Thursday, June 21, 2012

The northern kingdom is destroyed (2 kings 15:30-31; 2 kings 17:1-4)

Meanwhile, back in the north, Hoshea, son of Elah kills King Pekam in a coup d'état. That happens a lot in the north.

Hoshea did evil in the sight of God. Plus all those prophecies by Amos, Micah, and Isaiah about Ephraim being destroyed.

It is time....

By this time, the northern kingdom is a vassal state of the Assyrian Empire. We can assume that their allies the Arameans are long gone as well. Hoshea is tired of paying tribute to the Assyrians, so he sends envoys to the king of Egypt to help with the Assyrians. The Assyrian king discovers this and sends the army against Samaria. The siege last for 3 years and Hoshea is taken captive. The Assyrians follow their standard protocol of their empire and deport the entire population of the northern kingdom to be assimilated into the Assyrian empire.

Following the Assyrian empire protocol, other people conquered elsewhere would then be transplanted into what was the northern kingdom of Israel.

Otherwise, the 10 northern tribes are now "lost". But if we follow Isaiah's prophecy about the north, at least some remnant of Israel remain and look to God. I do not know if this is recorded in the Bible or in history. The Biblical text then focuses exclusively on the southern kingdom from here on.

No comments:

Post a Comment