The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel

But an hour is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 4:23–24 (LEB)

Yeshua makes a clear distinction of people groups at the start of his ministry. It is very obvious in the beginning that he is only interested in reaching “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Who is he talking about here? Why does he seem to move on from this mission as time goes by? It’s all very interesting. For example, is the lost sheep of the house of Israel the northern kingdom that was scattered into the nations after the Assyrians conquered it around 722 BCE? They were divorced and cut off from the kingdom and became part of the nations, so then they were not even part of Israel at that point. There were three tribes left somewhat intact during Yeshua’s ministry: Benjamin, Levi, and Judah. Were these the first target audience?

We have a clue in the next interaction talking about the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” There is a Canaanite woman approaching Yeshua, and he specifically tells her that she is not part of his current program. Yet in the end, he grants her request due to her “great faith.”

Matthew 15:21–28 (LEB): ²¹ And departing from there, Jesus went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²² And behold, a Canaanite woman from that district came and cried out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!” ²³ But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came up and asked him, saying, “Send her away, because she is crying out after us!” ²⁴ But he answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” ²⁵ But she came and knelt down before him, saying, “Lord, help me!” ²⁶ And he answered and said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs!” ²⁷ So she said, “Yes, Lord, for even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” ²⁸ Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, your faith is great! Let it be done for you as you want.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

A Canaanite woman from Tyre was not someone connected to the twelve tribes. Israel and Judah are both compared to lost sheep by the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was discussing both houses being lost sheep, even though it was 130 years after the northern kingdom of Israel fell. Like countless other passages, these speak of Israel and Judah reuniting.

Jeremiah 50:3–6 (LEB): ³ For a nation will come up against her from the north. It will make her land as a horror, and an inhabitant will not be in her. From humans to animals they all will wander off. They will go away. ⁴ In those days and in that time,’ ” declares Yahweh, “the people of Israel will come, they and the people of Judah together. Weeping as they go, they will go, and Yahweh their God they will seek. ⁵ They will ask the way to Zion, turning their faces there. They will come and join themselves to Yahweh by an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten. ⁶ My people have become lost sheep, their shepherds have caused them to go astray. They led them away to the mountains. From mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their resting place.

On one hand, Jerimiah’s reference to both houses along with the parable of the prodigal son make me believe Yeshua’s lost sheep are a combination of both houses, with the house of Israel being used in that context to refer to all of Israel, or Jacob’s sons. In the parable of the prodigal son, Yeshua presents an a metaphor of the two houses: Ephraim (representing the northern kingdom) and Judah. Ephraim is the younger brother who left the farm and squandered his inheritance living like those in the nations, while Judah was the older brother who stayed.

Luke 15:27–32 (LEB): ²⁷ And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has gotten him back healthy.’ ²⁸ But he became angry and did not want to go in. So his father came out and began to implore him. ²⁹ But he answered and said to his father, ‘Behold, so many years I have served you, and have never disobeyed your command! And you never gave me a young goat so that I could celebrate with my friends! ³⁰ But when this son of yours returned—who has consumed your assets with prostitutes—you killed the fattened calf for him!’ ³¹ But he said to him, ‘Child, you are always with me, and everything I have belongs to you. ³² But it was necessary to celebrate and to rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead, and is alive, and was lost, and is found!’ ”

This is the good news that the younger brother could return after being cut off, and Judah was not receptive to the message. This was both prophetic and applied directly to the time it was spoken. As far as I know, neither Christianity or Judaism uphold this idea about Ephraim returning through the work of Yeshua. Any rabbi I have heard refers to “Jews” as anyone that was at Mount Horeb when they sealed the covenant with God, completely ignoring the plight of the northern kingdom. Christians mostly think this parable is literally talking about their lost son in 2026, giving them hope that he will turn to God in the end.

In one way, this prophecy has been fulfilled because Yeshua did bring together the two houses into the kingdom. Part of me wants to ignore anything else. The kingdom of God is here now for those who receive it, and inside the kingdom there is not any animosity between Judah and Ephraim. We are all saved through Yeshua, and Ephraim was able to seed the entire world, in effect making the nations a melting pot of the house of Israel. Another part of me thinks this will only be achieved at the resurrection in the Millennium kingdom. Currently, neither those practicing Christianity nor Judaism acknowledge the overwhelming amount of scripture dedicated to Israel being divided and scattered and that the Messiah will be the one to bring them back into the family.

Isaiah 11:11–13 (LEB): ¹¹ And this shall happen on that day: The Lord will again extend his hand a second time to acquire the remnant of his people that is left, from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands of the sea, ¹² and he will raise a signal for the nations. And he will gather the outcasts of Israel, and he will gather the scattered ones of Judah together from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ And the jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and the enemies of Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not be an enemy of Ephraim.

Matthew 24:30–31 (LEB): ³⁰ And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect together from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other end of it.

Yeshua went to the lost sheep of the house of Israel only to be met with complete resistance. He continually saw his message rejected by the people he was seeking.

Matthew 10:5–8 (LEB): ⁵ Jesus sent out these twelve, instructing them saying, “Do not go on the road to the Gentiles, and do not enter into a city of the Samaritans, ⁶ but go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ And as you are going, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near!’ ⁸ Heal those who are sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, expel demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

Here Yeshua specifically says to avoid the cities of the Samaritans. It is hard to disconnect the Samaritans from the northern kingdom. They are those of the ten tribes that did not leave the north and intermingled with the people that resettled the north. They kept a lot of the traditions of Israel.

The context shows Samar(e)itēs to be a geographical, and thus indirectly an ethnological term, but at the same time to be a religious group designation (cf. Ioudaios, Jew). The ethnological identity of the Samaritans is a point of dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans. The anti-Samaritan polemic of Judaism assumes a total deportation of the population of the northern kingdom; hence the equation of the Samaritans with the Cutheans. But the religious community centred on Shechem, or Mount Gerizim, until today sees itself as a confessional denomination within Israel, standing ethnologically in unbroken continuity particularly with the northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. It draws a distinction between the admittedly mixed populace of the territory of Samaria and the worshippers of the Yahweh-cult of Shechem, and accepted the designation “Samaritan” only with hesitation as a term originally used only by outsiders.

K. Haacker, “Samaritan, Samaria,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 450.

At this point, I lean towards Yeshua referring to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as the people practicing Judaism, trying to stay true to their Creator God and the Torah, even though they had been led astray by worthless shepherds. These were the first group of people Yeshua and the apostles targeted in the early days of his ministry. Once these people continually rejected the message, the rest of the plan unfolded.

Matthew 10:14–15 (LEB): ¹⁴ And whoever does not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you are going out of that house or that town. ¹⁵ Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town!

Matthew 11:20–24 (LEB): ²⁰ Then he began to reproach the towns in which the majority of his miracles had been done, because they did not repent: ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² Nevertheless I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and for Sidon on the day of judgment than for you! ²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until today. ²⁴ Nevertheless I tell you that it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you!”

Yeshua followed the script. He went to the supposed family of his Father of his time with a reset from their religious mistakes. Yeshua preached justice and mercy rather than sacrifice. He was rejected by his people and then went to part B of the plan that was prophesied beforehand.

Isaiah 49:6 (LEB): ⁶ And he says, “It is trivial for you to be a servant for me, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will give you as a light to the nations, to be my salvation to the end of the earth.”

I want to make it clear that I am in no way promoting replacement theology. This is the belief system where “the Church” replaced Israel and received the promises. We would have a hard time defining “the Church” today with the plethora of sects and denominations, all with different belief systems. The Church will always be Israel and the foreigners who sojourn with Israel. Paul told us that the message would go first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

Romans 1:16–17 (LEB): ¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith to faith, just as it is written, “But the one who is righteous by faith will live.”

Yeshua started preaching about a shift in the kingdom through the parables. He talked about the vineyard owner giving away the vineyard to someone else and the wedding where no one invited would come. The message is clear now and was clear to many to whom he was speaking.

Matthew 23:37–38 (LEB): ³⁷ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How many times I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her young together under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁸ Behold, your house has been left to you desolate!

Matthew 21:33–46 (LEB): ³³ “Listen to another parable: There was a man—a master of a house—who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey. ³⁴ And when the season of fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit. ³⁵ And the tenant farmers seized his slaves, one of whom they beat, and one of whom they killed, and one of whom they stoned. ³⁶ Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first ones, and they did the same thing to them. ³⁷ So finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance!’ ³⁹ And they seized him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ⁴⁰ Now when the master of the vineyard arrives, what will he do to those tenant farmers?” ⁴¹ They said to him, “He will destroy those evil men completely and lease the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruits in their season.” ⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures,‘The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ⁴³ For this reason, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruits. ⁴⁴ And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls—it will crush him!” ⁴⁵ And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them, ⁴⁶ and although they wanted to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds, because they looked upon him as a prophet.

Yeshua spells it out here. “43 For this reason, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruits”. What else can we conclude? The one who falls on the cornerstone will be crushed by it and not be in the kingdom. In other words, without Yeshua, their religion and heritage meant nothing at that point concerning the kingdom of God.

Matthew 22:2–14 (LEB): ² “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man—a king—who gave a wedding celebration for his son. ³ And he sent his slaves to summon those who had been invited to the wedding celebration, and they did not want to come. ⁴ Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding celebration!” ’ ⁵ But they paid no attention and went away—this one to his own field, that one to his business. ⁶ And the others, seizing his slaves, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ And the king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. ⁸ Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding celebration is ready, but those who had been invited were not worthy. ⁹ Therefore, go out to the places where the roads exit the city and invite to the wedding celebration as many people as you find.’ ¹⁰ And those slaves went out into the roads and gathered everyone whom they found, both evil and good, and the wedding celebration was filled with dinner guests. ¹¹ But when the king came in to see the dinner guests, he saw a man there not dressed in wedding clothes. ¹² And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here, not having wedding clothes?’ But he could say nothing. ¹³ Then the king said to the servants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’ ¹⁴ For many are called but few are chosen.”

Yeshua’s message is clear once again. The original guests ignored the Master’s invitation and eventually ended up killing the messengers. The master destroyed their city and the ones who killed the messengers. He then invited regular people to the feast. Even then, the one without a wedding garment was kicked out. This rules out universalism theology where every one is included in the kingdom. God is looking for those worshipping in “spirit and truth” which can only happen through His instructions. How privileged are those from the nations to receive an invitation to the wedding!

The apostle Paul understood. The elect received the message and the rest were hardened. It is the same today. The whole of scripture is about how the people chosen by God would not submit, there was always a remnant that did, and because of their sin against God it would cause the whole world to have the ability to join the family of God, otherwise known as the Israel of God.

Romans 11:7–11 (LEB): ⁷ What then? What Israel was searching for, this it did not obtain. But the elect obtained it, and the rest were hardened, ⁸ just as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear, until this very day.” ⁹ And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, and a cause for stumbling and a retribution to them; ¹⁰ let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see, and cause their backs to bend continually.” ¹¹ I say then, they did not stumble so that they fell, did they? May it never be! But by their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, in order to provoke them to jealousy.

All the way back to Moses, around 1400 BCE, we see the plan laid out and prophesied. The people reject the rock or cornerstone, do all manner of evil, and God provokes them with “a people that are not a people.” It is quite a story to be part of as the “people that are not a people.” It is a great blessing.

Deuteronomy 32:18–21 (LEB): ¹⁸ The rock who bore you, you neglected, and you forgot God, the one giving you birth. ¹⁹ Then Yahweh saw, and he spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. ²⁰ So he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what will be their end, for they are a generation of perversity, children in whom there is no faithfulness. ²¹ They annoyed me with what is not a god; they provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those not a people, with a foolish nation I will provoke them.

What does this mean in 2026? The temple was destroyed in 70 CE and the rest of the tribes were scattered throughout the world. Does this mean we are simply waiting for the regathering, the resurrection and the Millennium? Yeshua reworked his kingdom to include all of those who will follow him through faith. He renewed the covenant and it became one not of genetics or Torah keeping by the letter of the law, but of those who want to be part of the kingdom by circumcising their heart. The kingdom of God is now in this broken world and later with a glorious future.

John 4:23–24 (LEB): ²³ But an hour is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Yeshua said that the Father is looking for true worshippers. It’s not about taking back land by earthly might or destroying anyone that may not agree with one’s religion. It is about worshipping God in spirit and truth. This is how to build greater Israel. The people that are doing this are the kingdom of God, both Jew and Gentile, Judah and Ephraim. The ones that are not worshipping in spirit and truth are not part of the kingdom. John spells this out for us.

1 John 2:22–23 (CJB): ²² Who is a liar at all, if not the person who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah? Such a person is an anti-Messiah—he is denying the Father and the Son. ²³ Everyone who denies the Son is also without the Father, but the person who acknowledges the Son has the Father as well.

So what can we say? Put away land worship and denying Yeshua and worship the Father in spirit and truth keeping the commands of God and the faith of Yeshua!

Photo by Ariana Prestes on Unsplash