To my knowledge the word ‘Jews’ is first used in the Scriptures more than two centuries after the division of the kingdom when Ahaz was King of Judah and Pekah was King of Israel. It appears in this passage:

Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war: and they besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him.

At that time Rezin king of Syria recovered Elath to Syria, and drave the Jews from Elath: ….

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me. (2 Kings 16:5-7)

Elath is mentioned a little earlier in 2 Kings:

And all the people of Judah took Azariah, which was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah.

He built Elath, and restored it to Judah, …. (2 Kings 14:21-22)

If any clarification of identities is required, Isaiah provides it:

And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. (Isaiah7:1-2)

Remember, as recounted in a previous post (Joseph’s birthright), that although the perpetual royal line was to come from Judah, it was Joseph, particularly his sons Manasseh and Ephraim, to whom the principal birthright was given and upon whom Israel conferred his name. Joseph had been sold into captivity in Egypt and had those sons by an Egyptian woman:

And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him.

And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.

And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. (Genesis 41:50-52)

Their mixed blood may be why it was necessary for Israel to adopt the boys as his own in order for them to receive the birthright. The apostle Paul writes of Israelites as the people “to whom pertaineth the adoption”. He identified himself as an Israelite:

For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. (Romans 11:1)

The tribe of Benjamin was part of the kingdom of Judah whose people were described as Jews. Earlier in the same letter to the Romans, however, Paul writes:

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; (Romans 9:3-4)

As we have seen, the promises, except of royalty, were given to the sons of Joseph. The law was given to all the tribes of Israel. All of Israel were not called ‘Jews’. The Bible uses the term only in relation to the people of the kingdom of Judah and some of their descendants. Later academics and theologians in error have used the term interchangeably with ‘Israelites’ and even with ‘Hebrews’. To add to the confusion, descendants of the first Jews made converts to Judaism and today Jewry, so-called, includes many who are merely converts to Judaism and their descendants. Not all Israelites are Jews and not all Jews are Israelites.

The adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh is a type of the later adoption of the children of creation by God as his own children. As Paul writes earlier in the same letter:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: (Romans 8:14-16)

Paul is clearly referring to two different adoptions – one of the Spirit in Romans 8 and one of the flesh in Romans 9. (Jesus told Nicodemus that it was necessary to be born again “of the Spirit” (John 3:3-5).)

Different prophecies were made in relation to Judah and Israel and their fortunes were to be quite different. The house of David retained the sceptre promised to Judah “until Shiloh come” (Genesis 49:10) and Israel became a great people (Genesis 48:19) and “a company of nations” (Genesis 35:11). In time, all Israel is to be united and to reoccupy the land promised to the forefathers as a possession but that time has not yet come. The state of Israel occupies the wrong land, comprises the wrong people and has been brought into being at the wrong time.