In the last words of the last of the post-Exilic prophets we have the expression "all Israel" addressed to the people in the land; and then the long period of silence sets in, lasting about four centuries, during parts of which Jewish national history is lost somewhat in obscurity. _When the threads of that history are taken up again in the New Testament, what do we find? Is there one hint or reference in the whole book to an Israel apart from "that nation" of the "Jews," to whom, and of whom, the Lord and His apostles speak?_ There is, indeed, reference and mention of the Diaspora, "the dispersed among the Gentiles" (John vii. 35), forming, as we have seen, the greater part of the nation, and some of them still settled in the ancient regions of Assyria and Babylon; but wherever they were, they are all interchangeably called "Jews," or "Israelites," who regarded Jerusalem, with which they were in constant communication, as the centre, not only of their religion, but of their national hopes and destiny. The "Israelites" who in the time of Christ were dispersed among the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites (Acts ii.), were as much one with the sojourners in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as the "Jews" in Bagdad, Persia, or on the Caspian Sea to-day, are one with their wandering brethren in London, Berlin, New York, or Australia, although they then, as now (apart from the Hebrew, which ever remains the sacred tongue, and thoroughly understood only by the minority), spoke different languages and dressed differently, and conformed to different social and family customs. But let me give you a few definite passages from the New Testament in justification of my statement that the Lord Jesus and the apostles, equally with the post-Exilic prophets centuries before, regarded the "Jews" as representatives of "all Israel," _and as the only people in the line of the "covenant, and the promises which God made unto the fathers_." (a) In Matthew x. we have the record of the choice, and of the first commission given to the apostles. "These twelve," we read, "Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather _to the lost sheep of the house of Israel_." Of course, the merest child knows that this journey of the twelve did not extend beyond the limits of Palestine, but the "Jews" dwelling in it are regarded as the house of Israel, although many members of that "house" were also scattered in other lands.