83. Who Were the "Lost Tribes"?

The "lost tribes," so-called, were the Jews carried into captivity by Shalmaneser (II Kings 17:6), and chiefly belonging to Israel or the ten tribes. Many theories as to their location and their descendants have been ventilated, and they have been successively located (by ingenious investigators) in Hindustan, Tartary, China, Africa, Great Britain and among the aborigines of North America. More reasonable conjectures hold that while some returned after the exile, and others were left in Samaria, many remained in Assyria and afterward joined with the Jews in forming colonies throughout the East, so that, in a certain sense, they shared the ultimate history of their brethren of Judah.