the Children of Israel: 

the descendants of the prophet Jacob, who was also called Israel.

The children of Israel are also called the children of Jacob, the house of Jacob (Luke 1:33), the house of Israel (Acts 2:36), and just Jacob or Israel. The prophet Jacob had twelve sons, and their descendants are called the twelve tribes of Israel and the tribes of Jacob. In the year 720 BC, the Assyrian army conquered ten of the tribes and took most of them to Assyria, in what is now northern Iraq. What remained were the two tribes of Judah and Levi. The tribe of Levi lived among the people of Judah and served in the Temple complex. Those who remained from the other tribes were often called Jews or Samaritans, depending on whether their ancestral homeland was in Judea or Samaria. Later in time the term Jew was used for all the descendants from the 12 tribes of Israel.