Page:David Baron – The History of the Ten "Lost" Tribes.djvu/57

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AND DESTINY OF "ISRAEL" AND "JUDAH"
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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 עַזוּבָה—"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 בָה (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