Jews = Israelites

Originally posted on January 11, 2010 – by Andre Piet

Yesterday I spoke in an assembly about Acts 26, and in that connection verse 7 also came up, in which Paul speaks of the promise…

which our twelve tribes, serving God with earnestness night and day, are expecting to attain.

I remarked in that connection that Paul regards the twelve tribes as a religious unity and knows nothing of “the ten lost tribes” whose identity would have been lost. Those who do think this, claim that the Jews are merely the representatives of the two tribes.

Now it is indeed true that the name “Jew” refers to Judah. But how so? The name “Jew” dates from the days of King Cyrus, who sent out the proclamation to “all the kingdoms” that “whoever among you” belonged to any part of God’s people should go up “to Jerusalem in Judah” (Ezra 1:1-4). Not only the two tribes in Babylon but also the ten tribes in Assyria were included in this proclamation (see Ezra 6:22).

Not even fifty thousand people responded to this proclamation in those days. Mainly from the two tribes. Nevertheless, the returned people is officially called Israel (Ezra 6:17; 9:1; 10:5, etc.). They explicitly represented all twelve tribes (Ezra 6:17; Zech. 8:13). Because Cyrus had assigned the territory of Judah to the Israelites, from then on they were given the name “Jews.” Regardless of which tribe they came from. Someone from the priestly family (>Cohen), and thus from the tribe of Levi, is therefore quite rightly called a Jew. It is therefore not strange that the term Jew in the New Testament counts as a synonym for Israelite. Thus Peter addresses “you Jews…” on the day of Pentecost, whom he then addresses as “men of Israel” (compare e.g. Acts 2:14, 22; see also 36).

In a subsequent weblog I hope to go into more detail on what happened to the majority of the Israelites who did not return from the exile.

Delen: