another to Daphne in Antiochia, and the third was covered by cloud
which descended upon them. Like them, tribes of Reuben, Gad, half
Manasseh wandered into three lands of exile, as it is written [Ezekiel
23 : 31 ] “Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister.” And at the time of
their return they will come back out of the three lands of exile, what is
the meaning of this? as it is written [Isaiah 49 : 9 ] “That thou mayest
say to the prisoners, Go Forth,” which is said to those on the other side
of the river Sanbatyon [Sambtayon]; “to them that are in darkness,
Show yourselves,” which is said to those who are covered in cloud;
“They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high
places,” which is said to those exiled to Daphne in Antiochia.^60The notion of the three exiles, followed by the mention of the exile of
specific tribes (Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh), ties the passage directly to
2 Kings’ detailing of the three deportations that followed each Assyrian inva-
sion. The sages recover the trivial details of the deportations, which, as we have
seen, had already been reworked into one single exile by the prophets Isaiah,
Amos, and Hosea. The rabbis quoted in this passage, on the other hand,
disaggregate the deportations into three types of exile, and the prophetic
voice is used to support this move.
Each exile represents a different condition of concealment—imprisoned,
in darkness, covered by a cloud. An early ninth-century Midrash explains: “In
three Exiles the tribes were [divided] into three parts; one went to the Sambat-
yon, one was exiled beyond the Sambatyon, and the third [went] to the Daphne
near Riblah and was swallowed there.”^61 Here is yet another reelaboration of a
prophetic reelaboration, in this case Hosea’s ( 8 : 8 ) aside, “Israel is swallowed,”
which turned a story about forced migration into one of distance, place, and
assimilation. Variants on thistoposof the three exiles appear in Talmudic and
Midrashic texts too numerous to count, developing well into the twelfth
centuryCE. In most instances, the familiar locations repeat themselves, but
in some cases new ones are added to the list.
Lamentations Rabbah,another old Midrash, discusses the three types of
exile but adds, “all of them were ordered [by God] in one verse.”^62 This seems to
be an attempt to return to the prophetic tendency to lump all three deporta-
tions into one single event.Numbers Rabbah,a much later Midrash from the
twelfth century, speaks of the three exiles but lists one of them as “those who
are beyond the mountains of darkness.”^63
The thread running through these discussions is the notion of the
concealed—invisible—nature of the ten tribes’ exile, as opposed, again, to the
exile of the remaining two tribes. The invisible tribes are under the ground,