversion of even the most beautiful spiritual truths of the Bible for mere outward, I was going to say, carnal, ends. The first quotation in proof of this point is from Isa. lxii. 2: "Thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name." This short chapter is one of the most precious and beautiful in the whole Old Testament, and it is like laying hold of an exquisitely delicate and beautiful work of art with a rough and dirty hand to treat it as Anglo-Israel "theologians" do. The chapter begins: "For Zion's sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth." The speaker is either the prophet, or very probably the servant of Jehovah, the Messiah, who is the speaker in the preceding chapter. The subject is "Zion" or "Jerusalem," which includes the people. I believe that it includes the whole nation of which Jerusalem is the God-appointed metropolis; but if it is to be limited to any part of the people, then it is certainly Judah, of which Zion or Jerusalem is the capital, and not the Ten Tribes who are here spoken of.
This Zion, for whom the Messiah makes unceasing intercession, is now called עֲזוּבָה—"forsaken," and her land שְׁמָמָה—"desolate"; but when God's light shall again break upon her, and her righteousness goes forth as a lamp that burneth, "Thou shalt be called חֶפְצִי-בָהּ (Hephzibah, i.e., My delight is in her); and thy land בְּעוּלָה" (Beulah, i.e., married). But the new name by which the mouth of Jehovah shall then call her shall not only answer the outward transformation which shall then come over the people and the land, but will describe the inward transformation and the true character of the people. In fact, we are told in this very chapter what the new name shall be. They shall call them—Saxons? Britons? No, "they shall call them the Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord." This is also the "other name" in Isa. lxv. 15, by which God shall call His true servants in contrast to the ungodly in the nation, who shall be "slain," and leave their name (i.e., their remembrance) as a proverbial "curse" unto His chosen.
The next reference given in proof that the Ten Tribes were to lose their name is Psalm lxxxiii. 4: "The name of Israel shall be no more in remembrance." This is a typical and characteristic specimen of the manner in which Anglo-Israel "theologians" deal with Scripture. It reminds one of the grounds adduced by a certain individual for paying no heed to the Old Testament because it is written, "Hang the law and the prophets" (Matt. xxii. 40). It is certainly most easy to prove almost anything from the Bible by breaking away an isolated sentence from its connection, and attaching to it a meaning which was never intended.
Psalm lxxxiii. is an impassioned cry to God for His interposition and deliverance of His people from a confederacy of Gentile nations, who are gathered with the determined object of utterly destroying them as a people.
"O God, keep not Thou silence:
Hold not Thy peace and be not still, O God; for lo, Thine enemies make a tumult:
And they that hate Thee have lifted up the head:
They take crafty counsel against Thy people, and consult together against Thy hidden ones.
They have said: Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation,