Israel's first journeys (or migrations), happened in 1876 B.C. when the famine in their land forced them to move to Egypt during Joseph's time.
   Around 1700 B.C., Calcol and his brother Darda (grandsons of Judah), Left Egypt before the "EXODUS" with one going to Troy and the other ending up in Ireland.
   Later on we find that most of Dan had left before the reign of Jeroboam in about 927 B.C. (Judges 5:17), which would account for them not appearing in this genealogy.  Historical records also show this, but this is a whole other subject in itself.

The history that we will show now is of course incomplete, but with a little common sense , prayer, and a general understanding of the history, peoples and customs, will help you see events that most researchers don't care to investigate.
   After many of Israel had returned to the promised land in about 1406 B.C., Israel flourished under God for many years through Solomon's time. Because God had made a promise with Solomon, God withheld his judgment on Israel until after Solomon's reign and then divided the kingdom in about 927 B.C..

   Many kings of Israel and Judah did evil in the eyes of God . They allowed idol worship and in most cases even promoted it. So neither Israel or Judah were without sin in the eyes of God. The 13 tribes therefore did not choose, if they were going to live in the northern Kingdom or the southern Kingdom, this matter was decided many generations before.
   Many of the northern Kingdom of Israel did not have any desire to be involved with idol worship and loved God with their whole heart, we find this to be true in the book of "Tobit" (Apocrypha), a man and his family captured and relocated by the Assyrians somewhere between 745 and 721 B.C. from the tribe of Nephthali. Also Josepheus tells us ( in his book of antiquities chapt 13), that during Hezekiah's time, many from Manasseh, Zebulon and Issachar who were obedient to the prophets came to Jerusalem to worship.
   The Assyrians invaded Israel from the north (in about 745 B.C.) under Assyrian King "Tiglath-pilesser III" or "Pul". At this time as his army worked its way down to the capitol city of Samaria, the Assyrians started capturing cities and deporting people to Assyria. The Assyrians were a wicked people having no regard for human life, the had no problem killing even women and children.
   King "Menahem" was more than likely very familiar with the reputation of the Assyrians and that they were coming. Menahem immediately submits to Tiglath-Pileser III and exacted 50 shekels of silver from each wealthy man in Israel. (II Kings 15:19-20) This tribute was paid so that Tiglath-Pileser III would leave Israel alone as a subordinate under Assyria. "I received tribute from Menahem of Samaria," notes Tiglath-Pileser III in his annals. At this time we start to get the first numbers of people in Israel.
   Now we know that the total silver given to Pul was a thousand talents. One thousand talents correspond to 6 million gold soverns, 50 shekels per head from the "men of wealth" amounted to 100 gold soverns each.
   Economists and statisticians will gather that there must have been 60,000 well to do men in Israel. This area will take more research and I hope you can see that there was a lot of people in Israel because most were not well off.

   If for a moment we go back to King David's time we can get an idea of how many people there was in Israel at about 980 B.C.. All fighting men over 20 years age were counted against the will of God ( in which Israel was punished later). The report given to David showed 1,100,000 fighting men including 470,000 from Judah, but not counting Benjamin or Levi. (I Chron 21:4)
   From 980 to 745 B.C. (the first deportations), there passed 235 years. Though I am not a mathematician , I looked up an example from the United States that was first taken in 1790 that showed (after 18 months of gathering) , that the population was slightly less than 4 million. In 1980, almost 200 years latter the census reported the population in the United States at being over 226 million. that's about a 550 % increase in 200 years.
   We know that the fighting men of Israel were between 20 and 50 years of age. Now if we figure that there was three males to every female, this would add 336,666 women which equals 1,436,666 people. Now add 25% for the elderly and the children and we come up with 1,795,832 people at the time of King David . Now if you add 200 years to this meaning 550% you come up with 9,877,078.75 people alive in Israel, (north and south) at about the time that Tiglath-Pileser III starts sending captives back to Assyria.
   Please forgive my figuring above as it only shows an example. The figures of the "fighting men" in David's time is correct however, and remember that 1,100,000 men, didn't include the tribes of Levi or Benjamin.
   The deportation of Israel took almost 30 years starting in 745 B.C. through the capture of Samaria in 721 B.C.. Assyrian King Sargon II deported another 27,290 people from Samaria at that time, of which he says in his annals. By about 716 B.C. the Assyrians had removed all but a few Israelites from the northern kingdom and replaced them with pagan peoples captured farther to the north and east.

   15 years had past, then the Assyrian army under King Sennacherib, was again on the move into Judah. (701 B.C.) He captured 46 cities (all the cities in Judah except Jerusalem), and deported 200,150 captives back to Assyria. (as found in the Assyrian records on the Taylor Prism and II Kings 18:13).
   King Hezekiah stopped paying tribute to King Sargon II when his son took the Assyrian throne but when he realized that Sennacherib was coming he tried to pay it again, but it was to late. He even took all the silver from the temple and peeled the gold from its door and gave it to Sennacherib. Then Hezekiah went to the temple, got down on his knees and prayed to God for help. 
   That night the angel of the Lord killed 85,000 Assyrian soldiers. Sennacherib broke camp went back to Nineveh and stayed. In 597 B.C. , the new world power (Babylon), with its King Nebuchadnezzar, comes against King Jehoiakim and he submits Jerusalem to him. Three years passed and Jehoiakim changes his mind (II King 24:) and rebels against Nebuchadnezzar.
   Nebuchadnezzer takes Jehoakim prisoner and removes all the treasures  from the temple and the palace. He deports back to Babylon all the able men from the city, the fighting men, all the officers, the craftsmen and the artisans 10,000 in all and puts Zedekiah in charge. In 588 B.C. Zedekiah (who's wife was the daughter of the prophet Jeremiah), rebelled against Babylon so Nebuchadnezzer laid siege to Jerusalem for 2 years. (II Kings 25:)
Zedekiah was captured and his sons put to death in front of him then he was blinded, bound and taken to Babylon. During this time the prophet Jeremiah having been told from God, took the Ark of the Covenant and some other Items from the Temple and hid them in a cave. (II Maccabees 2:4-) Jeremiah was captured but the orders from Nebuchadnezzer were not to harm him and do what ever he asks, so he was released with provisions and a reward then they went with Gedaliah (who was appointed the Judean governor by Nebuchanezzer), to Mizpah north of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 40:-)Nebuchadnezzer was ruthless he killed their young men in the sanctuary and spared neither young man or young woman, old man or aged. He carried the remnant who escaped the sword to Babylon. (II Chron 36:15-20) Nebuchadnezzer removed all the temple articles from the palace, and in 582 B.C. sets fire to the temple. Jeremiah 52:28 tells us that there were three different times that captives were deported. The first time 3,032 Jews were taken, then one year later another 832 people, then fifteen years after that 745 Jews. This made a total of only 4,600 taken to Babylon altogether and these were mostly men. It seems that, the Babylonians pretty much left the poor people alone that lived outside the cities. These people that had been left and the ones that had scattered, began to return and sought out Jeremiah in Mizpah. God spoke to Jeremiah and said, tell all my people to stay in the land and not go to Egypt.
   The people not trusting in God wouldn't listen to Jeremiah and took this remnant of Judah forcibly that included Jeremiah, Zedekiah's daughters and Baruch (Jeremiah's scribe). They entered Egypt and went as far as Tahpanes  (Tannis on the Nile delta),where Pharaoh Apries palace was. (Jer 43:-)
   God was furious, he said that since you disobeyed me you will surely die in Egypt. None will return but a few fugitives. (Jer 44:14)
   We will leave this group alone for now to follow the other remnant into Babylon, but this is by no means the end of this story.
   Up until about 430 B.C. (the time that the book of I Chronicles was written), the Lord said in chapter 5:23: Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, that were taken in captivity to Halah, Habor, Hara and near the river of Gozan, where still there and known about at that time.
   The original areas where the captive Israelites were settled ( as given in II Kings  and II Chron.) were located in the upper Mesopotamia which at that time formed part of the Assyrian Empire. Gozan was the area of Bilikh (ancient Besilius) , and Khabour. (formerly called the Araxes, or Chaboras) These areas joined with Halah, (Chalcitis of Ptolemy), Habor (the Kabour) and Hara (Harran or Carrhae). These are now found in modern Alleppo and Kurdistan, districts of Turkey and Asia. The ancient city of Halah is still unidentified, but Habor is the city of Guzana on the river Habor in northern Syria, which was conquered by Adad-Nirari III in 794 B.C. and made into an Assyrian province.
   Ezekiel confirms Habor as one area occupied by the captive Israelites. He wrote that God came to him saying: "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel."(Ezekiel 3:17) and he expressly states that he " came to them of the captivity at Tel-abib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar." (Ezekiel 3:15 Chebar is ancient Khabour.

   Assyrian scribes recorded on clay tablets the record of the Israelites sojourn in captivity. These tablets were excavated from the Assyrian Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, at Nineveh, in 1850 and later translated by Professor Leroy Waterman of the university of Michigan in 1930.
   Some of the Israelites, went north but this is yet a whole other subject, and some went south with Ezra in 538B.C.. If we look at I Chron 9:1, we discover that not only were they fromJudah and Benjamin, but also of the tribes of Levi, Ephraim and Manasseh.
   God even gives us a break-down of numbers (I Chron 9:-)and names. Those who returned with Ezra were: Judah 690; Benjamin 956; The Priest's 1,790; which equals only 3,400 out of 42,360 (Ezra 2:64) .
   Who were the other 38,960 people? We know from I Chron 9:, that they were also from Levi, Manasseh and Ephraim. Of those that returned it was discovered that many of them had intermarried, Judah as well as the rest of the Israel . Ezra made them put off their foreign wives and children. (Ezra chapt 9&10) There were also two other returns, one in 458 B.C. which brought 1,758 people and one in 444 B.C. the number unknown.
   Since mostly men were taken into the Babylon captivity, this means that most of those from Judah and Benjamin, were already a result of an inter-marriage on their fathers part while they were in Babylon.
   Does it seem like there is a strong probability that Israel is in much greater numbers than Judah today? You decide.
   About inter-marriage for the eleven northern tribes, it was more than likely that many of those in the Kingdom of Israel still loved God and followed his law. God states in his commands in Exodus 34:16, and then again in Dueteronomy 7:3. thou shall not inter-marry.    This would have kept the lines intact generation after generation. 
 

In God's service:   Fred Millar