Ten Lost Tribes Ten Lost Tribes The ten lost tribes were the ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been deported from the Kingdom of Israel after its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire circa 722 BCE. These are the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Manasseh and Ephraim. Claims of descent from the "lost" tribes have been proposed in relation to many groups, and some religions espouse a messianic view that the tribes will return. In the 7th and 8th centuries CE, the return of the lost tribes was associated with the concept of
Land of Israel direct translation of the Hebrew phrase ("Eretz Yisrael"), which occasionally occurs in the Bible, and is first mentioned in the Tanakh in , following the Exodus, when the Israelite tribes were already in the Land of Canaan. The words are used sparsely in the Bible: King David is ordered to gather 'strangers to the land of Israel'("hag-gêrîm ’ăšer, bə’ereṣ yiśrā’êl") for building purposes (), and the same phrasing is used in reference to King Solomon's census of all of the 'strangers in the Land of Israel' (). Ezekiel, though generally preferring the phrase 'soil of Israel' ("’admat yiśrā’êl"), employs "eretz