exilic status of the ten tribes was not quite the same as the familiar Jewish one,
and their disappearance had somehow to be accounted for. At the same time,
however, the Mishnah pools them with other “gone peoples,” thereby reinfor-
cing their peculiar status on earth. Only then does it establish their ultimate
future return from exile as opposed to their complete disappearance with no
return.
Later generations of rabbinic scholars were not willing to give up the ten
tribes, and sided with Eli‘ezer’s claim that they were exiled, not lost forever.
This position became the rule. But the idea that they might not return was
nevertheless invoked later, as if the matter had not been definitively settled.
Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi, compiler of the Mishnah during the early third century
CE, had to give a ruling even long after ‘Aqiva died: “They [the ten tribes] will have
a share in the world to come, and they will return, as it reads [Isaiah 37 : 13 ]: “And
then shall come those who are lost in the land of Asshur.”^58 The jury, in short,
was still out. But the view that dominated is the one that is softer on the tribes.
Why, despite the reaffirmation of Isaiah’s prophecy concerning the return
of the “lost in Assyria,” do the sages repeat the debate as to whether or not the
tribes will return? If there really is ultimately no uncertainty on this point, just
what is it that the sages are uncertain about? The Talmudic sages, it seems, are
actually contending with something else—notwhetherthe tribes are in exile,
butwhat kindof exile they are in.
Once they had established the exilic condition of the tribes (as opposed to
their mere disappearance), the rabbinic sages had to confront the problem of a
revealed exile, one that was not invisible but that could be seen. A later Midrash
compares the two exiles thus: “Said Rabbi Yehouda Ben-Simon: the tribe of
Judah and Benjamin was not exiled to the place to which the ten tribes were
exiled, the ten tribes wandered into exile on the other side of the river Sambat-
yon,butthe tribes of Judah and Benjamin are scattered throughout all the
lands.”^59 The two exiles have two distinct geographies. One exile is revealed
and located all over the world (“throughout all the lands”). The other is con-
cealed but apparently concentrated in one place “beyond the river” (perhaps an
allusion to Esdras). The concealed, hidden nature of the ten tribes’ exile is
already suggested in Rabbi Eli‘ezer’s reference to the tribes as they “who are
now in darkness.” The notion of the covered or concealed exile appears
frequently in a number of other Midrashic and Talmudic passages. An early
passage in the Palestinian Talmud, for example, discusses the notion in detail:
Rabbi Berechiah and Rabbi Helbo in the name of Rabbi Samuel ben
Nahman, say, Israel [the ten tribes] wandered into exile in three
divisions; the one to the other side of the Sanbatyon [Sambatyon],