Prophets

When I teach, of course, some prophets, we spend some time in the whole prophetic office, and I'll just make a few introductory comments now to show that this really fits within the biblical theological setting. We start with Elijah today and then we'll go to Joe and then Amos and Hosea. We have quite an order here. I'm going to read to you first of all about Elijah. I have been very service for the Lord, our God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant. That's the complaint, but at the same time we read of Elijah as the quite a hero because Malachi refers to him. Chapter 4 verse 5, see I will send you the prophet Elijah before they great and dreadful day of the Lord comes, and he will be turning the hearts of children to their fathers and fathers to the children. And Jesus said, of John the Baptist, if you're willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He who has ears led him here. Elijah has quite a role in the scriptures, and we turn to James 5 for 17. Elijah was a mad just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain. Again, he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. So I said, we'll begin with Elijah after a few introductory comments. And then we finish up with Amos and Hosea. But I find interesting about Amos is that though he said not to refer to the covenant, and Peter knew what to say about him, quoting him in Acts 15, when they had their first synod meeting in Jerusalem. And then he quotes the Messianic prophecy, and prophecy concerning the mediator in Acts 15. Verse 16, after this I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent, and its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it, and the remnant of men will seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles will bear my name. So what we'd have as we look at these early prophets in the prophetic order, we have very definitely a message that is very relevant. In meaning for for New Testament age two, we read that from James, we read here that from Peter, we hear that from Jesus. Shall we pray? Lord, as we spend a brief time here now reviewing what you've done through the prophets of old, and what they've meant for then, and what they still mean for today, we pray for your spirit's guidance and blessing. Thank you for the work we can do here together. In Jesus name, amen. The prophets, I recall when we started this course that someone said to me, I have a problem fitting the whole prophetic order into what we refer to as the myth that the kingdom covenant mediator concept, just how do the prophets fit into that? Well, I hope that's becoming more clear to you, and because of that question sticking in my mind, I thought I would just briefly review what you've been reading in verse as well as dumbbell makes them reference to it. The prophets were spokesmen for God, and how did they receive the message from God? Recently, I've been reading a dabbling in what some of the critics have been writing, and then I was struck again that they said that the prophets had such a tender conscience. There was a prophetic consciousness that sometimes they could just feel what was coming. That's as close as some of the anti-supernatural critics will come to allowing the prophets to be able to speak a little beforehand. At tender conscience, they had a prophetic consciousness. Others, of course, come right out and said they did this by means of divination, and then they particularly appealed to Bala, who was called a diviner, a magician, and he spoke the word of God, but you may recall, we said, let's talk, but too close to connects between his divining efforts and how the Lord came to him and spoke directly to him. How did the prophets receive that word? God spoke, and they heard. Boss makes a good, gives us a good discussion of that, makes a good point there, and the prophets had Yahweh show them, they received visions, and they God showed them and they saw, and there are some classic examples of that. For example, in Amos, Amos had visions, then he saw what God was going to do, and then he pled for Jacob. Ezekiel had visions, Zachariah had visions, Isaiah had visions, they saw, and as they saw, I was often accompanied by what they heard. Then there is what Boss would also refer to as that intramental state, that's something different than what the critics call that tender contents. The intramental state, the spirit worked within the people without that verbal communication or that outward demonstration by vision. God laid it on their hearts. We have to be very careful that we keep the distinction between spiritual illumination and spiritual inspiration. These men were inspired as they received these messages from God through an intramental means. We are getting into the supernatural again here, and we mustn't be in a way apologetic about that. God works in mysterious ways, and God really dealt with these prophets in a unique and powerful way. Then how did these prophets communicate? They usually spoke and many of them wrote, but they also had physical demonstrations. Jeremiah buried our rather expensive piece of clothing and it rotted. Thus he gave the message. Ezekiel gave many demonstrations also, and then there were the miracles, and Elisha particularly is known as the great miracle working prophet, miracles, and here we again, we enter into a whole area of discussion, and today there is even so much discussion about our miracles still being worked. Is it possible to expect a miracle? The last issue of Christianity today, we have a whole series of people. Christianity today has what they call their institute, and they bring men from various denominations and representations together, and they had the Pentecostal, and they had a dispensation list, and they had a couple of people from other emphases, and then they asked them specific questions about the power of the spirit today. The interesting thing is that the greater part of that discussion is about miracles, especially the miracle of healing. Do miracles still take place? Mr. Wimber, from the vineyard, is absolutely convinced that some of the people received miraculous healing. Now all who came, and that puts them in a terrible tension, others have a difficulty. You know what Warfield wrote that miracles have ceased? They were for the early ages. So the debate goes on about miracles, but that the Bible and that the prophets actually were agents of miraculous activity cannot be denied. It is recorded. They worked miracles. What are miracles? Even amongst conservative theologians, there's quite a debate as to what the biblical idea of miracles are. Three ideas are set forth basically. Miracles are signs of divine omnipotence. The sovereign power of God over all of life, spiritual, physical, natural, they are signs of power, divine power, omnipotent power, and closely allied with that is miracles are definite indications of supernatural presence, of God's presence within this world that has been affected by the parasite kingdom. And third, miracles have to be seen as escalological pointers. They reflect the past as to what the world would be like without sin. There would be no miracles if sin had never entered this world. But what is it going to be like when the devil and his whole parasite kingdom has been wiped? Then we're going to have fully and completely what miracles performed or brought about here and there. So there's that escalological aspect of miracle. You may want to add some additional points to that. Do miracles happen? What are miracles? Is a miracle an injection of God into the natural order? Most of these people in that institute discussion don't like that idea at all because it makes sin part of the natural order and sin is in a way an abnormality. So is a miracle basically a return to the normal? Well, that's where the escalological aspect points in. Can we expect God to do things out of the ordinary? Yes, my oldest son was knocked down by a car when he was five years old, fell on the roadway. He moved a little bit. I was teaching a bible class and when the kids from the neighborhood come running in, your son has been hit by a car. I couldn't get him to respond, but he would move just a little bit, raise his head, hand to the back of his head. He had a basal skull fracture. Within two hours the doctor took me for a little walk through the hospital and said, are you ready to part with your son? A hematoma body of blood is building up at the base of the skull. When it presses a nerve, there's no way that I could stop that from affecting the heart. A good friend of mine from the seminary had had a little boy die because he had been hit by a car when he was under his little tricycle. Tell backward, had a basal skull fracture, died of hematoma. And I remember trying to comfort my friend, my colleague. Now, what I have to do with it too, I felt how weak my knees became as I walk. Doctor, does this have to happen? This is how I do my best. I was scheduled to go out for a lecture that evening. Way out of town, he says, you stay here because I want you here in case we decide to drill into the base of the skull to see if we can release the pressure of the hematoma. By 11 o'clock tonight we'll know. It was every half hour the nurse had come in and looked in my boy's eyes, my wife and I stood around the bed. We prayed. And it seemed to be that was about 10, 9, 30, 10 o'clock and I was praying. We had both gotten up from our chair and all of a sudden I talked to someone at the foot end of the bed. Who are you? I'm the Lord. What are you here for? I'm coming to get your boy. Do you have to? Well, I may want to, but we want to keep him. Why do you want to keep him? Well, you gave him to us. We want to train him. We want to have him serve you. I'll leave him if you promise to keep your word. God, I turned to a wife. Honey, did you hear that? Hear what? That conversation. Never heard a thing. Class, that was so real to me. 15 minutes later the nurse came in, opened the eyes. She dashed out. Half hour later the doctor came in, he was in surgery. Hey, cloud in his eyes. His eyes cleared up the straightened. They took an X-ray the next morning. The one X-ray showed that very obvious crack. The other X-ray showed nothing. He was eating donuts for breakfast. Is that a miracle? Was that my face? No. When we prayed, the Lord did a most unexpected thing in our family. That's my testimony. It's unbelievable from the human point of view as to what God can do, and we'll do, but we can't put a bind on God. Never. We have this promise that when we pray, the Lord will hear, and He will answer, and He will do, according to His sovereign pleasure. First tremendous testimony in our life. Really it was. Does God still work miracles? That's what you want to call a miracle? Yes. If you don't want to call it a miracle, all right, doctor, I still, but he died of a heart attack not long ago, but whenever he saw our son, he'd say, my miracle patient, miracles. There were miracles in the Old Testament times. Jesus performed them. Signs of the kingdom. Eschatological pointers. Divine presence. Evidence of omnipotence. A way of communicating. The word was by far the more positive way. The clearest way. Miracles were supporting. Confirming. Authenticating. That word I am with you. I'll never leave you. Have good courage. I'm a covenant God. I will make all things well with you and for you. Miracles. Means of communication. Prophets were called to serve in Yahweh's kingdom, and when I speak of kingdom, I mean they had to speak to the nation of Israel. They had to speak to the nation of Judah. They were kingdom servants. Servants of God, the king, who spoke to the individual kings, but they also had to speak to the foreign nations, the foreign kingdoms. We know what Jonah did. Al-Badaya, name, and you look at the major prophets. All three of them have a word for various nations. They were kingdom agents, and as such, they were often maligned. You can read what's about this in his section on the history of prophetism, especially pages 204 and 205, but we also know that now and again the prophets say the prophets were killed. They were tortured. They were torn. Cut us under. You read about this also in Hebrews 11. The book of the, of the Old Testament, doesn't nearly give us the full history of the prophets. Very little of their personal experience. We just get some of these indications. Jeremiah gives us the closest and the clearest picture of what it would be like to be persecuted as a kingdom agent, but I also want to point out that they were very definitely covenant mediators. As spokesman for God, agents in the kingdom, they were covenant mediators. And remember, we spoke of the covenant as that relationship, that bond, that God established between himself and his people, between himself and individuals, but at the same time that bond had stipulations and had ways and means and method. There's a covenant message and there's a covenant method and there's covenant motivation. Well, the covenant had its methods and the prophets fit into that and they were one of the mediators that showed how God worked out his covenant. So they were covenant mediators preaching concerning that covenant. And I stress this because well-housen is still alive in the hearts and minds of many a critical scar. Do you know what well-housen said? Well-housen said that this whole idea of covenant did not arise until the very late century prophets. Proof the early century prophets don't refer to it. They didn't know about the covenant. Joe, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, they didn't know anything about a covenant that when you get to Jeremiah and then they started working it back into Moses. So there's a whole area there where a house and said, well, there's no reference to the prophets. Well, read these prophets and that's one reason again too why I want to emphasize that these prophets were not only mediators of the bond of that administrative means the covenant. They also proclaimed that they proclaimed aspects of it. They proclaimed the very basic idea of it. And as covenant mediators, we have to remember they always stood between God and his appointed kings. Young refers to them as the guardians of the theocracy. Voss refers to them as indeed God's appointed support for the kings. The prophets stood between God and the kings and they stood between God and the kingdom. So much for that. We go out to the pre-8th century prophets. There had been prophets before, Samuel, David, Solomon, Nathan. Some of these wrote, I'm sure Samuel wrote David wrote Solomon. We don't know that Nathan wrote. They were preaching people, writing people, singing people. But Elijah is often seen as the first of the active prophets. 1 Kings 17, Elijah the Tishbright is suddenly introduced and then we read of Elijah dying in 2 Kings 13, 20. And that whole section of the book of 1st and 2nd Kings deals with Elijah and Elijah in the setting of a powerful influence of the parasite kingdom. How the devil was at work in the kingdom of Israel and Judah. And this parasite kingdom, the Satanic kingdom, was particularly obvious through three ways. The whole ballistic phenomena, Baalism had taken over with Jezebel a woman and her prophets being by far the main representatives of this abominable idol worship. Baal, the great sun god, the god of fire, the god of king and power. And secondly, the kings were so apostate in the northern kingdom. Not one prophet, as you mentioned before, was faithful to Yahweh. Six dynasties, one after the other came. Jehu is the only one who claimed some acknowledgement of god. But yet he was an idol worshiper himself even though he wrote it out Baalism. The apostasy in the royal house and evidence of the sure evidence of the parasite kingdom, the kingdom of Satan. And then there was that powerful influence that was exerted by the Baal prophets. The queen Jezebel had tremendous influence by exercising through her prophets. It's amazing. The power of religion, even false religion. And you read the stories of Elijah and Elisha. And you can just feel the throbbing Satanic power that these prophets had to face. As it came to expression through the false prophets, the apostate kings, through idol worship, the priests, the assureded seem as though Satan was able to take over the parasite kingdom seemed so strong. And in the midst of that, Elijah, the Tishbite, had to experience the power of god when he had to go out and had to be fed by ravens. And then he had to face a hat after he had prayed that there would be no rain and there was no rain. Oh, the courage that that man needed, and god gave him the courage. And then we see him having more power than the Baal prophets in the way a Mount Carmo. And the way he brought down the fire that consumed the altar with socialist water and then Elijah fled. And there's the human Elijah. And we read from that passage, why are you so downhearted Elijah? Now many people have made more of Elijah's despondency than of Elijah's power. Elijah became despondent when he heard that there was no place for him to live. That the queen and her vengeance had all kinds of spies and people out to catch him so he runs. And then my love for the Lord, my zeal, I've been on the offensive for you, Lord, because I love you and I love your kingdom. The word that we have in the Hebrew kana, you know, the same verb and adjective and noun that used to describe God's care for his people. Elijah says, God, I've been like you. I've been imitating you. I've been representing you. But Israel, first king's 19 verse 10, Israelites have rejected your covenant. Elijah knew what had happened at Sinai. What had happened at Sinai? What had happened under banks of the Jordan? How Joshua had had two renewals and how there had been renewal under Samuel? The covenant, the covenant had been renewed again and again, but the Israelites rejected it. They rejected the love of God. They rejected the promises of God. They rejected the sure future that God had for them. They had rejected your covenant. And that, in a way, is a theme of many of the prophets. Elijah states it, and evidence as they're having broken the covenant, they have broken down your altar. It doesn't say they have erected altars. They have broken down the altars. Do you around me 16 have permitted? There are people to have altars here, there in other places. They have broken down your altars. Not only rejected the covenant, but rejected the way of having fellowship with God. And then, thirdly, they put your prophets to death with the sword. They have killing the prophets. And there was a record, a history of prophet killing evidently. Again, we don't know the details of this, but we believe what he says. God's prophets were being killed. And how was he to know that he won't be? So he had run for his life. But Elijah nevertheless stands as a tremendous man of God. And that's why I read to you from Malachi. Elijah will come that great prayer says James, who could pray for rain and it didn't rain. And when he prayed again, it would rain. But he was a man just like you and I, human like all of us, but he was a man that placed himself at the service of God. Elijah is known as the great miracle worker. And I've said enough about miracles before. And these various points that I've mentioned about miracles surely are true in the case of Elijah. Elijah surely did prove the covenantal promise I am with you. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Be a good courage. But if there's one thing that Elijah did, was he in a unique way was able to show God's sovereignty over the nations. Think of the Naaman incident. But particularly when the armies of the surrounding nations came to attack, Elijah was able to give the word of courage and to give guidance in direction. In fact, the subordinates of the enemy kings were able to say, they have Elijah. And he's able to tell these people what is actually talked about in our secret chambers. And Elijah didn't, wasn't a clairvoyant. Elijah was the servant of the sovereign God. And Elijah in varied ways, again and again, demonstrated Yahweh's sovereignty over creation, performing miracles within creation could make an axe head float. And in the way he too was able to show that the covenant of creation, God's administrative means within the cosmos was alive and well. So these two men stand there as tremendous testimonies of what the prophetic order could do and did do agents in the kingdom, servants within the covenant, ministering to kings, ministering to the people. They have a real place and every prophet becomes and must be seen as a type of Christ. Because from Moses right on through to Christ, that whole prophetic order, everyone that was a true prophet, a spokesman for God, an agent in the kingdom, a mediator of the covenant, pointed forward to the great prophet who come of whom. Moses spoke in Deuteronomy 18, Kamoki. And now the Kamoki, a prophet like me will come. And that is the prophecy concerning the Christ. And all these prophets stand between Moses and Christ, a reminder of the great prophet, Christ to come. For Christ was the real revealer of the father, the real demonstrator of sovereign omnipotence. He came, the king, he came, the mediator of the covenant. And he made the covenant such a blessed reality. Not only the God saying, I am with you, but in the way he carried out all the promises and stipulations. So every prophet, Samuel, sure, Moses, Samuel, Nathan, but Elijah and Elisha, they stand tall and strong and dominant, types of Christ. But that doesn't mean that we have to see Elijah in Malachi as specifically a prophecy of the Christ. Jesus says, hey, you have to see Elijah, who in the way was the first of the active prophets within the nation. Elijah was the first, John the Baptist is the second. But in a real sense, John the Baptist, the forerunner to Christ was also not just a forerunner, but he was indeed a type of Christ also. Remember that. Now we must go on to the three prophets and say, just a word about them. Joel, now many people place Joel in the post-exilic era. And you'll find conservative writers doing that as well as liberal writers. Joel does not identify his time. Joel is often pegged historically, time-wise, by his reference to the Locust plagues. Now, when were there these severe Locust plagues? And for what archaeologists and other biologists can figure out, it was a rather common occurrence, common maybe every 10-15 years. When I was a boy in the farm in California, we had not locusts, grasshoppers like the people in the Midwest did. Remember when I was a kid in a teenage, we heard about these grasshoppers plagues in the Midwest. Do you ever hear them? Clean up the corn and clean up the fields and the grasshoppers would come and it would be like a mowing machine that had moved across the field. In California, we had army worms. Little green worms, and there were so many of them that we'd call them army worms. Just little worms, and they could crawl and when they came, they would strip the off-elf of fields, they would strip the bean field, they ate everything. And if they got into the archer, they got to the trees and eat anything that was soft on the trees. And it was the days before Ariel spraying a pesticides. And I tell you, a few times, we had quite a battle with that army. Every couple years, we had that scourge of army worms. I can remember my father sending me out with the horses in 16-inch air plow, and I had a deeper plow, a big deep furrow all around our farm right along the edge of the road. And I had to go through the second time so the furrow would be deep. I'm not kidding you. Within 25 hours, that furrow was left with full of dying, rotting worms. And then the other worms that come over the dead ones who go right over the top, and we only delayed devastation 25 hours. Plagues. Yeah, you know, plagues of locust, there they came. It's very difficult to peg Joel because of that, because they still have problems with grasshoppers over there. But when I look at Joel, and I know Dr. Hendrickson in his book, is ready to say Joel could be post-exilic, but when I look at Joel, I see him as setting the agenda for the canonical prophets. And over here I have written what I consider to be the covenant realities, the basic themes that you find right through the prophets. Joel, this idea of room on that board, so I went over here. The first chapter and a half, he speaks of the judgment, the curse. And the curse, particularly through these plagues of locusts, God is angry with his people. But then he also calls for repentance, and that graphic little statement that he has, when he calls the people to repentance, he says, rend your hearts and not your garment. The Old Testament way was, you know, they'd rend their clothes, through a sackcloth and over their head, ashes on the head, and that was a sign of repentance. And Joel says, save your coats. Keep the sackcloth in the shed. Let the ashes stay on a heap. Deal with your heart. Your heart has to be torn. Repentance is what is needed. Now that is a message that came through from the prophets repeatedly, and boss points out that the early prophets would preach repentance and restoration. Repentance and restoration. Once Manasseh has come to the throne, then the emphasis of the prophets is repent and expect regeneration, a whole new order. But the earlier prophets said, a restoration is possible. The Devedic house can continue according to God's promise. But through Nathan, God's word had been, and if your sons become disobedient, great judgment will fall, well, that judgment could be averted. The early prophets said, and Joel's is so eloquent. Repent. Tell your hearts. Break your hearts. Some fifty-one, not sacrificed, but are broken in a contrite heart is what the Lord wants. Then he goes on from chapter 218, and then in chapter 218 you read this statement, and God was jealous. And the love of God came through, that covenant love of God, and how is that covenant love of God shown by His love and compassion, and God continues to look at on His people with not only love, but He suffers with them. Joel speaks of the natural gifts, which come again because God is a faithful creation covenant keeper, and there will be grain, and there will be corn, and there will be wine, and there will be all kinds of food. The Spirit will come, and the Spirit will work mightily, chapter 2, verse 28 to 31. Pentecost. Joel says, I mean Peter says that Joel's prophecy was particularly fulfilled on Pentecost, and then the day of the Lord, that great and day of the Lord, and here, Joel is obviously speaking about everything from Pentecost on. That's the way I interpret this. Please understand, and I like anybody to challenge me on this. He worked through Joel, the compassion, the gifts, the presence, and then the day of the Lord, the whole New Testament era ushing coming in when Christ returns. What are the characteristic aspects of the day of the Lord? Salvation, and whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, and that's exactly what the prophet, I mean the Apostle said when they went preaching, the gathering of the nations. Others had spoken of it, and look how the Apostles immediately went amongst the nations to start bringing in the nations. That's what Acts 15 that's in it, meaning was all about. Amos had said that the nations would come in, that universal peace that is to come. There you have the agenda for the prophets. Those are the major themes you'll find in them, and every one of them are covenant realities, covenant sureties, that you will find when God speaks to know it to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob, through Moses, through Joshua, and therefore I say, I believe Joel sets the agenda for the prophets. Others would say he sums up the prophets. Well, but then there were the two prophets that spoke to Israel, Amos and Hosea, and it's Amos and Hosea who are said by well-housing to not reflect the covenant at all. Well, as I have on the board over here, there are three things that Amos very specifically did. He spoke of Israel's election. You only have I known. Therefore I will visit my punishment, my judgment upon you. You only, you are the glory, the excellence of the Lord. He says in another part in chapter 7, but Amos preached Israel's judgment to come. Remember how he begins? He speaks about the different nations around how God's judgment, then he goes to Judah, and finally he comes to Israel, and then he has chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, dealing with God's judgment, the curse of the covenant that's going to come to expression. But is that the end? The curse? Oh, no. For the northern 10 tribes, remember Amos is preaching to the northern 10 tribes, for the northern 10 tribes, there is a great future. The form and tentative David will be resurrected, and the remnants of the nations of the earth, not only will Israel go back to Jerusalem. But the remnants of the nations will all come together. That's what he speaks. So here, then, he speaks, makes definite reference to the Abrahamic covenant, through you only have I known because God spoke so specifically. Here you find the reflection of the, of the Mosaic covenant, especially as it was repeated on the banks of the Jordan and Deuteronomy. And here he makes reference to the Davidic covenant. Oh, God will not forget his covenant with Abraham through Moses or through David. And when Peter was accused of breaking the covenant by going to the Gentiles with the gospel, by some Jewish Christians, at the first Senate meeting, he appeals to this passage, saying, but Amos said, I had to do this. This is God's will. Now, in the New Testament age, the nations are to come in. Then we have Hosea. Hosea, the great covenant to the Northern Ten Tribes. God didn't reject the Northern Ten Tribes when they rebelled from underneath the, the Davidic house. Oh, no. Jonah, by the way, according to chapter 14, was also from the North. He was sent, he was Syria. But Hosea has five basic covenant themes. The covenant is God's merit. Hosea, go and marry a lady from the circle of the prostitution. And when she's unfaithful, take her back because the marriage stands. The covenant is inviable. Then chapter 4 verses 1 to 6, God has a controversy. There is no knowledge of God in the land. There is killing and swearing and stealing and the priests are unfaithful. So God has this covenant lawsuit. You have broken your side of the covenant. The curse will surely come. It's inescapable. You break the marriage. You hear God's accusation. There will be a curse. But is there grace? Oh, yes, Hosea proclaims God's grace in the way that Hosea had to take Gomer back. But chapter 6, the first three verses, they are, for me, some of the most precious verses that we have in the Bible, Hosea 6 come. Let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has entered us. But he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us. On the third day, he will restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us press on to acknowledge him as surely as the sun rises. He will appear. He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. There is the proclamation of grace. There is the proclamation of God's love for the unworthy. It goes on to say in verse 7, oh, Ephraim, what can I do with you? Come back! Ephraim was apostate. Ephraim resisted. Ephraim was like a pancake that was burnt on one side and raw on the other, fit to be thrown out. Grace, come back, come back, come back. God will heal. God will restore. God will continue his covenant. His words stands. He will never, never fail us. Hosea preached to the northern ten tribes. And you know when the eggs are was finished and Ezra took a record of who came back. There were representatives in that return from the northern ten tribes. God had kept a remnant from the north and God kept the word as he spoke to him in the name of God. God is rightful.