The most detailed account of the lost tribes of Israel comes from Eldad the Danite, a traveler whose report is preserved in the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899. Eldad claimed to have visited the scattered tribes and brought back an astonishing report of their survival, their wars, and their faithfulness to the Torah.
The sons of Moses lived behind the river Sabbatyon, a body of water unlike any other. It rolled sand and stones with the noise of an earthquake all six days of the week, making it impossible to cross. On the Sabbath the river rested, but a wall of fire erupted in its place. Behind this barrier, the Levites lived in complete purity. No unclean animal existed in their territory. No child died before their parents. Everyone lived to 120. They sowed one seed and reaped a hundredfold.
The tribe of Dan had settled far to the south, in the land of Havilah near the brook of Pishon, after refusing to participate in Jeroboam's civil war against the house of David. They had migrated rather than shed Israelite blood. In their new homeland, they fought the Kushite kings and won. When 200,000 Danite warriors crossed the brook of Pishon to meet sixty-five Ethiopian kings in battle, twenty-five of those kings fell in the first engagement. Then 300,000 men from the tribes of Naphtali, Gad, and Asher arrived to reinforce them.
The tribe of Issachar dwelt on the mountains behind Media and Persia, devoted entirely to Torah study. They accepted no earthly yoke, only the yoke of heaven. The combined tribes received tribute from twenty-five vassal kings, waged war against surrounding nations, and spoke Hebrew and Greek among themselves. Eldad lived among the sons of Judah and Simeon for three years before traveling home by ship. His account was received, examined, and preserved as testimony that the ten lost tribes had never truly vanished. They were simply waiting, faithful and powerful, behind rivers of sand and walls of fire.