Who are the Twelve Tribes?

"1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:

Greetings."

Who is James (the brother of Jesus and slave of God & Jesus Christ) writing to in this letter?

Before we take a look at who the "twelve tribes in the dispersion" are, there are a few questions we can ask ourselves as to why knowing this matters.

• How is a note you write to a friend different from an english essay that you turn in to your teacher?
• How do you talk to your teacher/professor/boss? Your parents? Your best friend?
• How do you talk to a little kid who just started preschool? How about someone you know that gets easily offended? Someone who's mother or father just died unexpectedly?

The way we talk/write to different people can be drastically different, based on who they are, who they are to us, and what we know them to have been through. Although this may be obvious to you, have you ever thought about why books of the bible are written a certain way, or talk about what they do? The more we understand the context, the more we understand the intent of the author and, in return, better understand what it means to us personally.

?Who are the they?

Where does the bible talk about the twelve tribes? When we find this in scripture, we can work our way backwards to figure out who these people are and what they may have experienced to make James write to them specifically.

EXODUS 1:1-5:

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

Count how many sons Israel (whose name is also Jacob) had, add one more because Joseph was already in Egypt, and you get 12. Jacob had 12 sons in Egypt at this point, who are the ancestors of each of the twelve tribes, which are named after them. (Rev 7:5-8 refers to these tribes again).

• Who was Jacob's father? - Isaac (GENESIS 25:21-26)
• Who was Isaac's father? - Abraham (GENESIS 21:1-6)

Now that we know who the Twelve Tribes are and who they descend from, let's search scripture to see their history to find out what we still don't know:

?Why are they in dispersion?

God's promise to Abraham:

Read GENESIS 12:1-7.

God promised him a great nation, so he set out to Canaan - the land God promised to his offspring. (Who are his offspring again? The 12 Tribes!)

Read EXODUS 1:1-14.

Here we begin to see what the tribes of Israel went through.

1. Where are the Israelites in this passage? - Egypt
2. What happened to them? Why? - They were enslaved by the Egyptians. The Pharoah saw the fact that they were growing in number as a threat.
   

If you are familiar with the story, you now that Moses brought the people out of Egypt.

After wandering for 40 years in the desert, they finally reached their promised land, Canaan. However, the Israelites continued to rebel against God (much like we do) and appointed a "physical" king over themselves although God himself was their king. Eventually, a dispute broke out over the people, and the Israelites split into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom.

Read 2 KINGS 17:6-7.

• What happened to the Northern Kingdom? Why? - They were captured by the King of Assyria. This happened because they sinned against God and started fearing false gods.

Read 2 KINGS 25:1-12.

• What about the Southern Kingdom? - The city of Jerusalem was destroyed, and their king, Zedekiah saw his sons slaughtered and had his own eyes put out and was bound in chains.
  
• The remainder of the people? - v11: They were carried into exhile.
  

This is what is called the Dispersion.

What we now know about the "twelve tribes in the dispersion":

1. Descended from Abraham
2. Promised a land for a great nation through Abraham
3. Were enslaved by Egypt, escaped, and (after 40 years of wandering) finally received their promised land.
   
4. They rebelled against God which led to being attacked and dispersed.
   

Next week we will see how this all applies to the book of James, as well as our own lives.

For next week: What would you have done if you were taken away from home to a foreign country against your will?