'Tribes' in the Bible

Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Behold, we are your bone and your flesh.

Wherever I have gone with all the Israelites, did I speak a word to any from the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, asking, ‘Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?’”’

But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, you shall say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.’”

All the people were quarreling throughout the tribes of Israel, saying, “The king rescued us from the hands of our enemies, and he saved us from the hands of the Philistines, but now he has fled out of the land from Absalom.

Then the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, “We have ten [tribes’] shares in the king, and we have more claim on David than you. Why then did you treat us with contempt and ignore us [by rushing ahead]? Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king?” But the words of the men of Judah were harsher than those of the men of Israel.

Now Joab went through all the tribes of Israel to Abel, even Beth-maacah, and all the Berites; and they assembled and also went after Sheba.

So the king said to Joab the commander of the army who was with him, “Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan [in the north] to Beersheba [in the south], and conduct a census of the people, so that I may know the number of the people.”