The Divided Monarchy – 09 / The Fall of Samaria

Israel enjoyed a brief period of stability after 732 BCE, while Hoshea (732–724 BCE) was a loyal vassal of Tiglath-pileser. But in 727 BCE, when Tiglath-pileser died and was succeeded by Shalmaneser V (727–722 BCE), Hoshea became embroiled in a revolt that broke out in the western part of the empire. We have no Assyrian historical records from Shalmaneser V’s reign, but the general sequence of events can be reconstructed from the Eponym Chronicle, itself poorly preserved at this point, in combination with information that survives third-hand from the annals of Tyre. Evidently Shalmaneser campaigned in Phoenicia in his first regnal year (727 BCE), accepting tribute and then withdrawing. Subsequently, however, a group of Tyrian vassal cities revolted against Tyre and appealed to Assyria for help. In response Shalmaneser marched west again, probably in 725 B.C.E., and began a siege of Tyre that was lifted without success after five years—after Shalmaneser’s reign had ended.

With this framework in mind, we can better understand the brief biblical account of Hoshea’s reign and the fall of Samaria (2 Kings 17:1–6). The statement in 2 Kings 17:3 that Shalmaneser marched against Hoshea and accepted his tribute and fealty suggests that Shalmaneser visited Israel on his way to or from Phoenicia or even that Samaria was one of the “Phoenician” cities that, according to the Tyrian annals, paid tribute to the Assyrian king in that year. According to 2 Kings 17:4, however, Hoshea subsequently antagonized Shalmaneser by conspiring against him, communicating with Egypt—presumably in search of support against Assyria—and withholding the annual tribute he had been paying. Shalmaneser responded by arresting Hoshea. Then, with Hoshea in Assyrian custody, Shalmaneser marched to Samaria and laid siege to the city (2 Kings 17:5). It is tempting to associate these developments with the events of 725 BCE and Shalmaneser’s attack on Tyre. If this reconstruction is correct, it suggests that Samaria and Tyre had probably formed an alliance against Shalmaneser, reminiscent of the anti-Assyrian coalitions of the past, and that Egypt was encouraging if not actively supporting the alliance. It further suggests that the sieges of Tyre and Samaria probably began at about the same time, in 725 or 724 BCE.

At that time, Hoshea’s appeal to Egypt having evidently gone unheeded, Shalmaneser “invaded all the land”—that is, overran and devastated Israel as a whole—and put the capital, Samaria, under siege (2 Kings 17:5–6, 18:9–10). The siege lasted three years, concluding in 722 BCE—evidently late in the summer—with the fall of Samaria, and thousands of Israelites were led into exile. The biblical account of these events is telescoped, giving the impression that the same king of Assyria was responsible for the fall of Samaria and the deportation of the Israelites, but this was not the case. Shalmaneser V died only a couple of months after the conclusion of the siege, in the winter of 722 BCE, so that the final disposition of Samaria and the exile of the Israelites was left to his successor, the usurper Sargon II (722–705 BCE). In his annals and other inscriptions, Sargon boasts of having besieged and captured Samaria, but the Bible assigns responsibility for the successful siege to Shalmaneser, and this is corroborated by the Babylonian Chronicle (a record of annual events begun in the mid-eighth century BCE).

Sargon was prevented from giving his immediate attention to Samaria by two major revolts in the empire that erupted when he seized the throne. One of these, which took place in Babylon, was an outburst of nationalistic fervor under the leadership of the Chaldean prince Marduk-apla-iddina II—the biblical Merodachbaladan (2 Kings 20:12 = Isaiah 39:1)—who proclaimed himself king of Babylon. Sargon needed 12 years to dislodge him from the throne. The other revolt, which took place in the western provinces, was initiated by Ilu-bi’di of Hamath and Hanun of Gaza, who had also rebelled against Tiglath-pileser in 734 BCE The revolt of Ilu-bi’di and Hanun quickly spread to several other cities including Damascus and Samaria. It was this revolt that brought Sargon west in 720 BCE and gave him the opportunity to complete the incorporation of Samaria into the empire and to initiate the deportation of its citizens. Sargon trapped and destroyed the forces of Hamath in the fortress of Qarqar, where Shalmaneser III had fought Hamath and its allies 133 years earlier. When the region had been pacified and Ilu-bi’di executed, the Assyrian army marched down the coast towards Gaza to deal with Hanun. Like Hoshea a few years earlier, Hanun had appealed to Egypt for help, and in his case the pharaoh113 responded and sent his viceroy (turtaµnu) with a contingent of troops. Sargon met the combined forces of Gaza and Egypt at “the city of the Wadi of Egypt,” that is, Raphia (about 15 miles southwest of Gaza), where he won a decisive battle, capturing Hanun and driving away the Egyptian army. With the Assyrian victory, Egypt, for the first time, agreed to pay tribute to Assyria, as did South Arabian leaders who, confronted with another show of Assyrian power in southern Palestine, were anxious to maintain good relations with Sargon in order to protect their trade interests in the region.

It was probably during the first, northern phase of the 720 BCE campaign that Sargon began the deportation of Israelites—one summary inscription indicates that 27,290 people were involved. Although the Assyrian practice of deporting captive peoples had already begun in the ninth century BCE, it was Sargon’s predecessor, Tiglath-pileser, who gave it its great notoriety, not only by employing it on a much vaster scale than his predecessors but also by introducing the policy of two-way relocations. Conquered peoples from the western portions of the empire were resettled in Assyria and in the eastern provinces, while captives from the eastern and southern regions were resettled in the West. Thus we are told in 2 Kings 17:6 that Sargon transported captive Israelites to Assyria and in 2 Kings 17:24 that he repopulated the cities of Samaria with peoples from Babylonia and Elam (southwestern Iran). More specifically, the Israelites were resettled in Halah (northeast of Nineveh), on the Habor (the Khabur River, a tributary that flows south into Euphrates from the highlands of southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria), and in the highlands of the Medes (northwestern Iran). Hoshea’s former kingdom was reorganized as the Assyrian province of Samerina (Samaria), and the city of Samaria was rebuilt under Assyrian supervision to serve as the provincial capital. The once independent state of Israel, the northern kingdom, which had enjoyed periods of considerable regional power under the Omrides and the last kings of the Jehu dynasty, was no more. In its place were the four Assyrian provinces of Dor, Megiddo, Gilead and Samaria.