Israelites, Israelites

They gave their name to Hebrew, the language of Israelites, Jews and the State of Israel.

The Kenites (the Midianite clan headed by Moses' father in law, Jethro) also joined the Israelites.

He took 27,290 people captive from the city of Samaria resettling some with the Israelites in the Habor region and the rest in the land of the Medes thus establishing Israelite communities in Ecbatana and Rages.

The recorded history differs from this fable: No record exists of the Assyrians having exiled people from Dan, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun or western Manasseh. Descriptions of the deportation of people from Reuben, Gad, Manasseh in Gilead, Ephraim and Naphtali indicate that only a portion of these tribes were deported and the places to which they were deported are known locations given in the accounts. The deported communities are mentioned as still existing at the time of the composition of the books of Kings and Chronicles and did not disappear by assimilation. 2 Chr 30:1-11 explicitly mentions northern Israelites who had been spared by the Assyrians in particular people of Dan, Ephraim, Manasseh, Asher and Zebulun and how members of the latter three returned to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah.

Levites, Israelites, chalalim , proselytes and freedmen were allowed to intermarry.

In the case of intermarriage between kohanim , Levites and Israelites, the children took the father's lineage, more complex rules governed the lineage of other intermarriages. With time some of these lineages disappeared: for example the descendants of the original freedmen became part of the other lineages according to the rules of intermarriage; the Nethinim are no longer found after the persecutions and massacres carried out by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Arabian (Nabatean) groups such as the Zabadeans and Itureans were also conquered and forcefully converted as were the mixed people of the former Philistine cities. Although Judaism frowns on the action of the Hasmoneans, the events united the Israelites with their closest relatives after thousands of years of separation.

They interpret the Bible as implying that Haile Selassie was the returned Messiah, who would lead the world's peoples of African descent into a promised land of full emancipation and divine justice. There are some Rastafarians that believe they are Jews by descent through Ras Tafari, Ras Tafari being a descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba via Menelik I. One Rastafari order named The Twelve Tribes of Israel , imposes a metaphysical astrology whereby Aries is Reuben, Aquarius is Joseph, etc. The Twelve Tribes of Israel differ from most Rastafari Mansions (sects) because they believe that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior, while other Mansions claim that Haile Selassie I is the true God. With his famous early reggae song The Israelites Desmond Dekker immortalised the Rastafari concept of themselves as the Lost Children of Israel. However, sometimes peoples native to Africa are identified with descendants of Ham, whereas the Old Testament of the Bible states that Abraham is descended from Shem.

They believe that certain Old Testament passages Isaiah 2:2-4, 11:10-13 are prophecies implying that the tribe of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) will take a prominent role in the spread of the gospel to all of scattered Israelites in the last days, and that the tribe of Judah (ie. Judah) also has a prominent role in the last days and during the Millennium ibid.

Source: Wikipedia > Israelites