By
Arthur J. Licursi – as drawn from various sources
If we are to
“rightly divide the word of truth,” as the Apostle Paul
prescribes for believers today, it is needful to assign the proper names
to the people to whom various Scriptures are addressed or who the
particular Scripture concerns.
Today almost everyone
identifies the name
Israel
with the Jews. Most people assume the Jewish people are the sole remaining
descendents of the ancient nation of
Israel
. This assumption however is incorrect.
Originally, the Hebrew
term Yehudi referred specifically to members of the tribe of Judah, as
distinguished from the other tribes of Israel. However, after the death of
King Solomon, the nation of Israel was split into two kingdoms: the
kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel (I Kings 12; II
Chronicles 10). After that time, the word Yehudi could properly be used to
describe anyone from the kingdom of Judah, which
included the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, as well as scattered
settlements from other tribes. The most obvious biblical example of this
usage is in Esther 2:5, where Mordecai is referred to as both a Yehudi and
a member of the tribe of Benjamin. So technically, the Jews are
descendents of two of the twelve Israelite tribes:
Judah
and Benjamin, plus a considerable part of a third, the priestly tribe of
Levi.
In common speech, the
word "Jew" is used to refer to all of the physical and spiritual
descendants of Jacob/Israel, as well as to the patriarchs Abraham and
Isaac and their wives, and the word "Judaism" is used to refer
to their beliefs. Technically, this usage is inaccurate, just as it is
technically inaccurate to use the word "Indian" to refer to the
original inhabitants of the Americas. However, this technically inaccurate
usage is common today both within the Jewish community and outside of it,
and is therefore used throughout this site.
Unknown to most, the 10
other tribes in ancient
Israel
were never called Jews. These 10 were the Northern tribes who were
historically distinct and politically separate from the Jews. The Jews
were their brothers in the Southern kingdom who formed the
Kingdom
of
Judah
, from which the term Jew was derived.
Jerusalem
, as mentioned in verse 5 above, is located in the south, in the
Kingdom
of
Judah
. “Rezin king of
Syria
and Pekah son of “Rezin king of
Syria
and Pekah son of Remaliah king of
Israel
came up to
Jerusalem
to war”
The northern coalition
of tribes, the Kingdom of the House of Israel, had already become an
independent nation, separate from the House of Judah, with its own King,
by the time the word Jew first appears in the Biblical narrative of
Abraham’s descendents.
In fact the very first
time the term Jew appears in the Kings James Version of the Bible,
Israel
was at war with the Jews (2Kings 16:5-6 above). 2Kings 16:1-6 briefly
summarizes one of the many wars between the
Kingdom
of
Judah
in the south and the
Kingdom
of
Israel
to its north.
So we might ask, Are
all Israelites Jews? No they are not. But, the
Jews – the citizens and descendents of the
Kingdom
of
Judah
- are indeed Israelites.
The twelve tribes
include the Jews. They all are the descendents of their father
Israel
(Jacob); we can apply the term Israelite to all the tribes, including the
Jews. The term Jew, however, is accurate only for the tribes that
comprised the
Kingdom
of
Judah
and for their descendents.