Q&A: The Return to Zion
The Return to Zion
Question
In the description of the Return to Zion in I Chronicles chapter 9, those who returned to the Land of Israel are described as people from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Levi, Manasseh, and Ephraim (the latter two tribes had originally been part of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Israel after the split of the united monarchy; scholars such as M. D. Cassuto and A. S. Hartom interpret this as: “remnants of the Ten Tribes who settled in the Kingdom of Judah”). However, the description of members of the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim is not mentioned in the account of those returning to the land in the book of Ezra, where those returning to Zion are described as people from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi (including the priests). So what’s the deal? Who actually returned to the land in the days of the Return to Zion? Those described in the book of Chronicles, or those in the book of Ezra? Or both?
Answer
I don’t know. Better to ask Hebrew Bible scholars.
Discussion on Answer
First of all, thanks to M. So basically the authors of Chronicles are right? So the tribes we know we belong to today are Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, Benjamin, and Levi? It’s just that there are Chinese people who claim they are from the tribe of Manasseh, and in the book of Chronicles it already says that Manasseh returned to the land.
There were several waves of immigration to the land.
The first wave consisted mainly of important figures and leaders from the Kingdom of Judah.
Later, in other waves, apparently some of the exiles of the Kingdom of Israel also returned together with the people of Judah. Some of them were descendants of the Kingdom of Israel who had been living in Babylonia since the Assyrian exile, and some of them were descendants of the Kingdom of Israel who remained in the Land of Israel after the Assyrian exile and mixed with the Kingdom of Judah, which was exiled later (and in the end they too were exiled with them to Babylonia).