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The Ten Tribes Feasted While the Exile Was Already Sealed

Three sentences were sealed in heaven on the same day -- the fall of the ten tribes, Sennacherib's ruin, and a king struck with leprosy.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Feast of the Foremost of the Nations
  2. The Table Game
  3. Three Decrees Sealed in One Day
  4. Wine and the Lesson of Noah
  5. Josephus and the Plain Fact of Erasure

The Feast of the Foremost of the Nations

Each tribe of the northern kingdom kept its own wine cellar. When the tribal chiefs gathered for a feast, they did not share a common cup. Each man drank from his own vintage, from the wine his own territory had produced, and the feast stretched until midnight, and from midnight until dawn. By the time one cup was finished, another was being pressed.

This is the scene Midrash Tanchuma Buber on Shmini reconstructs from the prophet Amos, who addressed the northern kingdom of Israel in the mid-eighth century BCE during the reign of Jeroboam II, when the kingdom was at the peak of its prosperity. Amos did not speak softly about this prosperity. He called its beneficiaries the "notable men of the foremost of the nations" and described them as lying on beds of ivory, drinking wine by the bowlful, anointing themselves with the finest oils. Everything about their ease was an accusation. They were the foremost of the nations. Their greatness was so absolute that they had stopped being afraid of losing it.

The Table Game

At these feasts, the tribes compared their great men to the great men of the nations. The game had a rhythm. Who was mightiest among the nations? Goliath, whose height was six cubits and a span. Who was mightiest in Israel? Samson, who tore the lion with his bare hands and killed a thousand Philistines with a jawbone. Samson was greater. Who was wealthiest among the nations? Hadrian. Who was wealthiest in Israel? Solomon, who made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone. Solomon was greater. Who was wisest? Bilam among the nations. Ahitofel in Israel. Israel won every comparison.

The game was not pride exactly. It was something more dangerous. Pride at least carries awareness of what it could lose. This was ease -- the settled certainty of a people who had compared themselves to every other nation and found themselves superior, and had begun to act as if superiority were permanent.

Three Decrees Sealed in One Day

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah, the medieval midrashic anthology drawing on older sources, carries the tradition that three sentences were sealed in heaven on the same day. The first: the exile of the ten tribes. The second: the destruction of Sennacherib's army. The third: Uzziah, king of Judah, struck with leprosy for entering the Temple with a censer in an act of priestly usurpation.

The three decrees do not obviously belong together. Two are disasters for Israel and its enemies. One is a personal punishment for a king. But the tradition held them in the same sealed moment because they shared a cause. Pride. The tribes had it. Sennacherib had it. Uzziah had it. The ten tribes lounged on ivory couches. Sennacherib sent his messengers to mock the God of Jerusalem the way they had mocked the gods of every other nation they had conquered. Uzziah walked into the Temple with fire in a pan because he had been so successful as a king that no authority felt binding anymore.

Wine and the Lesson of Noah

Yalkut Shimoni connects the exile of the tribes to an older story: Noah. The Torah says Noah was uncovered, passively, not that he uncovered himself. He did not choose his shame. The wine chose it for him. His drinking caused exile -- first to himself, then to whole generations. The northern tribes repeated the pattern. The wine that flowed from separate tribal cups was the same wine that Noah drank on the day he planted the vineyard, the same day he pressed the first fruit, the same day he was shamed.

The rabbis counted fourteen words in the flood narrative that begin with the Hebrew letter for "and" -- a string of small grammatical hooks -- and read them as fourteen warnings against wine. Each verb in the story marked another step downward. The ten tribes were not a special case. They were the latest instance of a pattern that was old before Abraham was born.

Josephus and the Plain Fact of Erasure

Josephus, writing his Antiquities of the Jews in the first century CE, describes the fall of the northern kingdom without midrashic interpretation. Nine hundred and forty-seven years after the Exodus, Shalmaneser king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea, the last king of Israel, had been secretly negotiating with Egypt. The Assyrian response was total. Three years of siege. Samaria fell. The entire population was deported to Media and Persia. Ten tribes. Gone. Eight hundred years after Joshua had led them into the land, two hundred and forty years after they had split from the House of David -- they vanished.

The Talmud Bavli in tractate Sanhedrin records a different kind of absence: the ten tribes were carried beyond the river Sambatyon, a mythical river that runs with stones and gravel all six days of the week and rests only on the Sabbath, making it impassable at the only time the tribes would be willing to cross it. They remained beyond it, waiting, concealed behind clouds and darkness, unable to communicate with their fellow Jews for centuries. The exile was not only geographic. It was cosmic. The Sambatyon sealed them inside a kind of permanent Sabbath that no one could cross.

Ten TribesExileSennacheribAmosProphecySin
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From the tradition

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shmini 8:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shmini

And so you find that the ten tribes went into exile only because of wine. See what it says (Amos 6:1): "Woe to those who are at ease in Zion", for they were dwelling in palaces of luxury in tranquility; "and to those who are confident in the mountain of Samaria" (ibid.), for they were dwelling securely [in Sebaste]; "the notables of the foremost of the nations, to whom the House of Israel comes" (Amos 6:1). How so? The nations of the world would sit [and converse] and say: Who is mighty in Israel? And they would say: Samson. And they would say again: Who is mighty among the nations? And they would say: Goliath, of whom it is written, "His height was six cubits and a span" (1 Samuel 17:4). And these [agreed with one another] and said: Samson is the mightiest in Israel, hence "the notables of the foremost of the nations." And they would say again: Who is wealthy among the nations of the world? And they would say: [Hadrian]. And who is wealthy in Israel? And they would say: Solomon, of whom it is written, "And the king made silver [as common in Jerusalem as stones]" (1 Kings 10:27). Come and see: each and every tribe had its own festival-place. When one sought to go to his festival-place, he would take his flock with him, so that he might eat fattened animals from his sheep, as it is said, "and they eat lambs from the flock, etc. [who drink from bowls of wine]" (Amos 6:4, 6). What was their end? "Therefore now they shall go into exile at the head of the exiles" (ibid. 6:7). Why? Because they were avid after wine. Therefore he warns Aaron, "Drink no wine or strong drink" (Leviticus 10:9).

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 61:10Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

"And he drank of the wine" (Genesis 9:21). He drank without measure and was disgraced. On the same day he planted, on the same day he drank, on the same day he was disgraced. "And he was uncovered within his tent." It is not written "and he uncovered," but "and he was uncovered": he caused exile to himself and to the generations. The ten tribes went into exile only on account of wine, as it is written, "Woe to those who rise early in the morning to pursue strong drink, who tarry late into the evening till wine inflames them" (Isaiah 5:11). The tribes of Judah and Benjamin went into exile only on account of wine, as it is said, "These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink" (Isaiah 28:7). "Within his tent" is written defectively: within the tent of his wife. When Noah went out of the ark, the lion struck him and maimed him; and when he came to lie with his wife, his seed was scattered.

Never be greedy after wine, for in the whole passage of the wine there are written fourteen vavs: "and he began," "and he planted," "and he drank," "and he became drunk," "and he was uncovered," "and he saw," "and he approached," "and he took," "and they placed," "and they went," "and they covered," "and he awoke," "and he knew," "and he said." "And Ham the father of Canaan saw." He said to them and told them, saying, "The first man had two sons, and one rose and killed his fellow; and this one has three, and he seeks to make a fourth." What is the reason a slave goes free for a tooth and an eye? From here: "and he saw and told." "And Shem and Japheth took the garment." Shem began the commandment and Japheth came and obeyed him; therefore Shem merited a prayer-shawl and Japheth a cloak.

From the implication of what is said, "and they went backward," do I not know that they did not see their father's nakedness? Rather, it teaches that they put their hands over their faces and walked backward and treated him with honor, as the reverence of a father upon a son. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Shem, "You covered your father's nakedness; by your life, I shall repay it to your sons," as it is said, "Then these men were bound in their cloaks" (Daniel 3:21). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Japheth, "You covered your father's nakedness; by your life, I shall repay you," as it is said, "And it shall come to pass on that day that I will give to Gog a place there for burial" (Ezekiel 39:11). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Ham, "You disgraced your father's nakedness; by your life, I shall repay you," as it is said, "So shall the king of Assyria lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt." Rav Yehuda said: it is forbidden to recite the Shema before a naked Cushite. This is obvious; one might have thought that since it is written of them, "whose flesh is the flesh of donkeys," I would say he is a mere donkey, so it teaches that regarding nakedness they too are called nakedness, as it is said, "and they did not see their father's nakedness."

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Antiquities IX.14Antiquities of the Jews (Josephus)

Nine hundred and forty-seven years after the Exodus from Egypt, the northern kingdom of Israel ceased to exist. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, discovered that Hoshea, the last king of Israel, had been secretly negotiating with Egypt for military support. The Assyrian response was total war.

Shalmaneser besieged Samaria for three years. When it finally fell in the ninth year of Hoshea's reign, the punishment was not mere conquest. It was erasure. The Assyrians demolished the government of Israel entirely, took Hoshea alive, and deported the entire population into Media and Persia. Ten tribes, gone. Eight hundred years after Joshua led them into the land, two hundred and forty years after they split from the House of David under Jeroboam, they vanished from their homeland.

Josephus is blunt about the cause: they transgressed the laws, ignored the prophets who warned them, and refused to stop. The rot began with the original rebellion against Rehoboam, grandson of David, when the northern tribes chose Jeroboam as king. His sins set the template. Every king after him followed it.

Into the emptied land, the Assyrians transplanted foreigners from Cuthah, a region in Persia with a river of the same name. These five nations each brought their own gods, and a plague struck them immediately. When they consulted an oracle and learned they needed to worship the God of the land, they sent to the Assyrian king for Israelite priests. The priests taught them the Torah and proper worship. The plague stopped. These settlers became the Kutim (כותים), known in Greek as the Samaritans. Josephus notes their opportunism with acid precision: when the Jews prospered, the Samaritans claimed kinship through Joseph. When the Jews suffered, the Samaritans denied any connection at all.

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Sanhedrin 110bTalmud Bavli, Sanhedrin

MISHNAH: The ten tribes are not destined to return, as it is said: "And He cast them into another land, as it is this day" (Deuteronomy 29:27). Just as the day goes and does not return, so too they go and do not return; these are the words of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer says: "As it is this day" -- just as the day grows dark and then grows light, so too the ten tribes, for whom it is dark, so it is destined to grow light for them.

GEMARA: Our Rabbis taught: The ten tribes have no share in the world to come, as it is said: "And the LORD uprooted them from off their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great fury" (Deuteronomy 29:27). "And the LORD uprooted them from off their land" -- in this world; "And He cast them into another land" -- to the world to come; these are the words of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Shimon ben Yehuda of the village of Akko says in the name of Rabbi Shimon: If their deeds are "as it is this day," they do not return, but if not, they return.

Rabbi says: They are coming to the world to come, as it is said: "On that day a great shofar shall be sounded," etc. (Isaiah 27:13). Rabba bar bar Hana said that Rabbi Yochanan said: Rabbi Akiva abandoned his piety, as it is said: "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: Return, faithless Israel, says the LORD; I will not cause My face to fall upon you, for I am merciful, says the LORD; I will not bear a grudge forever" (Jeremiah 3:12).

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Noach 20:7Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Noach

"And he planted a vineyard" (Genesis 9:20). From where did he have it? Rather, from the grape-pits that he had brought in with him into the ark he took and sowed, as it is said, "And he planted a vineyard," etc.

And after it, what is written? "And he drank of the wine" (Genesis 9:21).

Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba said: On the very day that he planted it, on that very day it blossomed; on that very day it produced fruit; on that very day he plucked it, harvested it, trod it, and drank, as it is said, "And he drank of the wine and became drunk, and he uncovered himself within his tent" (Genesis 9:21). It is written oholah ("her tent").

Rabbi Judah son of Rabbi Simon said in the name of Rabbi Hanina in the name of Rabbi Samuel bar Isaac: It decreed exile for the ten tribes, as it is said, "Samaria is Oholah" (Ezekiel 23:4).

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