Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:3, NOT regarding the Ten Tribes of Israel

Posted on January 11, 2008
Filed Under Ancient History, Ephraim (Multitude of Nations), House of Judah (Jews), Noah, Oral Torah, Talmud

You’ll find several scholars reference the Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:3, connecting it to the Ten Tribes of Israel, but looking at the scripture verse referenced within the passage, it simply isn’t referencing Israel or her dispersions at all.

“The generation of the Dispersion have no share in the world to come, for it is written, So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; So the Lord scattered them abroad-in this world; and the Lord scattered them from thence-in the world to come.” - Danby, Herbert. The Mishnah, translated from the Hebrew. pg.397 (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:3)

This particular passage is referencing Genesis 11:8, which in context is plainly speaking of the “Dispersion” of peoples at the Tower of Babel, not the “Dispersion” of the Jews to Babylon or the “Dispersion” of the ten tribes of Israel/Joseph by the Assyrians.

Genesis 11:6-9:
6 And YHVH said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do: and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
8 So YHVH scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city.
9 Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because YHVH did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did YHVH scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.