The Everlasting Covenant

None of the Tribes “Lost.”

Now as to the “lost tribes.” That the ten tribes were no more lost after the close of the Babylonian captivity than they were before, is as plain from the Scriptures as that the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were not lost. How does anybody know that these two tribes were not lost, that is, lost to sight?—By the simple fact that we find reference to them after the captivity; individuals belonging to those tribes are mentioned by name. In the same way we know that the other tribes existed as distinct after the captivity as before. EVCO 498.1

Not all the people of Israel were carried away to Babylon; the poorest and least prominent were left in their own land. But the majority of all the tribes were taken away, and so in the royal proclamation at the close of the seventy years, the permission to return was universal, as follows:— EVCO 498.2