the ground—“being like a mole” (mehaldin,from the wordholed,mole).^80 The
image of the ten tribes returning to Jerusalem the way the blind small mam-
mal burrows underground reinforces the invisibility of their exile. Here again
is a stark juxtaposition between the visible Jewish exile and that of the ten
tribes. The Jews will return on roads above the ground, or better, “on the wings
of eagles” as the famous prophecy promises (Isaiah 40 : 31 ). The ten tribes, on
the other hand, shall remain occluded until the Messiah gives the command
and they make their way invisibly home through subterranean tunnels.
The rabbis follow this passage with several quotations from consolation
prophecies foretelling the return of Israel to its land and end with a quote from
Isaiah depicting God rejoicing at the sight of the return of the ten tribes: “Behold,
I was left alone; these, where were they?” (Isaiah 49 : 21 ). Here, the return of the
ten tribes is clearly and unequivocally tied to the coming of the Messiah:
And these three companies of exiles [the ten tribes] will not come
alone. Wherever there are Jews, they also will be gathered up and
come.... Nay more! The Holy One, blessed be He, will lower the
mountains for them and make them into highways for them; and so,
too, He will raise up every deep place for them and make it level land
for them, as it is writtenI will make all My mountains a way, and My
highways shall be raised on high. (Isaiah 49 : 11 )
Now it is the return of the “three companies of exile”—the ten tribes—that
will stir the return of the Jews to the Holy Land. In spatial terms, the messianic
return begins with them. The ten tribes, the most exiled of all, must lead the
way for all the Jews. Talmudic discussions about the ten tribes deliberate as to
whether or not they will return. Now, with the Midrash on Isaiah, all questions are
over: the ten tribes are unequivocally tied to the Jewish return from exile—they
even instigate it. The tribes are now an integral part of the messianic package—
indeed, its very bedrock.
The potent messianic content of the ten tribes myth would fuse with its
geographic dimensions to make the story a chief propeller of the Western
geographic imagination—of its geographic theology: “These, where were
they?” asks God, expressing his joy over the ten tribes’ return. Location and
topography emerge as key.
The notion of enclosure opened up the spatial dimensions of God’s works
in the process of return. In Esdras, we saw him breaking the river into seven
channels. Now, we see him creating tunnels under the ground, lowering the
mountains and turning them into highways, lifting the valleys. The return of
the ten tribes entails the transformation of the physical geography of the earth.