Assyria conquered the ten-tribed Kingdom of Israel in 718 BC. According to II Kings 17:6, Assyria "carried Israel away to Assyria." She deported the Israelites en masse, to what is now northern Iran, just south of the Caspian Sea.

Conquering Israel was not easy; the siege of Samaria, Israel's capital, lasted three years. Assyria may have "overextended" herself in the effort. Whatever the reason, Assyria began to weaken almost immediately after subjugating Israel. By 650 BC, Assyria was in an advanced state of decline.

Assyria's rapid decline afforded some Israelites the opportunity to become aggressive. Early on, some Israelite groups became strong enough to mount a guerilla war against their captors. Although unable to turn the tables on Assyria, they did weaken her to the extent that a confederation of Babylonians and Medes captured Nineveh, Assyria's capital city, relatively easily in 612 BC. A few decades later, other Israelites banded together to become the Scythians, a fierce and warlike people. Centuries later, these peoples would merge with others to become the Parthians, the scourge of the Roman Empire. For the entirety of the Roman period, the Parthians effectively contained Rome's legions at the Euphrates River, keeping them from invading the rich Indus Valley on the Indian sub-continent (now Pakistan).

However, the majority of Israelites left the Middle East during the decades just after Assyria's fall. They took a number of routes, of course, but they generally made their escapes using passes over the Caucasus Mountains, one of which, located in present-day Georgia, retained the name "Pass of Israel" until renamed by godless communists in the last century.

The prophet Amos uses the metaphor of sifting grain to describe what God has done (and will do) to Israel(Amos 9:9). God, he says, "will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve; yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground." God will separate His people and scatter them, while at the same time keeping track of every Israelite.

The Scriptures provide plenty of evidence regarding where this sifting placed the Israelites over time. For convenience, we will divide that evidence into two categories. First, God's Word tells us where to look for Israel. Second, His Word tells us from where He will gather Israel in the last days in a Second Exodus. Together, these two categories of evidence provide substantial detail regarding the whereabouts of modern-day Israel.

Category One: Scripture states where to look for Israel.

• Psalm 89:25: The psalmist Ethan foretells that God "will set his hand over the sea, and his right hand over the rivers." Israel was thus to be scattered somewhere over oceans and rivers. This is, admittedly, a bit general, but God's Word becomes more specific.
• Hosea 12:1: In a passage condemning Israel (specifically Ephraim, the primary tribe, having received the greater portion of the birthright blessing), God says that Israel "pursues the east wind." To pursue the east wind is to travel west.
• Jeremiah 3:12-13: Jeremiah, pleading for Israel to repent, to "acknowledge your iniquity" (verse 13), asks that his words be proclaimed "toward the north." Jeremiah, remember, lived at the time of Judah's fall to the Babylonians, some 130 years after the Kingdom of Israel had been forcibly moved out of its homeland. So, he was not writing to Israelites living within a hundred miles north of Jerusalem—in and around Samaria. Instead, he is addressing a people living somewhere else further north.
• Jeremiah 31:10: God says that He, "who scattered Israel," will also gather it "as a shepherd does his flock." He asks that His message be declared "in the isles afar off." This does not refer to Crete or even to Cyprus or Malta. These islands must be far away, and northwest of Jerusalem, as we have seen.

Therefore, Israel migrated north and west into islands some distance away. People who look for the "Ten Lost Tribes" in Africa or South America need to study God's Word with a globe in one hand and a compass in the other!

Category Two: Scripture speaks of the areas from where God will gather Israel in the last days.

• Jeremiah 31:10: Again, God says He will gather Israel from "the isles afar off." Note the plural, isles.
• Jeremiah 23:8: God prophesies that the time will come when people will look back and remember how He "led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country."
• Jeremiah 31:8: God says He will "bring [the remnant of Israel] from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth." This nails the matter down even tighter: God will not bring Israel back from the near north, from the area of the Caspian Sea where it first migrated, but from a much greater distance, from around the globe.
• Jeremiah 3:18: He will gather Judah and Israel "together out of the land of the north."
• Isaiah 11:12: God declares that He will gather "the outcasts of Israel, and . . . the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." This reference indicates that Israel will have migrated far and wide.
• Hosea 11:8-10: God asks rhetorically, "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?" He goes on to explain that He will roar like a lion, and "then His sons shall come trembling from the west."
• Isaiah 49:1, 12: In verse 1, God indicates His audience: the "coastlands" and the "peoples from afar." Then, in verse 12, He tells more about the areas from where He will gather His people: "Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim [Vulgate: Australi]." Israel, He says, will come to dwell at "the ends of the earth," even in Australia.
• Isaiah 41:1, 9: In verse 1, God encourages the peoples of the "coastlands," telling them in verse 9 that He has "taken [you] from the ends of the earth, and called [you] from its farthest regions, and said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away.'"

The scriptural evidence is conclusive: Israel is today—and will be until God re-gathers it—scattered around the world, but principally to the north and west of Jerusalem and in far-off isles, giving us some definite geographic search criteria. Next, we will conclude our gathering of search criteria by looking at the venue of today's Davidic monarchy.