The 12 Tribes of Israel Chart: Where Are the Tribes Today?
Dishon Francis | Yasharun the Scribe
You've probably seen it. A chart with twelve rows, one for each tribe of Israel, and a modern people beside each name. Judah: African Americans. Benjamin: West Indians. Levi: Haitians. Gad: Native Americans. It gets shared in group chats, printed on shirts and taped inside Bibles. And the question that follows it is always the same: which tribe am I?
I want to take that chart seriously, which means treating it the way I'd treat any claim: find out where it came from, lay it next to Scripture, and grade what holds. Some of what follows may be hard to hear if you love that chart. I'm asking you to stay with me anyway, because the real story of the twelve tribes is bigger than any chart.
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version, with the Name restored as Yahuah and the divine title rendered Elohim.
The Chart Most People Have Seen
Versions differ, but the most common one reads like this: Judah is African Americans; Benjamin, West Indians and Jamaicans; Levi, Haitians; Simeon, Dominicans; Zebulun, Guatemala to Panama; Ephraim, Puerto Ricans; Manasseh, Cubans; Gad, North American Indians; Reuben, the Seminoles; Naphtali, Argentina and Chile; Asher, Colombia to Uruguay; and Issachar, Mexicans.
Where did it come from? Researchers who have traced it, including critics at the Christian Research Institute and the InContext journal, date it to the One West school in Harlem in the late 1960s, where a teacher known as Arieh or Ahrayah is said to have received it in a vision. Those accounts come mostly from critics, so treat the details with care. What isn't in dispute is that the chart is modern. It isn't found in any ancient source, and many Israelites don't hold to it. It's also often taught alongside a second chart that labels other peoples as Edom or as enemies. I don't teach that one, and I'll say why below.
The Twelve Tribes in Scripture
Start with the source. Jacob gathers his sons before he dies:
"And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days." (Genesis 49:1, KJV)
Then he speaks over each one, and the chapter closes: "All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them" (Genesis 49:28, KJV).
A few details matter for everything else:
- Joseph becomes two tribes. Jacob adopts Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh as his own (Genesis 48:5).
- Levi gets no land. "Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; Yahuah is his inheritance" (Deuteronomy 10:9, KJV). The Levites served as priests and lived in cities spread among the other tribes.
- The list of twelve changes. Depending on whether Levi and Joseph are counted, the names shift. Revelation 7 leaves Dan out entirely, and so do most versions of the chart.
Two Kingdoms, Two Endings
This is the part most charts skip, and it's the part everything depends on. Around 931 BC, the kingdom split. Ten tribes formed Israel in the north, with Samaria as its capital. Judah and Benjamin, with the Levites, formed Judah in the south, with Jerusalem (1 Kings 12).
The north fell to Assyria in 722 BC:
"In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." (2 Kings 17:6, KJV)
Sargon II carved the number on his palace wall at Khorsabad: 27,290 people deported. Then Assyria moved other peoples in, "from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim" (2 Kings 17:24, KJV). No return of the northern tribes is recorded (Encyclopedia, pages 38 to 39 and 44).
Judah fell to Babylon in 586 BC, and a remnant came home under Cyrus from 538 BC. My book sums up the difference in four words worth memorizing: "Scattered is not exiled." Two kingdoms, two different endings.
It's also worth knowing that the northern tribes were never totally "lost." People from all the tribes moved south to Judah at different times (2 Chronicles 11:16), and the New Testament still knows a prophetess named Anna "of the tribe of Aser" (Luke 2:36). James writes "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad" (James 1:1, KJV). Scattered. Not erased.
Testing the Chart, Tribe by Tribe
Here's the chart laid next to what Scripture actually says about each tribe. I've graded each claim with the same three words my Encyclopedia uses: Secure, Argued or Not shown.
| Tribe | Chart says | What Scripture says | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Judah | African Americans | The sceptre and lawgiver (Genesis 49:10) | Not shown |
| Benjamin | West Indians, Jamaica | "Shall ravin as a wolf" (Genesis 49:27) | Not shown |
| Levi | Haitians | No land; priests among the tribes (Deuteronomy 10:9) | Not shown |
| Simeon | Dominicans | "Divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel" (Genesis 49:7) | Not shown |
| Zebulun | Guatemala to Panama | "An haven of ships" (Genesis 49:13) | Not shown |
| Issachar | Mexicans | A strong ass, a servant unto tribute (Genesis 49:14 and 15) | Not shown |
| Ephraim | Puerto Ricans | Joseph, "a fruitful bough" (Genesis 49:22) | Not shown |
| Manasseh | Cubans | Joseph's firstborn (Genesis 48) | Not shown |
| Gad | North American Indians | "A troop shall overcome him" (Genesis 49:19) | Not shown |
| Reuben | Seminoles | "Unstable as water" (Genesis 49:4) | Not shown |
| Naphtali | Argentina, Chile | "A hind let loose" (Genesis 49:21) | Not shown |
| Asher | Colombia to Uruguay | "His bread shall be fat" (Genesis 49:20) | Not shown |
Every row says "Not shown." That doesn't mean every row is false. Not shown is not disproved. It means nobody has put evidence on the table that would move any of these from a claim to a finding.
Where the Chart's Reasoning Breaks
No verse names a modern nation. The blessings in Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 are poetry about character and land. Matching "a haven of ships" to Central America is an interpretation, and a different reader could match it anywhere with a coastline.
The nations on the chart are young. Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti and Mexico formed after 1492 out of Indigenous, African and European peoples mixed together. A chart that assigns a whole modern nationality to one tribe treats a mixed people as a single bloodline.
The genetics point elsewhere. Native American ancestry traces to populations that came from northeast Asia thousands of years ago (Raghavan and colleagues, Science, 2015). Large studies of African Americans trace their African roots to the West and West Central African regions the ships drew from, with no distinct ancient Levantine component reported (Encyclopedia, pages 118 to 119). DNA can't rule out a few ancestors from long ago, but it doesn't support whole nations as whole tribes.
It turns identity into a verdict on others. The companion chart that labels other peoples as Edom or as enemies is where this teaching tends to go wrong. My book lists "Modern Jews are Edomites" among the claims that fail (page 146). Scripture tells Israel to love the stranger "as thyself" (Leviticus 19:34, KJV). A chart that teaches contempt has lost the plot.
Which Tribe Am I?
This is the honest answer, and I know it isn't the one people hope for: no test can tell you. No DNA company can give you a tribe, and no chart can either. Outside a few family traditions, like Jewish priestly families, the records that once tracked tribal lines are long gone.
People ask me which tribe I'm from. I've spent more time studying Levi than any other tribe, because the priesthood and the priestly blessing have always drawn me. But interest is not a genealogy, and I won't claim a line I can't document.
What Scripture does promise is that nobody who holds to the covenant is left outside it:
"Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to Yahuah, to serve him, and to love the name of Yahuah, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant." (Isaiah 56:6, KJV)
The Promise Is One Nation
The prophets don't end with twelve rows on a chart. They end with one people:
"And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all." (Ezekiel 37:22, KJV)
Isaiah says Yahuah will "assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth" (Isaiah 11:12, KJV). Gathering is His work. Our work is to keep covenant while we wait.
If Levi's story draws you too, the priestly blessing Aaron spoke over Israel is still the best place to start: "Yahuah bless thee, and keep thee" (Numbers 6:24, KJV). Our hand engraved Hebrew blessing necklace carries Numbers 6:24 to 26 with Psalm 121. And if you want the whole history of the tribes, the split, the Assyrian deportation and every later claim about where they went, graded on every page, that's what The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Israelite History is for. It isn't in the store yet. The best way to hear from us when it's released is to sign up for our free Fall Feasts Starter. New to all this? Start with Who Are the Hebrew Israelites?
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 12 tribes of Israel?
They are the tribes descended from the sons of Jacob: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph's line became two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, and Levi received no land, so lists of twelve vary.
Where are the 12 tribes of Israel today?
Judah, Benjamin and many Levites returned from Babylon, and their descendants are part of the Jewish people. The ten northern tribes were deported by Assyria in 722 BC and no return is recorded. Where they went is still debated, and no claim about a specific modern nation has been proven.
Is the Hebrew Israelite 12 tribes chart biblical?
No verse names a modern nation for any tribe. The chart is a modern teaching usually traced to Harlem in the late 1960s, and many Israelites do not accept it.
Are African Americans the tribe of Judah?
Some Hebrew Israelites teach this. Scripture does not name African Americans, and current evidence does not show descent from Judah. It remains a belief, not a finding.
How can I find out which tribe I am from?
No DNA test or chart can identify an Israelite tribe. Scripture welcomes everyone who takes hold of the covenant (Isaiah 56:6), which matters more than a line on a chart.
Why is Dan missing from the 12 tribes chart?
Revelation 7 lists twelve tribes without Dan, and many charts follow that list. Scripture does not explain the omission.
Sources
- The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Israelite History, Yah's Covenant Inc.: pages 38 to 39, 44, 118 to 119, 146 to 147.
- Sargon II, Display Inscription, Khorsabad (as discussed in the Encyclopedia, page 44).
- Christian Research Institute, "Why Do 1West 'Hebrew Israelites' Call Whites 'Edomites' and Chinese 'Moabites'?"
- InContext journal, "Debunking the 12 Tribes Chart of Hebrew Israelism"
- Raghavan et al., "Genomic Evidence for the Pleistocene and Recent Population History of Native Americans," Science, 2015.
A chart can tell you what somebody believes. Only a covenant can tell you who you belong to.
Called, Chosen, Faithful.