Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
As he had said by all his servants the prophets - The writer refers not only to the extant prophecies of Moses (Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 4:26-27; Deuteronomy 28:36, etc.), Ahijah the Shilohite (marginal reference), Hosea Hosea 9:3, Hosea 9:17, and Amos Amos 7:17, but also to the entire series of warnings and predictions which prophet after prophet in a long unbroken succession had addressed to the disobedient Israelites II Kings 17:13 on their apostasy, and so leaving them wholly "without excuse" (see the II Kings 17:13 note).
Unto this day - The words, taken in combination with the rest of the chapter, distinctly show that the Israelites had not returned to their land by the time of the composition of the Books of Kings. They show nothing as to their ultimate fate. But, on the whole, it would seem probable:
(1) that the ten tribes never formed a community in their exile, but were scattered from the first; and
(2) that their descendants either blended with the pagan and were absorbed, or returned to Palestine with Zerubbabel and Ezra, or became inseparable united with the dispersed Jews in Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries.
No discovery, therefore, of the ten tribes is to be expected, nor can works written to Proverbs their identity with any existing race or body of persons be regarded as anything more than ingenious exercitations.
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