Israel a Maritime Nation—Tyre and Sidon—The Lacedemonians Claim Relationship with Israel—The Ionians, Etrurians, Danes, Jutes, etc.—The various Captivities of Israel and Judah—Media.

The idea, though not until lately widely diffused, that many of the races inhabiting Europe are impregnated with the blood of Israel, is by no means a new one. Many writers, in their researches into the early history of that continent, have been forcibly struck with the similarity that existed between the laws, manners, customs, etc., of the ancient inhabitants of its northern and northwestern portions and those of ancient Israel. These writers have endeavored to account for this peculiarity in two ways. First by the supposition that Israelitish colonies for various causes, left the land of their inheritance and gradually worked themselves north and northwestward over Europe; and second, by the argument that remnants or branches of the lost Ten Tribes had emigrated from Media into Europe, and through the ignorance of historians, disguised under other names, they had remained unknown until the present, their habits, customs, traditions, etc., having in the meanwhile become so greatly changed by time and circumstance, as to render them unrecognizable at this late day.

We will take up the first of these ideas, and present a few of the arguments advanced by those who support it. It is asserted by them that Israel early became a maritime nation, that its location on the Mediterranean Sea admirably adapted its people for such pursuit. By means of the Red Sea in its rear, it also had undisturbed access to Africa, India, and the isles beyond. As early as the days of the Judges (say B. C. 1,300) we find that Deborah and Barak, in their song of triumph, complain that Dan came not up to the aid of Israel in the hour of need, but remained in his ships while his fellows were contending with Sisera and his hosts. "Why did Dan remain in ship?" (Judges v: 17) is the exact question asked. This shows that thus early in Israel\'s history it had commenced to hold commercial relations with its neighbors.[A] The tribes whose inheritances bordered on the Mediterranean, commencing at the north, were Asher, Manasseh, Ephraim, Dan and Simeon. Asher\'s inheritance lay contiguous to the great ports of Tyre and Sidon, while Simeon\'s bordered on Egypt, and contained within its confines other seaports of the Philistines or Phoenicians, to whom, we think, profane writers have given credit for many of the commercial ventures undertaken by the Israelites.

[Footnote A: We have seen a translation of an ancient Danish history, in which it is asserted that Angul of Issacher, a brother of Tola, who judged Israel about 1,225 years B.C., invaded England, and was assisted by Tola in so doing. In the name of Angul we find another derivation of the word Angleland (England).]

It must not be supposed that these maritime tribes were the only ones that would be found spreading abroad. The members of the various tribes did not strictly confine themselves to the boundaries assigned their tribe by Joshua, but they intermingled for trade, etc., and many men of other tribes resided within the borders of Judah\'s inheritance, and vice versa. We have a notable example of this (B. C. 600) in the case of Lehi and Laban, who were of the seed of Joseph, yet were residents of Jerusalem, and Nephi incidentally remarks that his father, Lehi, had dwelt in that city "all his days." The children of Ephraim, from their great enterprise and force of character, seem to have early spread, not only among other tribes, but also into foreign nations, notably to Egypt, and the anger of the Lord is repeatedly expressed through His prophets at His people\'s disregard of His law in mixing with the heathen. In Isaiah\'s time, Ephraim had, like a "silly dove," mingled himself among the people to the displeasure of his God.

But it was not only for trade and commerce that Israel spread abroad; her children were sometimes forced to foreign lands against their will. Two hundred years before Lehi left Jerusalem, the Lord upbraided Tyre and Sidon through Joel his servant (Joel iii: 6), telling them, among other things, "The children also of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians" [or Gentiles], "that ye might remove them far from their border." Here we obtain a glimpse of the policy of these two cities; they sought to weaken Israel by deporting her children as captives to other nations afar off, and with true commercial instincts endeavored to make the transaction a profitable one. And if Judah and Jerusalem, at the other end of the land, thus suffered at the hands of Tyre and her sister city, is it not a certainty that other tribes, living nearer, would suffer from this same cause, and probably more severely?

We are of the opinion that this wholesale slave trade of the Phoenicians is greatly under-estimated as a factor in the diffusion of Israelitish blood throughout the world. So great was the number of slaves held by these people, that at one time in their chief city, the slaves exceeded the freemen in number, and their maritime enterprise was such that they established colonies or depots on all the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, in France, Spain, Italy, Britain, and probably in Germany. The whole coast of northern Africa was studded with their colonies, which they carried south as far as Timbuctoo and the Niger, while by way of the Red Sea they reached eastern Africa, Persia, India, and some suppose China; in fact, they traded with, and established colonies all over the then known world.[B]

[Footnote B: "Although the ancient Jews were mainly an agricultural nation the geographical position of Palestine and the contiguity of some of the tribes of Israel to the Mediterranean Sea, induced the Jewish people to make common cause of their friendly neighbors, the sea faring Phoenicians. There were two causes which conduced to render the Jews well acquainted with navigation on high seas. Many of them were carried away as captives in their frequent, and often unsuccessful, warfare with more powerful nations. The prisoners of war were forced to serve on land and sea. Allusions to redeemed prisoners, returning from the Islands of the Sea and from the "four corners of the earth," occur in many parts of the Hebrew Scripture and the experiences of the Jews in sea voyages are graphically depicted in the Bible (Psalm 107). Then there were missionary voyages of the Jews for the inculcation of monotheistic teachings. The Jewish missionaries visited many lands across the sea, as is attested in many parts of the prophetic writings. Allusions to a life on the ocean and to the unpleasant experiences of sea-sickness occur in several places in the scriptures together with magnificent representations of the wondrous sights of mid-ocean. Such descriptions were not borrowed from alien and pagan nations for the simple reason that the admirers of God\'s marvelous work on the sea are mentioned as coming home from their perilous expeditions and praising God\'s glory in the midst of their own people. The distribution of the Jews in many sea-girt places of the Gentiles is often mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and bears evidence to the sea-faring habits of many Jewish families; David\'s conquest of Ezeon-Gaber; the greatest sea-port in Southern Arabia, was followed by other kings, Jewish and non-Jewish, who coveted the possession of that harbor. The history of King Solomon\'s alliance with the Phoenician King Hiram is given in the Book of Kings. The building of merchant-men in Ezeon-Gaber and the voyages undertaken by the Jewish mariners could not be merely legendary seeing that even in the latter days when the Romans attacked the Jews the latter had numerous ships and seamen on the inland seas. On this subject we find many notices in the works of Josephus and in parts of the New Testament."—Dr. Lowry.]

It is also a remarkable fact that a few hundred years after Joel had delivered his message of condemnation to Tyre and Sidon, that the people of one of these Grecian states, the Lacedemonians or Spartans, claimed relationship with Israel as children of Abraham, and had their claim allowed, and still more remarkable in the light of poetical justice, that these Lacedemonians were the ones used by Alexander the Great in the destruction of Tyre, and in the fulfillment of the words of the Lord through Joel: "Behold I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompense upon your own head" (Joel iii:7). It would appear that the sons destroyed the cities that had sold their fathers into captivity. The fact that these Lacedemonians did claim kind............