2 Kings 17:3-6 "Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser's vassal and had paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison. The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes" (NIV).

2 Kings 17:24 states, "The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites" (NIV). It is also probable that some Israelites were sent to these towns as well.

the trilingual inscription of Behistun Rock we discover what three other cultures called the Ten Tribes. And it wasn't Israelites. Behistun Rock is found in the Zargos mountains, in northwestern Iran, on an old caravan road that runs from Babylon to Ecbatana, the ancient capitol of Media. The mountain is 1700 feet high and on the sheer face, 300 feet above the base is a huge bas relief commissioned by Darius the Great in 515 BC as a grandiose Ode to his great accomplishments. Listed are the nations and peoples he conquered and ruled as the king of the Medo-Persian empire. The picture is accompanied by many large panels which are inscribed with three languages. The size of the whole monument is larger than half a football field; 100 feet high, 150 feet wide. One example of the quality of workmanship that went into the monument is the preparation of the sufaces. Where loose rocks and cracks were found, hot lead was added as a stabilizer or fill. At 300 plus feet! ! Sir Henry C. Rawlinson, shown working on a ladder in the sketch below, is mainly responsible for the decipherment of the inscriptions. It's interesting that Rawlison accomplished the feat of scaling the rock face while copying the inscriptions, and in 1840 deciphering the texts, all by the age of thirty! The text contains many references that link Darius' subjects with the Israelites. The name "Kana", which is Canaan, appears 28 times. We also have a man named "Sarocus the Sacan who wears a hebrew hat. Included in the nations listed is the Sakka. The term Sakka in Persian and Elamite becomes Gimri in Babylonian. Let me add here that Assyrian and Babylonian are virtually the same. We'll be hearing a lot more from the Gimri when we look at the Assyrian Tablets evidence. In the picture we see King Darius facing nine captives, which are secured by the neck with a rope. A tenth is under the King's foot. Each of these men is differently dressed. Across the bottom and up one side are many panels containing the story of Darius' conquests. There is also a large section of supplementary text. The Behistun Rock inscriptions are confirmed in two other places: Darius' tomb, and a gold tablet. The gold tablet again mentions the conquering of the Sakka, while the tomb inscription expands the evidence by talking about three different kinds of Sakka. In all cases, the same name in Babylonian was Gimri. I'll skip ahead a bit to tell you that the Sakka comes from Isaac and becomes Saxon. Gimri comes from Khumri(out of the Biblical name Omri) and goes through Gimmira and the Greek Kimmerioi to Cimmerian. We'll find that almost all those names we learned in European history are traceable to the Sakka, Gimri and Scythians.

After being taken captive and relocated below the Black and Caspian Seas, the tribes of the House of Israel plus tens of thousands of Jews were used by their Assyrian conquerors as a buffer state to ward off any advances by the Medes. Soon, groups of Israelites started moving out to east, and north. The main body of people remained in the area for about a hundred years, during which time they fought as mercenaries for just about everyone. Their unique triangular arrow points were even found in the ruins of one of the burned gates of Jerusalem; meaning that some of them were in on the conquering of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzor! ! Soon after the power of the Assyrians was broken, vast numbers of the Israelites began several migrations, with the main two groups moving west under the Black Sea, and north through the Dariel pass of the Caucasas mountains into the steppes of south Russia. A large group also moved east. These were called Sakka (Saka) and Iskuza by the Medes and Persians. The Japanese name Sakai is but a step away from Saka.

In 1847, Sir Henry Layard, uncovered the Assyrian capitol city of Ninevah. The Royal Palace contained over 23,000 clay tablets with everything from business deals to spy reports from the borders. It is these letters that become the transition point in prophecy fulfillment. Like Behistun Rock, these reports reveal the names used by the Assyrians for the different groups of Israelites they had placed as a buffer state between them and their enemies. With these names in hand we can trace these people and check the prophecies about them. The "Royal Letters" are dated about 707 BC, only fourteen years after the fall of Samaria, the capitol city of the Kingdom of Israel. Maps showing the deportation and subsequent migrations of the Lost Tribes will show you the geographical locations. Letters number 1079 and 197 were written by Sennacherib to his father, King Sargon. Letter 1079 tells of a resounding defeat of the army of the Urartians. The troops were slain, and were fleeing. In the followup report of Letter 197 we find that this all happend in the land of Gamir. We still have one more step to go before we confirm that the Isrelites are the ones who live in that land. In letter 112 it's reported that a people "went forth" from the midst of the Mannai, and into the "land of Urartu." Another Letter clearly separates the Urartians, the Mannai and the Gamera or Ga-me-ra-a-a as distinct from each other. The people named in Letter 112 are those Gamerraan; Cimmerians, in English. In captivity, the Israelites were renamed Gimira and Gamera and finally Cimmerians. But these aren't ALL, just a smaller part of the total number of Israelites that were deported by the Assyrians. There were many thousands of others placed farther east. As the Persian writings on Behistun Rock show, these people were called by a different name. Among the prayer texts of Esarhaddon to the sun-god Shamash are several that name a people never heard of before in history, the "Iskuza" who evidently lived among the Mannai. The name Iskuza can be easily deduced from the name "Isaac." The Israelites referred to themselves as House of Isaac before their exile - Amos 7:9,16. This name Isaac is the foundation for the name Scythian. Unlike the Assyrians, who gave the Israelites a name based back in the name of the Israelite King Omri, the Persians used the Israelites own name. History shows that the Iskuza were called "Shuthae" by the Greeks, and "Sacae" [also Saka and Sakka] by the Persians. Herodotus says that the Persians called the Sacae "Scythians." The Word Scythian only means nomad or wanderer, or one who lives in "booths." The word booth in Hebrew is Succoth, or scooth. The connections are obvious. So, in the Assyrian tablets we are confronted with yet more Hard Evidence that the Israelites are not lost to history. Their names were changed. Why some of those folks have been traced to Japan! ! One of the most common Japanese names is Sakai. And their warriors have a name, Samurai, that is so close to the name of the Israelite capitol, Samaria, that the connection between Israel and Japan is virtually cemented. In fact, the prophecy in Deuteronomy 33:17 that Israel would "push the people to the ends of the earth," is fulfilled. When one makes the connection between the Israelites and the Phoenicians, and, the Israelites and the Celts/Scythians, it's blantantly evident that the Isralites were the explorers/colonizers of all history. Those guys went everywhere. But that's another twenty subjects.