Hoshea was the last king of Israel, reigning for 9 years in Samaria until the Assyrians conquered the kingdom. There is some debate around the exact timeline, as Hoshea conspired against the previous king Pekah around 8 years before beginning his official reign. Hoshea was less devoted to idolatry than previous Israelite kings but was still unfaithful to God. The Assyrian king Shalmaneser invaded when Hoshea stopped paying tribute and allied with Egypt, besieging Samaria for 3 years before capturing the city in Hoshea's 9th year. This led to the end of the northern kingdom of Israel and the deportation of many Israelites into Assyrian lands.

1. 2 KI GS 17 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Hoshea Last King of Israel
1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah,
Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in
Samaria, and he reigned nine years.
BAR ES, "In the twelfth year - Compare 2Ki_15:30 note. The history of the
kingdom of Israel is in this chapter brought to a close.
GILL, "In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of
Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. In this account there is some
difficulty, since it was in the twentieth of Jotham, that is, the fourth of Ahaz, that Hosea
conspired against Pekah king of Israel, and slew him, when it might be reasonably
thought he began his reign: now either there was an interregnum until the twelfth of
Ahaz, or Hoshea however was not generally received and acknowledged as king till then,
as others think; he being a tributary to the king of Assyria, and a kind of viceroy, is not
said to reign until he rebelled against him; after which he reigned nine years, four in the
times of Ahaz, and five in the reign of Hezekiah, 2Ki_18:9, in this way the author of the
Jewish chronology goes (r), in which he is followed by other Jewish writers; and this
bids as fair as any to remove the difficulty, unless these nine years refer to the time of his
reign before the twelfth of Ahaz; and the sense be, that in the twelfth of Ahaz he had
reigned nine year's; but it is said he "began" to reign then.
HE RY 1-2, "We have here the reign and ruin of Hoshea, the last of the kings of
Israel, concerning whom observe,
I. That, though he forced his way to the crown by treason and murder (as we read
2Ki_15:30), yet he gained not the possession of it till seven or eight years after; for it was
in the fourth year of Ahaz that he slew Pekah, but did not himself begin to reign till the
twelfth year of Ahaz, 2Ki_17:1. Whether by the king of Assyria, or by the king of Judah,
or by some of his own people, does not appear, but it seems so long he was kept out of
the throne he aimed at. Justly were his bad practices thus chastised, and the word of the
prophet was thus fulfilled (Hos_10:3), Now they shall say We have no king, because we
feared not the Lord.
II. That, though he was bad, yet not so bad as the kings of Israel had been before him
(2Ki_17:2), not so devoted to the calves as they had been. One of them (that at Dan), the

2. Jews say, had been, before this, carried away by the king of Assyria in the expedition
recorded 2Ki_15:29, (to which perhaps the prophet refers, Hos_8:5, Thy calf, O
Samaria! has cast thee off), which made him put the less confidence in the other. And
some say that this Hoshea took off the embargo which the former kings had put their
subjects under, forbidding them to go up to Jerusalem to worship, which he permitted
those to do that had a mind to it. But what shall we think of this dispensation of
providence, that the destruction of the kingdom of Israel should come in the reign of one
of the best of its kings? Thy judgments, O God! are a great deep. God would hereby
show that in bringing this ruin upon them he designed to punish, 1. Not only the sins of
that generation, but of the foregoing ages, and to reckon for the iniquities of their
fathers, who had been long in filing the measure and treasuring up wrath against this
day of wrath. 2. Not only the sins of their kings, but the sins of the people. If Hoshea was
not so bad as the former kings, yet the people were as bad as those that went before
them, and it was an aggravation of their badness, and brought ruin the sooner, that their
king did not set them so bad an example as the former kings had done, nor hinder them
from reforming; he gave them leave to do better, but they did as bad as ever, which laid
the blame of their sin and ruin wholly upon themselves.
JAMISO , "2Ki_17:1-16. Hoshea’s wicked reign.
In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, began Hoshea ... to reign — The
statement in 2Ki_15:30 may be reconciled with the present passage in the following
manner: Hoshea conspired against Pekah in the twentieth year of the latter, which was
the eighteenth of Jotham’s reign. It was two years before Hoshea was acknowledged king
of Israel, that is, in the fourth of Ahaz, and twentieth of Jotham. In the twelfth year of
Ahaz his reign began to be tranquil and prosperous [Calmet].
K&D 1-2, "Reign of Hoshea King of Israel. - 2Ki_17:1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz
began Hoshea to reign. As Hoshea conspired against Pekah, according to 2Ki_15:30, in
the fourth year of Ahaz, and after murdering him made himself king, whereas according
to the verse before us it was not till the twelfth year of Ahaz that he really became king,
his possession of the throne must have been contested for eight years. The earlier
commentators and almost all the chronologists have therefore justly assumed that there
was en eight years' anarchy between the death of Pekah and the commencement of
Hoshea's reign. This assumption merits the preference above all the attempts made to
remove the discrepancy by alterations of the text, since there is nothing at all surprising
in the existence of anarchy at a time when the kingdom was in a state of the greatest
inward disturbance and decay. Hoshea reigned nine years, and “did that which was evil
in the eyes of Jehovah, though not like the kings of Israel before him” (2Ki_17:2). We are
not told in what Hoshea was better than his predecessors, nor can it be determined with
any certainty, although the assumption that he allowed his subjects to visit the temple at
Jerusalem is a very probable one, inasmuch as, according to 2Ch_30:10., Hezekiah
invited to the feast of the Passover, held at Jerusalem, the Israelites from Ephraim and
Manasseh as far as to Zebulun, and some individuals from these tribes accepted his
invitation. But although Hoshea was better than his predecessors, the judgment of
destruction burst upon the sinful kingdom and people in his reign, because he had not
truly turned to the Lord; a fact which has been frequently repeated in the history of the
world, namely, that the last rulers of a decaying kingdom have not been so bad as their
forefathers. “God is accustomed to defer the punishment of the elders in the greatness of
His long-suffering, to see whether their descendants will come to repentance; but if this

3. be not the case, although they may not be so bad, the anger of God proceeds at length to
visit iniquity (cf. Exo_20:5).” Seb. Schmidt.
BE SO , ". In the twelfth year of Ahaz, began Hoshea to reign — He usurped the
kingdom in Ahaz’s fourth year; but either was not owned as king by the generality
of the people, or was not accepted and established in his kingdom till Ahaz’s twelfth
year. ine years — After his confirmation and peaceable possession of his kingdom;
for in all he reigned seventeen or eighteen years; twelve with Ahaz, who reigned
sixteen years, and six with Hezekiah.
COFFMA , "THE FALL OF THE ORTHER KI GDOM OF ISRAEL
It would require an entire book of several hundred pages to explore in any
exhaustive sense all of the problems and questions which scholars discuss
concerning this chapter. Our purpose does OT include such an extensive
treatment of what is written here. The great facts of the chapter are as clear as our
solar orb on a cloudless day when the sun is at perihelion.
(1) The day of grace for the orthern Israel expired, and God removed them "out of
his sight" (2 Kings 17:18). Therefore, we may safely ignore the Book of Mormon
and its fairy tale about the American Indians being "the lost ten tribes," as well as
all the other cock and bull stories that, throughout history, have located those lost
tribes in half a dozen places. Our theory is that if God can't see them anymore, men
might as well stop looking for them. Many of the false theories about the present-
day "discoveries" of the lost tribes are founded upon an obscure reference from an
uncanonical book (Esdras 13:29-47).[1]
(2) Hoshea was the last king of Israel, and he reigned only about nine years, and all
of that as an Assyrian vassal (2 Kings 17:3). Shalmaneser IV the son of Tiglath-
pileser discovered Hoshea's defection to an alliance with Egypt and came up and
conquered the land in either one or two campaigns. It is mentioned that he
imprisoned Hoshea, but that probably took place after the fall of his capital city
(Samaria) in 722 or 721 B.C. However, the actual capture of Samaria appears to
have been made by Shalmaneser's successor Sargon II. Much of the history of this
period is uncertain. Keil, for example wrote that Shalmaneser and Sargon "were
one and the same person."[2]
This writer does not share the implicit confidence some scholars attribute to ancient
pagan monuments; there is no reason whatever to consider them any more accurate
than the Holy Bible, or their being, in any sense whatever, necessary as
"confirmation" of what is therein written. We have already pointed out the gross
error on a modern monument at the head of Wall Street on Broadway, ew York
City. And, if in the present state of civilization, such a mistake is possible, how much
more likely it must be that there were countless mistakes, intentional errors, and
outright lies in ancient pagan monuments.

4. (3) The depopulation of Samaria and its environs was also a result of the fall of the
orthern Kingdom. One of the "monuments" cited by several scholars recorded
that some 27,920 were deported by Sargon,[3] but that did not include the number
carried into captivity by Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 15:29). Also, that might have been
merely the number of the initial list of captives. In fact, Hammond pointed out that,
"The 27,920 were those taken from the city of Samaria," and that, "A vast number
of others were carried off from the smaller towns and country districts."[4]
The fact that the entire land was so devastated that it was overrun and made unsafe
by the prolific multiplication of wild animals (2 Kings 17:26) certainly indicates the
near total depopulation of Palestine. One scholar mentioned what he called, "A
Jewish tradition that only Judah was left." That, however, was not a tradition at all,
but an emphatic declaration of God's Word that, "There was none left but the tribe
of Judah only" (2 Kings 17:18).
Of course, this does not mean that individual descendants of the various tribes were
all removed from history. The .T., for example, names a number of persons
identified with one or another of the lost tribes (See Luke 2:36).
(4) The origin of the mixed race of people known as the Samaritans is also revealed
in this chapter, a matter of immense importance. Significantly, the priests (ignorant
and inadequate as they were) delivered the Pentateuch to the peoples of Samaria,
who, by reason of it, became monotheists, countless numbers of them accepting
Christ in his ministry (Luke 4). Furthermore, the existence of that Samaritan
Version of the Pentateuch gives the lie to the claim of modern radical critics who
advocate a late date for the Law of Moses. Adam Clarke flatly declared that, "The
Samaritan Version is precisely the same as the Hebrew, only fuller, having
preserved many words, letters, and even whole sentences, and sometimes several
verses OT in the Hebrew. In all other respects, it is the same as the Hebrew, except
for the Samaritan language."[5] In this light, how ridiculous is the false claim that
the regulations of the Pentateuch were unknown until after the exile! The period
(circa 722 B.C.) was a long, long time prior to the exile.
(5) The chapter also reveals that the devastation and removal that came to orthern
Israel were also intended by the Lord to have been a warning to Judah of what
would also happen to them, unless they forsook their idolatry and returned to the
pure and faithful worship of Jehovah. Unfortunately, Judah was incapable of
heeding the warning.
(6) The theological reasons given in 2 Kings 17:7-23 for God's destroying orthern
Israel out of his sight are elaborated in these verses; and the passage is often
referred to as a "homily" (sermon). o in-depth study of this section will be
attempted. The entire O.T. up to this point is the background of this analysis of why
God rejected them and cast them away.
The reasons may be summarized as follows:

5. (a) Their ingratitude and failure to appreciate all God did for them.
(b) Their idolatry in which they adopted and worshipped the very gods of the
Canaanites whose worship of them was the very reason why God drove them out
and repopulated Canaan with Israel.
(c) Their refusal to believe and heed the warnings of the great O.T. prophets whom
God sent in the vain hope of rescuing them from their apostasy.
(d) Their self-satisfaction and conceit, thinking of themselves as being God's special
darlings, coupled with their utter disdain and hatred of the Gentiles as exemplified
so dramatically in the story of Jonah.
(e) Their breaking of the sacred Sinaitic covenant.
(f) They rejected the plainest commandments of the Law of Moses.
(g) They developed a social "upper class" who hated, despised, and oppressed the
poor.
(h) They even sacrificed their children as burnt-offerings to Molek.
(i) Instead of seeking God's will by the appointed manner via the Urim and
Thummin, they resorted to all kinds of enchantments and methods of divination.
(j) They even outlawed the worship of the true God and made idolatry the official
religion of the nation.
(k) They even oppressed and murdered God's prophets.
(l) They became open enemies of the Davidic dynasty, and one of their rulers
(Athaliah) even tried to exterminate David's dynasty.
This is only a partial and incomplete summary, but it is enough to indicate why no
complete report of such a reprobate history is advisable just here. The only wonder
is that God put up with orthern Israel as long as he did. o nation ever deserved
destruction any more than did they. As Ezekiel stated it, "They became worse than
Sodom and Gomorrah" (Ezekiel 16).
(7) The final part of this chapter carries a description of the corrupted worship that
was carried on in Canaan by the populations placed there by Assyria.
THE SIEGE A D FALL OF SAMARIA
"In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in
Samaria over Israel, and reigned nine years. And he did that which was evil in the

6. sight of Jehovah, yet not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him
came Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant and brought
him tribute. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent
messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered not tribute to the king of Assyria, as he
had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in
prison. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to
Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria
took Samaria. and carried Israel away unto Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and
on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."
"And (he) reigned 9 years" (2 Kings 17:1). Hoshea reigned until Samaria was taken,
and therefore we must understand that the imprisonment of Hoshea (2 Kings 17:4)
is a summary of what eventually happened, detailed by the following verses. Either
that, or the statement of his imprisonment may be understood as a metaphorical
reference to the siege that lasted three years.
"Yet not as the kings of Israel that were before him" (2 Kings 17:2). It is not exactly
known why Hoshea was judged to have been any better than prior kings of Israel. It
might be explained by a Jewish tradition mentioned by Montgomery, "That Hoshea
removed the guards set on the road to Jerusalem to keep Israelites from going there
to worship."[6] If that tradition is true, it is a sad comment upon the determination
of previous kings of Israel not to allow the Israelites to worship in the place that
God had appointed.
"So king of Egypt" (2 Kings 17:4). This king of Egypt cannot be certainly identified.
One of the Sargon inscriptions, "Mentions a Piru as king of Egypt in the year 720
B.C., whose general, a certain Sibu, he claims to have defeated on the road to
Egypt."[7] Again, we mention the danger of implicit trust in such ancient
inscriptions.
"He besieged (Samaria) three years" (2 Kings 17:5). Samaria was a powerful
stronghold, and it is a credit to the builders and defenders of that city that it
withstood a siege for such a long while.
"He placed them (the captives) in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and
in the cities of the Medes" (2 Kings 17:6). It is evident that Assyria scattered her
captives among the provinces and that they were not carried to ineveh, the capital.
"It was also their policy to place them in small groups so that they would lose their
identity and mingle with the local populations."[8] It is not certain as to the exact
location of the places mentioned here, but scholars generally suppose that the
captives were placed in northern Mesopotamia.
ELLICOTT, "(1) In the twelfth year of Ahaz.—If Pekah reigned thirty years (see
ote on 2 Kings 15:27), and Ahaz succeeded in Pekah’s seventeenth year (2 Kings
16:1), Ahaz must have reigned thirteen years concurrently with Pekah. Hoshea,
therefore, succeeded Pekah in the fourteenth year of Ahaz.

7. Began Hoshea.—See the inscription of Tiglath Pileser, quoted at 2 Kings 15:30,
according to which, Hoshea (A-u-si-ha) only mounted the throne as a vassal of
Assyria. On the news of the death of Tiglath, he probably refused further tribute.
EBC, "Verses 1-41
HOSHEA, A D THE FALL OF THE ORTHER KI GDOM
B.C. 734-725
2 Kings 17:1-41
"As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon: the water."
Hosea 10:7
As a matter of convenience, we follow our English Bible in calling the prophet by
the name Hosea, and the nineteenth, last, and best king of Israel Hoshea. The
names, however, are identical, and mean "Salvation"- the name borne by Joshua
also in his earlier days. In the irony of history the name of the last king of Ephraim
was thus identical with that of her earliest and greatest hero, just as the last of
Roman emperors bore the double name of the Founder of Rome and the Founder of
the Empire-Romulus Augustulus. By a yet deeper irony of events the king in whose
reign came the final precipitation of ruin wore the name which signified deliverance
from it.
And more and more, as time went on, the prophet Hosea felt that he had no word of
present hope or comfort for the king his namesake. It was the more brilliant lot of
Isaiah, in the Southern Kingdom, to kindle the ardor of a generous courage. Like
Tyrtaeus, who roused the Spartans to feel their own greatness-like Demosthenes,
who hurled the might of Athens against Philip of Macedon-like Chatham, "bidding
England be of good cheer, and hurl defiance at her foes"-like Pitt, pouring forth, in
the days of the apoleonic terror, "the indomitable language of courage and of
hope,"-Isaiah was missioned to encourage Judah to despise first the mighty Syrian,
and then the mightier Assyrian. Far different was the lot of Hosea, who could only
be the denouncer of an inevitable doom. His sad function was like that of Phocion
after Chaeroneia, of Hannibal after Zama, of Thiers after Sedan: he had to utter the
Cassandra-voices of prophecy, which his besotted and demented contemporaries-
among whom the priests were the worst of all-despised and flouted until the time for
repentance had gone by forever.
True it is that Hosea could not be content-what true heart could?-to breathe nothing
but the language of reprobation and despair. Israel had been "yoked to his two
transgressions," but Jehovah could not give up His love for His chosen people:
"How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I surrender thee, Israel? How shall I

8. make thee as Admah? How shall I treat thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned
within Me; I am wholly filled with compassion! I will not execute the fierceness of
Mine anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim: For I am God, and not man. The
Holy One in the midst of thee! I will not come to exterminate!"
"They shall come after Jehovah as after a lion that roars! For he shall roar, and his
sons shall come hurrying from the west, They shall come hurrying as a bird out of
Egypt, And as a dove out of the land of Assyria; And I will cause them to dwell in
their houses, Saith Jehovah." {Hosea 11:8-11}
Alas! the gleam of alleviation was imaginary rather than actual. The prophet’s wish
was father to his thought. He had prophesied that Israel should be scattered in all
lands. {Hosea 9:3; Hosea 9:12; Hosea 9:17; Hosea 13:3-16} This was true; and it did
not prove true, except in some higher ideal sense, that "Israel shall again dwell in
his own land" {Hosea 14:4-7} in prosperity and joy.
The date of Hoshea’s accession is uncertain, and we cannot tell in what sense we are
to understand his reign as having lasted "nine years." We have no grounds for
accepting the statement of Josephus ("Antt.," IX 13:1), that Hoshea had been a
friend of Pekah and plotted against him. Tiglath-Pileser expressly says that he
himself slew Pekah and appointed Hoshea. His must have been, at the best, a pitiful
and humiliating reign. He owed his purely vassal sovereignty to Assyrian patronage.
He probably did as well for Israel as was in his power. Singular to relate, he is the
only one of all the kings of Israel of whom the historian has a word of
commendation: for while we are told that "he did that which was evil in the sight of
the Lord," it is added that it was "not as the kings of Israel that were before him."
But we do not know wherein either his evil-doing or his superiority consisted. The
Rabbis guess that he did not replace the golden calf at Dan which Tiglath-Pileser
had taken away; {Hosea 10:6} or that he did not prevent his subjects from going to
Hezekiah’s passover. "It seems like a harsh jest," says Ewald, "that this Hoshea,
who was better than all his predecessors, was to be the last king" But so it has often
been in history. The vengeance of the French Revolution smote the innocent and
harmless Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette-not Louis XIV, or Louis XV and
Madame du Pompadour.
His patron Tiglath-Pileser ended his magnificent reign of conquest in 727, soon after
he had seated Hoshea on the throne. The removal of his strong grasp on the helm
caused immediate revolt. Phoenicia especially asserted her independence against
Shalmaneser IV He seems to have spent five years in an unavailing attempt to
capture Island-Tyre. Meanwhile, the internal troubles which had harassed and
weakened Egypt ceased, and a strong Ethiopian king named Sabaco established his
rule over the whole country. It was perhaps the hope that Phoenicia might hold out
against the Assyrian, and that the Egyptian might protect Samaria, which kindled
in the mind of Hoshea the delusive plan of freeing himself and his impoverished
land from the grinding tribute imposed by ineveh. While Shalmaneser was trying
to quell Tyre, Hoshea, having received promises of assistance from Sabaco, withheld
the "presents"-the minchah, as the tribute is euphemistically called-which he had

9. hitherto paid. Seeing the danger of a powerful coalition, Shalmaneser swept down
on Samaria in 724. Possibly he defeated the army of Israel in the plain of Jezreel,
{Hosea 1:5} and got hold of the person of Hoshea. Josephus says that he "besieged
him"; but the sacred historian only tells us that "he shut him up, and bound him in
prison." Whether Hoshea was taken in battle, or betrayed by the Assyrian party in
Samaria, or whether he went in person to see if he could pacify the ruthless
conqueror, he henceforth disappears from history "like foam"-or like a chip or a
bubble-"upon the water." We do not know whether he was put to death, but we
infer from an allusion in Micah that he was subjected to the cruel indignities in
which the Assyrians delighted; for the prophet says, "They shall smite the Judge of
Israel with a rod upon the cheek." {Micah 5:1} Perhaps in the title "Judge"
(Shophet, suffes) we may see a sign that Hoshea’s royalty was little more than the
shadow of a name.
Having thus got rid of the king, Shalmaneser proceeded to invest the capital. But
Samaria was strongly fortified upon its hill, and the Jewish race has again and again
shown-as it showed so conspicuously in the final crisis of its destiny, when
Jerusalem defied the terrible armies of Rome-that with walls to protect them they
could pluck up a terrible courage and endurance from despair. Strong as Assyria
was, the capital of Ephraim for three years resisted her beleaguering host and her
crashing battering-rams. About all the anguish which prevailed within the city, and
the wild vicissitudes of orgy and starvation, history is silent. But prophecy tells us
that the sorrows of a travailling woman came upon the now kingless city. They
drank to the dregs the cup of fury. {Hosea 13:13} The saddest orthern prophet,
"the Jeremiah of Israel," sings the dirge of Israel’s saddest king.
"I am become to them as a lion; As a leopard will I watch by the way; I will meet
them as a bear bereaved of her whelps, And rend the caul of their heart, And there
will I devour them like a lioness: The beast of the field shall tear them Where now is
thy king, that he may save thee in all thy cities? And thy judges, of whom thou
saidst, ‘Give me a king and prince’? I give thee a king in Mine anger And take him
away in My wrath."
For three years Samaria held out. During the siege Shalmaneser died, and was
succeeded by Sargon, who-though he vaguely talks of the kings his ancestors, and
says that he had been preceded by three hundred and thirty Assyrian dynasts-never
names his father, and seems to have been a usurping general.
Sabaco remained inactive, and basely deserted the miserable people which had
relied on his protection. In this conduct Egypt was true to its historic character of
untrustworthiness and inertness. Both in Israel and in Judah there were two
political parties. One relied on the strength of Egypt; the other counseled
submission to Assyria, or-in the hour when it became necessary to defy Assyria-
confidence in God. Egypt was as frail a support as one of her own paper-reeds,
which bent under the weight, and broke and ran into the hand of every one who
leaned on it.

10. Sargon did not raze the city, and we see from the "Eponym Canon" that its
inhabitants were still strong enough some years later to take part in a futile revolt.
But we have one dreadful glimpse of the horrors which he inflicted upon it. They
were the inevitable punishment of every conquered city which had dared to resist
the Assyrian arm.
"Samaria shall bear her guilt, For she hath rebelled against her God. They shall fall
by the sword: Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, And their women in child
shall be ripped up." {Hosea 13:16}
Sargon’s own record of the matter on the tablets at Khorsabad is: "I besieged, took,
and occupied the city of Samaria, and carried into captivity twenty-seven thousand
two hundred and eighty of its inhabitants. I changed the former government of this
country, and placed over it lieutenants of my own. And Sebeh, Sultan of Egypt,
came to Raphia to fight against me. They met me, and I routed them. Sebeh fled."
The Assyrians were occupied in the unsuccessful siege of Tyre between 720-715,
during which years Sargon put down Yahubid of Hamath, whose revolt had been
aided by Damascus and Samaria. In 710 he marched against Ashdod. {Isaiah 20:1}
In 709 he defeated Merodach-Baladan at Dur-Yakin, and reconquered Chaldaea,
deporting some of the population into Samaria. In 704, in the fifteenth year of his
reign, he was assassinated, after a career of victory. He inscribes on his palace at
Khorsabad a prayer to his god Assur, that, after his toils and conquests, "I may be
preserved for the long years of a long life, for the happiness of my body, for the
satisfaction of my heart. May I accumulate in this palace immense treasures, the
booties of all countries, the products of mountains and valleys." Assur and the gods
of Chaldaea were invoked in vain; the prayer was scattered to the winds, and the
murderer’s dagger was the comment on Sargon’s happy anticipations of peace and
splendor.
Israel fell unpitied by her southern neighbor, for Judah was still smarting under
memories of the old contempt and injury of Joash ben-Jehoahaz, and the more
recent wrongs inflicted by Pekah and Rezin. Isaiah exults over the fate of Samaria,
while he points the moral of her fall to the drunken priests and prophets of
Jerusalem. "Woe," he says, "to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim,
and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley
of them that are smitten down with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and
strong one [i.e., the Assyrian]; as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a tempest
of mighty water overflowing, shall he cast down to the earth with violence. The
crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden underfoot: and the
fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be
as the first ripe fig before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth,
while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up." (Isaiah 28:1-4) Israel had begun in
hostility to Judah, and perished by it at last.
Such, then, was the end of the once brilliant kingdom of Israel-the kingdom which,
even so late as the reign of Jeroboam II, seemed to have a great future before it. o
one could have foreseen beforehand that, when, with the prophetic encouragement

11. of Ahijah, Jeroboam I established his sovereignty over the greater, richer, and more
flourishing part of the land assigned to the sons of Jacob, the new kingdom should
fall into utter ruin and destruction after only two and a half centuries of existence,
and its tribes melt away amid the surrounding nations, and sink into a mixed and
semi-heathen race without any further nationality or distinctive history. It seemed
far less probable that the mere fragment of the Southern Kingdom, after retaining
its separate existence for more than one hundred and sixty years longer than its
more powerful brother, should continue to endure as a nation till the end of time.
Such was the design of God's providence, and we know no more. The orthern
Kingdom had, up to this time, produced the greatest and most numerous prophets-
Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, ahum, and many more. It
had also produced the loveliest and most enduring poetry in the Song of Songs, the
Song of Deborah, and other contributions to the Books of Jashar, and of the Wars
of Jehovah. It had also brought into vigor the earliest and best historic literature,
the narratives of the Elohist and the Jehovist. These immortal legacies of the
religious spirit of the orthern Kingdom were incomparably superior in moral and
enduring value to the Levitic jejuneness of the Priestly Code, with its hierarchic
interests and ineffectual rules, which, in the exaggerated supremacy attached to
rites, proved to be the final blight of an unspiritual Judaism. Israel had also been
superior in prowess and in deeds of war, and in the days of Joash ben-Jehoahaz
ben-Jehu had barely conceded to Judah a right to separate existence. More than all
this, the apostasies of Judah, from the days of Solomon downwards, were quite as
heinous as Jezebel’s Baal worship, and far more deadly than the irregular but not at
first idolatrous cultus of Bethel. The prophets are careful to teach Judah that if she
was spared it was not because of any good deservings. Yet now the cedar was
scathed and smitten down, and its boughs were rent and scattered; and the thistle
had escaped the wild beast’s tread!
In the former volume we glanced at some of the causes of this, and the blessings
which resulted from it. The central and chiefest blessing was, first, the preservation
of a purer form of monotheism, and a loftier ideal of religion-though only realized
by a few in Judah-than had ever prevailed in the orthern Tribes; secondly, and
above all, the development of that inspiring Messianic prophecy which was to be
fulfilled seven centuries later, when He who was David’s Son and David’s Lord
came to our lost race from the bosom of the Father, and brought life and
immortality to light.
And it was the work purely of "God’s unseen providence, by men nicknamed
‘Chance,"’ which, dealing with nations as the potter with his clay, chooses some to
honor and some to dishonor. For, as all the prophets are anxious to remind the
Judaean Kingdom, their success, the procrastination of their downfall, their
restoration from captivity, were not due to any merits of their own. The Jews were
and ever had been a stiff-necked nation; and though some of their kings had been
faithful servants of Jehovah, yet many of them-like Rehoboam, and Ahaz, and
Manasseh-exceeded in wickedness and inexcusable apostasy the least faithful of the
Worshippers at Gilgal and Bethel. They were plainly reminded of their nothingness:
"And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish

12. was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and
became there a nation." {Deuteronomy 26:5}
"Fear not, thou worm Jacob: I will help thee." {Isaiah 41:14} But this was the end
of the Ten Tribes. or must we say that Hosea’s prediction of mercy was laughed to
scorn by the irony of events, when he had given it as God’s promise that-
"I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not again destroy Israel For I
am God, and not man." {Hosea 11:9}
The words mean that mercy is God’s chiefest and most essential attribute; and, after
all, a nation is composed of families and individuals, and in political extinction there
may have been many families and individuals in Israel, like that of Tobias, and like
that of Anna, the prophetess of the tribe of Asher, who found, either in their far
exile, or among the scattered Jews who still peopled the old territories, a peace
which was impossible during the distracted anarchy and deepening corruption of
the whole period which had elapsed since the founding of the house of Omri. In any
case God knows and loves His own. The words,
"I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger; For I am God, and not man,"
might stand for an epitome of much that is most precious in Holy Writ. God’s
orthodoxy is the truth; and the truth remaineth, though man’s orthodoxy exercises
all its fury and all its baseness to overwhelm it. What hope has any man, even a St.
Paul-what hope had even the Lord Himself-before the harsh, self-interested
tribunals of human judgment, or of that purely external religionism which has
always shown itself more brutal and more blundering than secular cruelty? What
chance has there been, humanly speaking, for God’s best saints, prophets, and
reformers, when priests, popes, or inquisitors have been their judges? If God
resembled those generations of unresisted ecclesiastics, whose chief resort has been
the syllogism of violence, and whose main arguments have been the torture-chamber
and the stake, what hope could there possibly be for the vast majority of mankind,
but those endless torments by the terrors of which corrupt Churches have forced
their tyranny upon the crushed liberties and the paralyzed conscience of mankind?
The Indian sage was right who said that "God can only be truly described by the
words o! o!"-that is, by repudiating multitudes of the ignoble and cruel
basenesses which religious teachers have imagined or invented respecting Him.
Because God is God, and not man-God, not a tyrant or an inquisitor-God, with the
great compassionate heart of unfathomable tenderness, -therefore, in all who truly
love Him, perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. Sin means ruin;
yet God is love.
The historian of the Kings here digresses, in a manner unusual to the Old
Testament, to give us a most interesting glimpse of the fate of the conquered people,
and the origin of the race which was known to after-ages by the name "Samaritan."
Sargon, when he had sacked the capital, carried out the policy of deportation which

13. had now been established by the Assyrian kings. He achieved the double purpose of
populating the capital and province of ineveh, while he reduced subject nations to
inanition, by sweeping away all the chief of the inhabitants from conquered states,
and settling them in his own more immediate dominions. There they would be
reduced to impotence, and mingle with the races among whom their lot would
henceforth be cast. He therefore "carried Israel away" into Assyria, and placed
them in Halah, north of Thapsacus, on the Euphrates, and in Habor, the river of
Gozan-i.e., on the river in orthern Assyria which still bears the name of Khabour,
and flows into the Euphrates-and in the cities of the Medes. He replaced the old
population by Dinaites, Tarpelites, Apharsathchites, Susanehites, Elamites,
Dehavites, and Babylonians, after carrying away the great bulk of the better-class
population.
After this the historian pauses to sum up and emphasize once more the main lesson
of his narrative. It is that "righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin is the reproach of
any people." God had called His son Israel out of Egypt, delivered His chosen from
Pharaoh, given them a pleasant land; but "Israel had sinned against Jehovah their
God, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen." They
had failed therefore in fulfilling the very purpose for which they had been set apart.
They had been intended "to uplift among the nations the banner of righteousness"
and the banner of the One True God. Instead of this, they were seduced by the
heathen ritual of
"Gay religions full of pomp and gold."
They decked out alien institutions, and alike in unfrequented and populous
places-"from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city"-set up matstseboth (A.V,
"pillars") and Asherim on every high hill. The green trees became obum bratrices
scelerum, the secret bowers of-their iniquities. They burnt incense on the bamoth,
and served idols, and wrought wickedness. Useless had been the voices of all the
prophets and the seers. They went after vain things, and became vain. Beginning
with the two "calves," they proceeded to lewd and orgiastic idolatries. Ahab and
Jezebel seduced them into Tyrian Baal-worship. From the Assyrians they learnt and
practiced the adoration of the host of heaven. From Moab and Ammon they
borrowed the abominable rites of Moloch, and used divination and enchantments by
means of belomancy {Ezekiel 21:21-22} and necromancy, and sold themselves to do
wickedness.
or was this all. These idolatries, with their guilty ritualism, were not confined to
Israel, but also
"Infected Zion’s daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,

14. His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah."
And thus, when Jehovah afflicted the seed of Israel and cast them out of His sight,
Judah also had to feel the stroke of retribution.
And it is idle to object that even if Israel had been faithful she must have inevitably
perished before the superior might of Damascus, or ineveh, or Babylon. How can
we tell? It is not possible for us thus to write unwritten history, and there is
absolutely nothing to show that the surmise is correct. In the days of David, of
Uzziah, of Jeroboam II, Judah and Israel had shown what they could achieve. Had
they been strong in faithfulness to Jehovah, and in the righteousness which that
faith required, they would have shown an invincible strength amid the moral
enervation of the surrounding people. They might have held their own by welding
into one strong kingdom the whole of Palestine, including Philistia, Phoenicia, the
egeb, and the Trans-Jordanic region. They might have consolidated the sway
which they at various times attained southwards, as far as the Red Sea port of
Elath; northwards over Aram and Damascus, as far as the Hamath on the Orontes;
eastwards to Thapsacus on the Euphrates; westward to the Isles of the Gentiles.
There is nothing improbable, still less impossible, in the view that, if the Israelites
had truly served Jehovah and obeyed His laws, they might then have permanently
established the monarchy which was ideally regarded as their inheritance, and
which for brief and fitful periods they partially maintained. And such a monarchy,
held together by warrior statesmen, strong and righteous, and above all secure in
the blessing of God, would have been a thoroughly adequate counterpoise, not only
to dilatory and distracted Egypt, which had long ceased to be aggressive, but even to
brutal Assyria, which prevailed in no small measure because of the isolation and
mutual dissension of these southern principalities.
But, as it was, "Assyria and Egypt-the two world-powers in the dawn of history, the
two chief sources of ancient civilization, the twin giant-empires which bounded the
Israelite people on the right hand and on the left-were cruel neighbors, between
whom the ill-fated nation was tossed to and fro in wanton sport like a shuttlecock.
They were cruel friends before whom it must cringe in turns, praying sometimes for
help, suing sometimes for very life-alternate scourges in the hand of the Divine
wrath. ow it is the fly of Egypt, and now it is the bee of Assyria, whose ruthless
swarms issue forth at the word of Jehovah, settling in the holes of the rocks, and
upon all thorns, and upon all bushes, with deadly sting, fatal to man and beast,
devastating the land far and wide. Holding the poor Israelite in their relentless
embrace, they threatened ever and again to crush him by their grip. Like the fabled
rocks which frowned over the narrow straits of the Bosporus, they would crash
together and annihilate the helpless craft which the storms of destiny had placed at
their mercy. Israel reeled under their successive blows. As was the beginning, so was
the end. As the captivity of Egypt had been the cradle of the nation, so was the
captivity of Assyria to be its tomb."

15. In any case the principle of the historian remains unshaken. Sin is weakness;
idolatry is folly and rebellion; uncleanness is decrepitude. St. Paul was not thinking
of this ancient Philosophy of History when he wrote his Epistle to the Romans; yet
the intense and masterly sketch which he gives of that moral corruption which
brought about the long, slow, agonizing dissolution of the beauty that was Greece,
and the grandeur that was Rome, is one of its strongest justifications. His view only
differs from the summary before us in the power of its eloquence and the
profoundness of its psychologic insight. He says the same thing as the historian of
the Kings, only in words of greater power and wider reach, when he writes: "For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness. Knowing
God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their
reasonings," the very word used in the LXX in 2 Kings 17:15, "and their senseless
heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (words
which might describe the expediency policy of Jeroboam I, and its fatal
consequences), "and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of
an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping
things. For this cause God gave them up to passions of dishonor, and unto a
reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all
unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit, malignity,"-and so on through a long catalogue of iniquities which are
identical with those which we find so burningly denounced on the pages of the
prophets of Israel and Judah.
"Even a Machiavelli, cool and cynical and audacious as was his skepticism, could
see and admit that faithfulness to religion is the secret of the happiness and
prosperity of states. An irreligious society tends inevitably and always to be a
dissolute society; and a dissolute society is the most tragic spectacle which history
has ever to present-a nest of disease, of jealousy, of dissensions, of ruin, and despair,
whose last hope is to be washed off the world and disappear. Such societies must die
sooner or later of their own gangrene, of their own corruption, because the infection
of evil, spreading into unbounded selfishness, ever intensifying and reproducing
passions which defeat their own aim, can never end in anything but moral
dissolution." We need not look further than the collapse of France after the battle of
Sedan, and the cause to which that collapse was attributed, not only by Christians,
but by her own most worldly and skeptical writers, to see that the same causes ever
issue and will issue in the same ruinous effects.
In order to complete the history of the orthern Kingdom, the historian here
anticipates the order of time by telling us what happened to the mongrel population
whom Sargon transplanted into central Ephraim in place of the old inhabitants.
The king, we are told, brought them from Babylon-which was at this time under the
rule of Assyria; from Cuthah-by which seems to be meant some part of
Mesopotamia near Babylon; from Avva, or Ivah-probably the same as Aha-vah or
Hit, on the Euphrates, northwest of Babylon; from Sepharvaim, or Sippara, also on
the Euphrates; and from Hamath, on the Orontes, which had not long remained

16. under Jeroboam. It must not be supposed that the whole population of Ephraim was
deported; that was a physical impossibility. Although we are told in Assyrian annals
that Sargon carried away with him so vast a number of captives, it is, of course,
clear that the lowest and poorest part of the population was left. We can imagine the
wild confusion which arose when they found themselves compelled to share the
dismantled palaces and abandoned estates of the wealthy with the horde of new
colonists, whose language, in all probability, they but imperfectly understood. There
must have been many a tumult, many a scene of horror, such as took place in the
long antagonism of ormans and Saxons in England, before the immigrants and the
relics of the former populace settled down to amalgamation and mutual tolerance.
Sargon is said to have carried away with him the golden calf or calves of Bethel, as
Tiglath-Pileser is said by the Rabbis to have carried away that of Dan. He also took
away with him all the educated classes, and all the teachers of religion. o one was
left to instruct the ignorant inhabitants; and, as Hosea had prophesied, there was
neither a sacrifice, nor a pillar, nor an ephod, and not even teraphim to which they
could resort {Hosea 3:4} aturally enough, the disunited dregs of an old and of a
new population had no clear knowledge of religion. They "feared not Jehovah." The
sparseness of inhabitants, with its consequent neglect of agriculture, caused the
increase of wild beasts among them. There had always been lions and bears in "the
swellings of Jordan," {See Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 49:1 Proverbs 22:13, etc.} and
in all the lonelier parts of the land; and to this day there are leopards in the woods
of Carmel, and hyenas and jackals in many regions. Conscious of their miserable
and godless condition, and afflicted by the lions, which they regarded as a sign of
Jehovah’s anger, the Ephraimites sent a message to the King of Assyria. They only
claimed Jehovah as their local god, and complained that the new colonists had
provoked the wrath of "the God of the land" by not: knowing His "manner" that is,
the way in which He should be worshipped. The consequence was that they were in
danger of being exterminated by lions. The kings of Assyria were devoted
worshippers of Assur and Merodach, but they held the common belief of ancient
polytheists that each country had its own potent divinities. Sargon, therefore, gave
orders that one of the priests of his captivity should be sent back to Samaria, "to
teach them the manner of the god of the land." The priest selected for the purpose
returned, took up his residence at the old shrine of Bethel, and "taught them how
they should fear Jehovah." His success was, however, extremely limited, except
among the former followers of Jeroboam’s dishonored cult. The old religious
shrines still continued, and the immigrants used them for the glorification of their
former deities.
Samaria, therefore, witnessed the establishment of a singularly hybrid form of
religionism. The Babylonians worshipped Succoth-Benoth, perhaps Zirbanit, wife of
Merodach or Bel; the Cuthites worshipped ergal, the Assyrian war-god, the lion-
god; the Hittites, from Hamath, worshipped Ashima or Esmun, the god of air and
thunder, under the form of a goat; the Avites preferred ibhaz and Tartak, perhaps
Saturn-unless these names be Jewish jeers, implying that one of these deities had the
head of a dog, and the other of an ass. More dreadful, if less ridiculous, was the
worship of the Sepharvires, who adored Adrammelech and Anammelech, the sun-

17. god under male and female forms, to whom, as to Moloch, they burnt their children
in the fire. As for ministers, "they made unto them priests from among themselves,
who offered sacrifices for them in the shrines of the bamoth." Thus the whole
mongrel population "feared the Lord, and served their own gods," as they
continued to do in the days of the annalist whose record the historian quotes. He
ends his interesting sketch with the words, that, in spite of the Divine teaching,
"these nations" - so he calls them, and so completely does he refuse to them the
dignity of being Israel’s children-feared the Lord, and served their graven images,
their children likewise, and their children’s children, -"as did their fathers, so do
they unto this day."
The "unto this day" refers, no doubt, to the document from which the historian of
the Kings was quoting-perhaps about B.C. 560, in the third generation after the fall
of Samaria. A very brief glance will suffice to indicate the future history of the
Samaritans. We hear but little of them between the present reference and the days
of Ezra and ehemiah. By that time they had purged themselves of these grosser
idolatries, and held themselves fit in all respects to cooperate with the returned
exiles in the work of building the Temple. Such was not the opinion of the Jews.
Ezra regarded them as "the adversaries of Judah and Israel." The exiles rejected
their overtures. In B.C. 409 Manasseh, a grandson of the high priest expelled by
ehemiah for an unlawful marriage with a daughter of Sanballat, of the Samaritan
city of Beth-horon, built the schismatic temple on Mount Gerizim. The relations of
the Samaritans to the Jews became thenceforth deadly. In B.C. 175 they seconded
the profane attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to paganize the Jews, and in B.C. 130
John Hyrcanus, the Maccabee, destroyed their temple. They were accused of
waylaying Jews on their way to the Feasts, and of polluting the Temple with dead
bones. They claimed Jewish descent, {John 4:12} but our Lord called them "aliens,"
{Luke 17:18} and Josephus describes them as "residents from other nations." They
are now a rapidly dwindling community of fewer than a hundred souls-"the oldest
and smallest sect in the world"-equally despised by Jews and Mohammedans. The
Jews, as in the days of Christ, have no dealings with them. When Dr. Frank, on his
philanthropic visit to the Jews of the East, went to see their celebrated Pentateuch,
and mentioned the fact to a Jewish lady-"What!" she exclaimed: "have you been
among the worshippers of the pigeon? Take a purifying bath!" Regarding Gerizim
as the place which God had chosen, {John 4:20} they alone can keep up the old
tradition of the sacrificial passover. For long centuries, since the fall of Jerusalem, it
is only on Gerizim that the Paschal lambs and kids have been actually slain and
eaten, as they are to this day, and will be, till, not long hence, the whole tribe
disappears.
GUZIK, "A. The fall of Samaria.
1. (2 Kings 17:1-2) The evil reign of Hoshea.
In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah became king of
Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years. And he did evil in the sight of the

18. LORD, but not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
a. Hoshea the son of Elah: We last saw Hoshea in 2 Kings 15:30, as the man who led
a conspiracy against Pekah, the king of Israel. After the successful assassination,
Hoshea took the throne and started his own brief dynasty.
b. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel who were
before him: Hoshea was an evil man, but by no means the worst of the kings of
Israel. Sadly, his bloody overthrow of the preceding king and violent ascent to
power did not make him unusually evil among the kings of Israel.
i. “He seems not to have inaugurated or continued the anti-Yahwistic practices for
which Israel itself is condemned.” (Wiseman)
ii. This reminds us that judgment may not come at the height of sin. When God
judges a nation or a culture, He has the big picture in view. For that reason, the
actual events of judgment may come when things are not as bad in a relative sense.
iii. “It is not the last sand that exhausteth the hour-glass, nor the last stroke of the
axe that felleth the tree; so here.” (Trapp)
PETT, "The Reign Of Hoshea King Of Israel c. 732/1-723/2 BC And The Last Days
Of Israel (2 Kings 17:1-7).
The history here is very much telescoped. Hoshea had assassinated Pekah and he
immediately then submitted to Assyria, paying heavy tribute. Fortunately for Israel
Tiglath-pileser accepted his submission. This resulted in a reprieve for Israel who,
unlike Damascus, were not at that time destroyed.
Hoshea’s vassal status then had to be re-confirmed when, on Tiglath-pilesers’s
death, Tiglath-pileser’s son, Shalmaneser ‘came up against him’ at which point
Hoshea renewed his submission and became Shalmaneser’s servant and paid
tribute. This need not indicate that he was seen as in a state of rebellion, only as now
needing to submit to the new king. On the death of Tiglath-pileser it would be
necessary for treaties to be renewed and new submissions made to the new king, and
tribute might well have been delayed by Hoshea until it was certain who would
successfully succeed Tiglath-pileser (succession was not always straightforward).
Thus by this ‘visit’ he was being given a firm reminder of his responsibilities.
This tribute then continued for some years. But at some point Hoshea apparently
felt that with Egypt’s offered help, he could take the risk of withholding tribute. The
initiative may well have come from Egypt who wanted to set up a buffer between
Egypt and Assyria. We can understand Hoshea’s error. Egypt had no doubt always
been looked on as a powerful country, even if at present inactive in Palestine, and
Hoshea was not to know that at this time it was divided up and weak, and simply
trying to protect itself by stirring up people against Assyria. He no doubt felt that

19. with Egypt behind him he, along with other states, would now be able to resist
Assyria. But he was gravely mistaken. o actual help would come from Egypt.
Analysis.
a In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to
reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned for nine years (2 Kings 17:1).
b And he did what was evil in the sight of YHWH, yet not as the kings of Israel
who were before him (2 Kings 17:2).
c Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his
servant, and brought him tribute (2 Kings 17:3).
d And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, for he had sent
messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he
had done year by year (2 Kings 17:4 a).
c Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison (2 Kings
17:4 b).
b Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to
Samaria, and besieged it for three years (2 Kings 17:5).
a In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried
Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of
Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes (2 Kings 17:6).
ote that in ‘a’ Hoshea commenced reigning in Samaria and reigned for nine years,
and in the parallel in the ninth year he ceased to reign because the cream of Israel
were exiled. In ‘b’ he did what was evil in the eyes of YHWH, and in the parallel
YHWH responded by sending the king of Assyria to besiege Samaria. In ‘c’
Shalmaneser made him yield to him as his vassal and pay tribute, and in the parallel
he put him in prison because he had failed to pay tribute. Centrally in ‘d’ he had
rebelled against Assyria at the instigation of the king of Egypt, and had withheld
tribute.
2 Kings 17:1
‘In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in
Samaria over Israel, and he reigned for nine years.’
As we saw in 2 Kings 15:30 Hoshea assassinated Pekah, the preceding king of Israel
in order to submit to Assyria, thereby saving Israel from total destruction. As a
result he was confirmed in his kingship by the Assyrians. This was in the twelfth
year of Ahaz and the twentieth year of Jotham (2 Kings 15:30), Thus Ahaz’s twelve
years were years of co-regency. But Ahaz was by now in sole control because of his
father’s illness, and thus seen as a main party. Hoshea reigned for nine years during
most of which Israel paid tribute to Assyria.
PULPIT, "2 Kings 17:1-6
REIG OF HOSHEA. Hoshea, the last King of Israel, had a short reign of nine
years only, during two of which he was besieged in his capital by the Assyrians. The

20. writer notes that he was a bad king, but not so bad as most of his predecessors (2
Kings 17:2); that he submitted to Shalmaneser, and then rebelled against him (2
Kings 17:3, 2 Kings 17:4); that he called in the aid of So, King of Egypt (2 Kings
17:4); that he was besieged by Shalmaneser in Samaria (2 Kings 17:5); and that
after three years, or in the third year of the siege, he was taken, and with his people
carried off into captivity (2 Kings 17:6).
2 Kings 17:1
In the twelfth year of Ahaz King of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in
Samaria. In 2 Kings 15:30 Hoshea was said to have smitten Pekah and slain him,
and become king in his stead, "in the twentieth year of Jotham." This has been
supposed to mean "in the twentieth year from the accession of Jotham," or, in other
words, in the fourth year of Ahaz, since Jotham reigned only sixteen years (2 Kings
15:33). But now the beginning of his reign is placed eight years later. An
interregnum of this duration has been placed by some between Pekah and Doshea;
but this is contradicted by 2 Kings 15:30, and also by an inscription of Tiglath-
pileser. If Ahaz reigned sixteen years, the present statement would seem to be
correct, and the former one wrong. Hoshea's accession may be confidently dated as
in B.C. 730. ine years. It is certain that Hoshea's reign came to an end in the first
year of Sargon, B.C. 722, from which to B.C. 730 would be eight complete, or nine
incomplete, years.
BI 1-8, "In the twelfth year of Ahaz King of Judah began Hoshea.
Aspects of a corrupt nation
Hoshea, the king here mentioned, was the nineteenth and last king of Israel. He lived
about 720 years or more B.C. After a reign of nine years his subjects were carded away
captive to Assyria, and the kingdom of Israel came to an end.
I. As an unfortunate inheritor of wrong.
Upon Hoshea and his age there came down the corrupting influence of no less than
nineteen princes, all of whom were steeped in wickedness and fanatical idolatry. The
whole nation had become completely immoral and idolatrous. It is one of not only the
commonest but the most perplexing facts in history that one generation comes to
inherit, to a great extent, the character of its predecessor. Though the bodies of our
predecessors are mouldering in the dust they are still here in their thought and
influences. This is an undoubted fact. It serves to explain three things—
1. The vital connection between all the members of the race. Though men are
countless in number, and ever multiplying, humanity is one.
2. The immense difficulty in improving the moral condition of the race. There have
been men in every age and land who have “striven even unto blood” to improve the
race. Those of us who have lived longest in the world, looked deepest into its moral
heart, and laboured most zealously and persistently for its improvement, feel like
Sisyphus, in ancient fable, struggling to roll a large stone to the top of a mountain,
which, as soon as we think some progress has been made, rolls back to its old

21. position, and that with greater impetuosity.
3. The absolute need of superhuman agency spiritually to redeem the race.
Philosophy shows that a bad world cannot improve itself, cannot make itself good.
Bad men can neither hell? themselves, merely, or help others. If the world is to be
improved, thoughts and influences from superhuman regions must be injected into
its heart.
II. As a guilty worker of wrong.—Hoshea and his people were not only the inheritors of
the corruptions of past generations, but they themselves became agents in propagating
and perpetuating the wickedness. So that while they were the inheritors of a corrupt
past, they were at the same time guilty agents in a wicked present. Strong as is the
influence of the past upon us, it is not strong enough to coerce us into wrong.
III. As a terrible victim of wrong. What was the judicial outcome of all this wickedness?
Retribution came, stern, rigorous, and crushing. (David Thomas, D. D.)
2 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but not like
the kings of Israel who preceded him.
BAR ES, "Not as the kings of Israel that were before him - The repentance of
a nation like that of an individual, may be “too late.” God is long-suffering; but after
national sins have reached a certain height, after admonitions and warnings have been
repeatedly rejected, after lesser punishments have failed - judgment begins to fall.
Forces have been set in motion, which nothing but a miracle could stop; and God does
not see fit to work a miracle in such a case. Compare Butler, ‘Analogy, ‘ Pt. I ch. 2 end.
GILL, "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the
kings of Israel that were before him. He did not worship Baal, as some of them had
done; and he could not worship the calves, as all of them had, for they were carried away
by the Assyrians in the former captivities, as the Jews (s) say; and who also observe (t),
that he removed the garrisons set on the borders of the land to watch the Israelites, that
they might not go up to Jerusalem; and this being done on the fifteenth of Ab, that day
was afterwards observed as a festival on that account; and they further remark (u), that
the captivity of the ten tribes was in the reign of this king, who was better than the rest,
to show that it was not barely the sins of the kings on whom the Israelites would cast the
blame, that they were carried captives, but their own, according to Hos_5:3.
JAMISO , "he did evil ... but not as the kings of Israel — Unlike his
predecessors from the time of Jeroboam, he neither established the rites of Baal, nor
compelled the people to adhere to the symbolic worship of the calves. [See on 2Ch_

22. 30:1.] In these respects, Hoshea acted as became a constitutional king of Israel. Yet,
through the influence of the nineteen princes who had swayed the scepter before him (all
of whom had been zealous patrons of idolatry, and many of whom had been also
infamous for personal crimes), the whole nation had become so completely demoralized
that the righteous judgment of an angry Providence impended over it.
BE SO , "2 Kings 17:2. But not as the kings of Israel that were before him — For
he neither worshipped Baal, as many of his predecessors had done, nor compelled
the people to worship the calves, one of which, that of Dan, being destroyed or
carried away before this time, as the Hebrew writers affirm. And whereas the kings
of Israel had hitherto maintained guards upon the frontiers, to hinder their subjects
from going to Jerusalem to worship, Hoshea took away those guards, and gave free
liberty to all, to go and pay their adoration where the law had directed; and,
therefore, when Hezekiah had invited all Israel to come to his passover, this prince
permitted all that would to go: and when, upon their return from that festival, they
destroyed all the monuments of idolatry that were found in the kingdom of Samaria,
instead of forbidding them, in all probability he gave his consent to it; because,
without some tacit encouragement, at least, they durst not have ventured to do it. —
Prideaux. And yet God, whose judgments are a great deep, brought destruction on
the kingdom of Israel in the reign of this king. The fact was, that the Israelites had
now completely filled up the measure of their iniquities, and God, by bringing ruin
upon them at this time, when their king was less guilty than his predecessors,
designed to show that he was punishing, not only the sins of that generation, but of
the foregoing ages, and reckoning with them for the iniquities of their fathers. Add
to this, that if Hoshea was not so bad as the generality of their former kings, yet the
people were quite as wicked as those that went before them; and it was an
aggravation of their wickedness, and brought ruin on them the sooner, that their
king did not set them so bad an example as the former kings had done, nor hinder
their reforming. He gave them leave to abandon their idols and their sins, and to
return to the worship of the true God, and obedience to his laws: but they persisted
in their idolatries and other vices, which laid the blame of their sin and ruin wholly
upon themselves.
ELLICOTT, "(2) But not as the kings of Israel that were before him.—The
preceding phrase is used of all the northern kings but Shallum, who only reigned a
month, and had no time for the display of his religious policy. We can hardly
assume that Hoshea abandoned the calf-worship of Bethel, but he may have
discountenanced the cultus of the Baals and Asheras. The Seder Olam states that
Hoshea did not replace the calf of Bethel, which, it assumes, had been carried off by
the Assyrians in accordance with the prophecy of Hosea (Hosea 10:5). We may
remember that the last sovereigns of falling monarchies have not always been the
worst of their line—e.g., Charles I. or Louis XVI.
PETT, "‘And he did what was evil in the sight of YHWH, yet not as the kings of
Israel who were before him.’

23. This rather enigmatic statement is not easy to interpret. It would suggest that he did
not lay any emphasis on Jeroboam’s false cult, but nevertheless did not truly turn to
YHWH. It may also indicate that he had more concern for social justice. Possibly he
was in fact lukewarm towards religion generally, although perfunctorily engaging in
the worship of the Assyrian deities, simply because he had no choice in the matter.
Some have connected it with a willingness to allow his subjects to visit the temple at
Jerusalem inasmuch as, according to 2 Chronicles 30:10, Hezekiah invited to the
feast of the Passover, held at Jerusalem, the Israelites from Ephraim and Manasseh
as far as to Zebulun, with some individuals from these tribes accepting his invitation
PULPIT, "And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the
kings of Israel that were before him. Hoshea's general attitude towards Jehovah was
much the same as that of former kings of Israel. De maintained the calf-worship,
leant upon "arms of flesh," and turned a deaf ear to the teaching of the prophets
e.g, Hoshea and Micah, who addressed their warnings to him. But he was not guilty
of any special wickedness—he set up no new idolatry; he seems to have allowed his
subjects, if they pleased, to attend the festival worship at Jerusalem (2 Chronicles
30:11, 2 Chronicles 30:18). The rabbis add that when the golden calf of Bethel had
been carried off by the Assyrians in one of their incursions, he did not replace it
('Seder Olam,' 2 Kings 22:1-20.); but it is not at all clear that the image was carried
away until Hoshea's reign was over.
3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack
Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser’s vassal and
had paid him tribute.
BAR ES, "Of Shalmaneser, the successor of Tiglath-pileser in the Assyrian Canon,
we know little from Assyrian sources, since his records have been mutilated by his
successors, the Sargonids, who were of a wholly different family. The archives of Tyre
mention him as contemporary with, and warring against, a Tyrian king named Elulaeus.
The expedition, referred to here, was probably in the first year of Shalmaneser (727
B.C.). Its main object was the reduction of Phoenicia, which had re-asserted its
independence, but (except Tyre) was once more completely reduced. Shalmaneser
probably passed on from Phoenicia into Galilee, where he attacked and took Beth-arbel
(Arbela of Josephus, now Irbid), treating it with great severity Hos_10:14, in order to
alarm Hoshea, who immediately submitted, and became tributary (see the marginal
rendering and 1Ki_4:21 note). Shalmaneser then returned into Assyria.

24. CLARKE, "Shalmaneser - This was the son and successor of Tiglath-pileser. He is
called Shalman by Hosea, Hos_10:14, and Enemessar, in the book of Tobit, 1:2.
Gave him presents - Became tributary to him.
GILL, "Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria,.... Which some take
to be the same with Tiglathpileser, see 1Ch_5:26 but he rather seems to be his son; his
name was to be found, as Josephus (w) relates, in the archives of the Tyrians, against
whom he had an expedition; his name is Salmanassar in Metasthenes (x), who says he
reigned seventeen years:
and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents, to depart from him; he
became tributary to him, and agreed to pay him a yearly tax.
HE RY, "III. That the destruction came gradually. They were for some time made
tributaries before they were made captives to the king of Assyria (2Ki_17:3), and, if that
less judgment had prevailed to humble and reform them, the greater would have been
prevented.
JAMISO , "Against him came up Shalmaneser — or Shalman (Hos_10:14), the
same as the Sargon of Isaiah [Isa_20:1]. Very recently the name of this Assyrian king has
been traced on the Ninevite monuments, as concerned in an expedition against a king of
Samaria, whose name, though mutilated, Colonel Rawlinson reads as Hoshea.
K&D, "“Against him came up Salmanasar king of Assyria, and Hoshea became
subject to him and rendered him tribute” (‫ה‬ ָ‫ח‬ְ‫נ‬ ִ‫,מ‬ as in 1Ki_5:1). ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ס‬ ֶ‫א‬ְ‫נ‬ ַ‫מ‬ ְ‫ל‬ ַ‫,שׁ‬ ∆αλαµανασσάρ
(lxx), Salmanasar, according to the more recent researches respecting Assyria, is not
only the same person as the Shalman mentioned in Hos_10:14, but the same as the
Sargon of Isa_20:1, whose name is spelt Sargina upon the monuments, and who is
described in the inscriptions on his palace at Khorsabad as ruler over many subjugated
lands, among which Samirina (Samaria?) also occurs (vid., Brandis üb. d. Gewinn, pp.
48ff. and 53; M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Ass. pp. 129, 130; and M. Duncker, Gesch. des
Alterth. i. pp. 687ff.). The occasion of this expedition of Salmanasar appears to have
been simply the endeavour to continue the conquests of his predecessor Tiglath-pileser.
There is no ground whatever for Maurer's assumption, that he had been asked to come
to the help of a rival of Hoshea; and the opinion that he came because Hoshea had
refused the tribute which had been paid to Assyria from the time of Menahem
downwards, is at variance with the fact that in 2Ki_15:29 Tiglath-pileser is simply said
to have taken a portion of the territory of Israel; but there is no allusion to any payment
of tribute or feudal obligation on the part of Pekah. Salmanasar was the first to make
king Hoshea subject and tributary. This took place at the commencement of Hoshea's
reign, as is evident from the fact that Hoshea paid the tribute for several years, and in
the sixth year of his reign refused any further payment.

25. BE SO , "2 Kings 17:3. Against him came up Shalmaneser — The son or
successor of Tiglath-pileser. The ancient Hebrew writers made him the same with
Sennacherib, who, eight years after this time, invaded the kingdom of Judah; it
being very frequent, in the eastern parts, for one man to be called by several names.
Josephus affirms, that he met with his name in the annals of the Tyrians, which
were extant in his days. He came against him, either because he denied the tribute
which he had promised to pay, or that he might make him tributary. And Hoshea
became his servant, and gave him presents — Swore fealty to him, and engaged to
pay him tribute. Thus the destruction came gradually, and they were, for some time,
made tributaries, before they were made captives to the king of Assyria. And if the
lesser judgment had prevailed to humble and reform them, the greater would have
been prevented.
COKE, "2 Kings 17:3. Shalmaneser king of Assyria— Shalmaneser, who, in Hosea
10:14 is called Shalman, and in Tobit 1:2. Enemessar, was the son and successor of
Arbaces, or Tiglath-pileser, and according to Josephus, who has quoted a passage
from Menander, mention was made of him, and of his conquest over the land of
Israel, in the history of the Tyrians.
ELLICOTT, "(3) Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria.—Shalmaneser
IV. (Shalmânu-ushshir, “Shalman be gracious!”), the successor of Tiglath Pileser
II., and predecessor of Sargon, reigned 727-722 B.C. o annals of his reign have
come down to us in the cuneiform inscriptions, but a fragment of the Eponyra-list
notes foreign expeditions for the three successive years 725-723 B.C. This agrees
with what Menander states (Josephus, Ant. ix. 14, 2), according to whom
Shalmaneser made an expedition against Tyre (and no doubt Israel, as the ally of
Tyre), which lasted five years—i.e., was continued beyond Shalmaneser’s reign into
that of Sargon. othing is known of the death of Shalmaneser.
GUZIK, "2. (2 Kings 17:3-4) Hoshea’s futile resistance against Assyria.
Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him; and Hoshea became his vassal,
and paid him tribute money. And the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by
Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and brought no tribute to
the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut
him up, and bound him in prison.
a. Hoshea became his vassal, and paid him tribute money: In the pattern of
Mehahem before him (2 Kings 15:17-22), Hoshea accepted the status of vassal unto
the king of Assyria. If he paid his money and did as the king of Assyria pleased, he
would be allowed to continue on the throne of Israel.
i. Hoshea thought he had a strategic opportunity when a new king came to the

26. Assyrian throne, but he was wrong. “When Tiglath-pileser III died in 727 B.C. and
was succeeded by his own son Shalmaneser V (727-722), the time seemed ripe for
certain western states to renounce their vassal status. Moreover, a seemingly
important ally lay southward in the delta of Egypt.” (Patterson and Austel)
b. And the king of Assyria uncovered a conspiracy by Hoshea: King Hoshea hoped
to find help among the Egyptians, who were in a constant power struggle with the
Assyrian Empire. On account of this conspiracy, and the failure to pay the yearly
tribute money, Hoshea was imprisoned by the king of Assyria.
i. As we might expect among the kings of Israel, Hoshea did not look to the LORD
for help - he looked to Egypt. Therefore, Hosea said of him: As for Samaria, her
king is cut off like a twig on the water. (Hosea 10:7)
ii. The reference to So, king of Egypt, is probably better understood as a reference
to a place - Sais, which was at that time the capital of Egypt. “Thus understood, v. 4
would read ‘he had sent envoys to Sais (even unto) the king of Egypt.’” (Patterson
and Austel)
PETT, "‘Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his
servant, and brought him tribute.’
Shalmaneser V followed Tiglath-pileser III. At the commencement of any new reign
there would be a tendency to withhold tribute in order to see what the new king
would do, but once Shalmaneser came on the scene, possibly sending a warning
ahead, Hoshea rapidly submitted and paid tribute. ‘Became his servant’ i.e.
acknowledged himself as his vassal.
PULPIT, "Against him came up Shal-maneser King of Assyria. Shalmaneser's
succession to Tiglath-pileser on the throne of Assyria, once doubted, is now
rendered certain by the Eponym Canon, which makes him ascend the throne in B.C.
727, and cease to reign in B.C. 722. It is uncertain whether he was Tiglath-pileser's
son or a usurper. The name, Shalmaneser (Sali-manu-uzur) was an old royal name
in Assyria, and signified "Shalman protects" (compare the names abu-kudur-
uzur, ergal-asar-uzur, abu-pal-uzur, etc.). And Hoshea became his servant.
Hoshea had been placed on the throne by Tiglath-pileser, and had paid him tribute
(ibid; lines 18, 19). We must suppose that on Tiglath-pileser's death, in B.C. 727, he
had revolted, and resumed his independence. Shalmaneser. having become king,
probably came up against Hoshea in the same year, and forced him to resume his
position of Assyrian tributary. This may have been the time when "Shalman spoiled
Beth-Arbel in the day of battle" (Dos. 10.14), defeating Hoshea near that place
(Arbela, now Irbid, in Galilee), and taking it. And gave him presents; or, rendered
him tribute, as in the margin of the Authorized Version.

27. 4 But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea
was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So[a]king
of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king
of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore
Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison.
BAR ES, "So, king of Egypt, is generally identified with Shebek (730 B.C.), the
Sabaco of Herodotus. Hoshea’s application to him was a return to a policy which had
been successful in the reign of Jeroboam I (1Ki_12:20 note), but had not been resorted
to by any other Israelite monarch. Egypt had for many years been weak, but Sabaco was
a conqueror, who at the head of the swarthy hordes of Ethiopia had invaded Egypt and
made himself master of the country. In the inscriptions of Shebek he boasts to have
received tribute from “the king of Shara” (Syria), which is probably his mode of noticing
Hoshea’s application. References to the Egyptian proclivities of Hoshea are frequent in
the prophet Hosea Hos_7:11; Hos_11:1, Hos_11:5; Hos_12:4. King Hoshea,
simultaneously with his reception as a vassal by Sabaco, ceased to pay tribute to
Shalmaneser, thus openly rebelling, and provoking the chastisement which followed.
CLARKE, "Found conspiracy to Hoshea - He had endeavored to shake off the
Assyrian yoke, by entering into a treaty with So, King of Egypt; and having done so, he
ceased to send the annual tribute to Assyria.
GILL, "And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea,.... That he was
forming a scheme to rebel against him, and cast off his yoke; of this he had intelligence
by spies he sent, and placed to observe him very probably:
for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt; to treat with him, and enter into
alliance with him, to help him against, and free him from, the king of Assyria. This king
of Egypt is supposed to be Sabacon the Ethiopian, who reigned in Egypt ninety years; of
whom Herodotus (y) and Diodorus Siculus (z) make mention; by Theodoret he is called
Adramelech the Ethiopian, who dwelt in Egypt:
and brought no presents to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year;
did not pay him his yearly tribute:
therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison; that is,
after he took Samaria, the siege of which is next related; unless it can be thought that he
met with him somewhere out of the capital, and seized him, and made him his prisoner,
and after that besieged his city; which is not so likely.

28. HE RY, "IV. That they brought it upon themselves by the indirect course they took
to shake off the yoke of the king of Assyria, 2Ki_17:4. Had the king and people of Israel
applied to God, made their peace with him and their prayers to him, they might have
recovered their liberty, ease, and honour; but they withheld their tribute, and trusted to
the king of Egypt to assist them in their revolt, which, if it had taken effect, would have
been but to change their oppressors. But Egypt became to them the staff of a broken
reed. This provoked the king of Assyria to proceed against them with the more severity.
Men get nothing by struggling with the net, but entangle themselves the more.
JAMISO , "found conspiracy in Hoshea — After having paid tribute for several
years, Hoshea, determined on throwing off the Assyrian yoke, withheld the stipulated
tribute. Shalmaneser, incensed at this rebellion, proclaimed war against Israel. This was
in the sixth year of Hoshea’s reign.
he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt — the Sabaco of the classic
historians, a famous Ethiopian who, for fifty years, occupied the Egyptian throne, and
through whose aid Hoshea hoped to resist the threatened attack of the Assyrian
conqueror. But Shalmaneser, marching against [Hoshea], scoured the whole country of
Israel, besieged the capital Samaria, and carried the principal inhabitants into captivity
in his own land, having taken the king himself, and imprisoned him for life. This ancient
policy of transplanting a conquered people into a foreign land, was founded on the idea
that, among a mixed multitude, differing in language and religion, they would be kept in
better subjection, and have less opportunity of combining together to recover their
independence.
K&D 4-5, "The king of Assyria found a conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent
messengers to So the king of Egypt, and did not pay the tribute to the king of Assyria, as
year by year. The Egyptian king ‫ּוא‬‫ס‬, So, possibly to be pronounced ‫ה‬ֶ‫ו‬ ֵ‫,ס‬ Seveh, is no
doubt one of the two Shebeks of the twenty-fifth dynasty, belonging to the Ethiopian
tribe; but whether he was the second king of this dynasty, Såbåtåkå (Brugsch, hist.
d'Egypte, i. p. 244), the Sevechus of Manetho, who is said to have ascended the throne,
according to Wilkinson, in the year 728, as Vitringa (Isa. ii. p. 318), Gesenius, Ewald,
and others suppose, or the first king of this Ethiopian dynasty, Sabako the father of
Sevechus, which is the opinion of Usher and Marsham, whom M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. pp.
458ff. and 463) and M. Duncker (i. p. 693) have followed in recent times, cannot
possibly be decided in the present state of Egyptological research.
(Note: It is true that M. Duncker says, “Synchronism gives Sabakon, who reigned
from 726 to 714;” but he observes in the note at pp. 713ff. that the Egyptian
chronology has only been firmly established as far back as the commencement of the
reign of Psammetichus at the beginning of the year 664 b.c., that the length of the
preceding dodekarchy is differently given by Diodorus Sic. and Manetho, and that
the date at which Tarakos (Tirhaka), who succeeded Sevechus, ascended the throne
is so very differently defined, that it is impossible for the present to come to any
certain conclusion on the matter. Compare with this what M. v. Niebuhr (pp. 458ff.)
adduces in proof of the difficulty of determining the commencement and length of
the reign of Tirhaka, and the manner in which he proposes to solve the difficulties
that arise from this in relation to the synchronism between the Egyptian and the
Biblical chronology.)

29. - As soon as Salmanasar received intelligence of the conduct of Hoshea, which is called
‫ר‬ ֶ‫שׁ‬ ֶ‫,ק‬ conspiracy, as being rebellion against his acknowledged superior, he had him
arrested and put into prison in chains, and then overran the whole land, advanced
against Samaria and besieged that city for three years, and captured it in the ninth year
of Hoshea. These words are not to be understood as signifying that Hoshea had been
taken prisoner before the siege of Samaria and thrown into prison, because in that case
it is impossible to see how Salmanasar could have obtained possession of his person.
(Note: The supposition of the older commentators, that Hoshea fought a battle
with Salmanasar before the siege of Samaria, and was taken prisoner in that battle, is
not only very improbable, because this would hardly be passed over in our account,
but has very little probability in itself. For “it is more probable that Hoshea betook
himself to Samaria when threatened by the hostile army, and relied upon the help of
the Egyptians, than that he went to meet Salmanasar and fought with him in the
open field” (Maurer). There is still less probability in Ewald's view (Gesch. iii. p. 611),
that “Salmanasar marched with unexpected rapidity against Hoshea, summoned him
before him that he might hear his defence, and then, when he came, took him
prisoner, and threw him into prison in chains, probably into a prison on the border
of the land;” to which he adds this explanatory remark: “there is no other way in
which we can understand the brief words in 2Ki_17:4 as compared with 2Ki_18:9-
11... For if Hoshea had defended himself to the utmost, Salmanasar would not have
had him arrested and incarcerated afterwards, but would have put him to death at
once, as was the case with the king of Damascus.” But Hoshea would certainly not
have been so infatuated, after breaking away from Assyria and forming an alliance
with So of Egypt, as to go at a simple summons from Salmanasar and present himself
before him, since he could certainly have expected nothing but death or
imprisonment as the result.)
We must rather assume, as many commentators have done, from R. Levi ben Gersom
down to Maurer and Thenius, that it was not till the conquest of his capital Samaria that
Hoshea fell into the hands of the Assyrians and was cast into a prison; so that the
explanation to be given to the introduction of this circumstance before the siege and
conquest of Samaria must be, that the historian first of all related the eventual result of
Hoshea's rebellion against Salmanasar so far as Hoshea himself was concerned, and then
proceeded to describe in greater detail the course of the affair in relation to his kingdom
and capital. This does not necessitate our giving to the word ‫הוּ‬ ֵ‫ר‬ ְ‫צ‬ ַ‫ע‬ַ ַ‫ו‬ the meaning “he
assigned him a limit” (Thenius); but we may adhere to the meaning which has been
philologically established, namely, arrest or incarcerate (Jer_33:1; Jer_36:5, etc.). ‫ל‬ ַ‫ע‬ַ ַ‫ו‬
may be given thus: “he overran, that is to say, the entire land.” The three years of the
siege of Samaria were not full years, for, according to 2Ki_18:9-10, it began in the
seventh year of Hoshea, and the city was taken in the ninth year, although it is also given
there as three years.
BE SO ,"2 Kings 17:4. The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea — If the
king and people of Israel had applied themselves to God, made their peace with him,
and addressed their prayers to him, they might, and no doubt would have recovered
their liberty, ease, and honour; but they withheld their tribute, and trusted to the
king of Egypt to assist them in their revolt, which, if it had been attended with
success, would only have been to change their oppressors: but Egypt became to

30. them the staff of a broken reed. This provoked the king of Assyria to proceed
against them with the more severity. For he, Hoshea, sent messengers to So, king of
Egypt — By some heathen writers called Sua, or Sabacus, that, by his assistance, he
might shake off the yoke of the king of Assyria, who now was, and for many years
had been, the rival of the king of Egypt, 2 Kings 18:21; Jeremiah 37:5. “This So,”
says Mr. Locke, “seems to be Sabacon, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, of whom
Herodotus relates, that, being warned in a dream, he departed of his own accord
from Egypt, after he had reigned there fifteen years. It was in the beginning of
Hezekiah’s reign that he invaded Egypt, and having taken Boccharis the king
thereof prisoner, with great cruelty he burned him alive, and then seized on his
kingdom.” — Dodd.
COKE, "2 Kings 17:4. So, king of Egypt— This So seems to be the same as
Sabachon, the AEthiopian king of Egypt, of whom Herodotus relates, that being
warned in a dream, he departed of his own accord from Egypt, after he had reigned
there fifteen years. In the beginning of Hezekiah's reign he invaded Egypt, and
having taken Boccharis the king thereof prisoner, with great cruelty burned him
alive, and then seized on his kingdom.
ELLICOTT, "(4) Conspiracy—i.e., as is presently explained, a conspiracy with the
king of Egypt against his suzerain. Shalmaneser regarded Hoshea, and probably the
king of Egypt also, as his “servant” (2 Kings 17:3). (Comp. 2 Kings 12:20 and
Jeremiah 11:9.) Thenius wishes to read “falsehood,” after the LXX., ἀδικίαν (comp.
Deuteronomy 19:18; Micah 6:12), a change involving transposition of two Heb.
letters (shèqer for qèsher); but the change is needless.
So.—The Hebrew letters should be pointed differently, so as to be pronounced
Sèwè, or Sĕwç, as this name corresponds to the Assyrian Shab’i, and the Egyptian
Shabaka, the Greek Sabaco, the first king of the 25th, or Ethiopian dynasty, whom
Sargon defeated at Raphia in 720 B.C. Sargon calls him “prince,” or “ruler,;
(shiltân), rather than “king” of Egypt; and it appears that at this time Lower Egypt
was divided among a number of petty principalities, whose recognition of any
central authority was very uncertain—a fact which rendered an Egyptian alliance of
little value to Israel. (See Isaiah 19, 20)
Brought.—Rather, offered. The word elsewhere is always used of sacrifice.
As he had done.—Omit. The Hebrew phrase (according to a year, in a year), which
is not found elsewhere, denotes the regular payment of yearly dues. This Hoshea
failed to discharge.
Therefore . . . shut him up.—Comp. Jeremiah 33:1; Jeremiah 36:5; Jeremiah 32:2-3.
This statement seems to imply that Shalmaneser took Hoshea prisoner before the
siege of Samaria: a supposition which finds support in the fact that Sargon, who
ended the siege, makes no mention of the capture or death of the Israelite king.

31. PETT, "‘And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, for he had sent
messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he
had done year by year.’
Years passed during which Hoshea continued to pay tribute, but then Hoshea began
to enter into intrigues with ‘So, king of Egypt’ and withheld tribute, and the king of
Assyria, through his spies, possibly stationed in Samaria, discovered the fact. The
king of Egypt in question was probably Osorkon IV. It seems probable that
Osorkon, who only ruled a part of Egypt, initiated the intrigue as a way of
protecting the borders of Egypt, without having too much concern about the
consequences for his ‘allies’. It would be left to them to look after themselves. But
Hoshea probably saw Egypt as a powerful united country whom even Assyria would
fear. In fact around this time (in about 725 BC), Egypt had two lines of senior
pharaohs reigning in the Delta, Osorkon IV in Tanis (Zoan) and Iuput II in
Leontopolis further south. either king actually ruled effectively over anything
more than his own local province, but Hosea probably did not realise that. Tanis
(Zoan) would be the recognised objective of Hebrew envoys to Egypt in the eighth
and seventh centuries BC (compare Isaiah 19:11; Isaiah 19:13; Isaiah 30:2; Isaiah
30:4). That Osorkon was not to be relied on comes out in the outcome.
‘Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.’
It would appear that as Shalmaneser approached Israel Hoshea went out to meet
him, probably hoping to make his submission and blame the intrigue on his anti-
Assyrian compatriots. Shalmaneser was not, however, convinced, and shut him up,
bound, in prison.
PULLPIT, "And the King of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent
messengers to So, King of Egypt. We learn from the Prophet Hosea that the
expediency of calling in Egypt as a counterpoise to Assyria had long been in the
thoughts of those who directed the policy of the Israelite state (see Hosea 7:11;
Hosea 12:1, etc.). ow at last the plunge was taken. An Ethiopian dynasty of some
strength and vigor had possession of Egypt, and held its court during some part of
the year at Memphis (Hosea 9:6). The king who occupied the throne was called
Shabak or Shebek—a name which the Greeks represented by Sabakos or Sevechus,
and the Hebrews by ‫סוא‬ . (The original vocalization of this word was probably ‫ֶא‬‫ו‬ֵ‫ס‬,
Seveh; but in later times this vocalization was lost, and the Masorites pointed the
word as ‫,סוֹא‬ Soh or So). The Assyrians knew the king as Sibakhi, and contended
with him under Sargon. Hoshea now sent an embassy to this monarch's court,
requesting his alliance and his support against the great Asiatic power by which the
existence of all the petty states of Western Asia was threatened. Shalmaneser was at
the time endeavoring to capture Tyro, and Hoshea might reasonably fear that, when
Tyre was taken, his own turn would come. It is not clear how Shabak received
Hoshea's overtures; but we may, perhaps, assume that it was with favor, since
otherwise Hoshea would scarcely have ventured to withhold his tribute, as he seems
to have done. It must have been in reliance on "the strength of Egypt" that he
ventured to brave the anger of Assyria. And brought no present —or, sent no

32. tribute—to the King of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the King of
Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. The ultimate result is mentioned at
once, before the steps by which it was accomplished are related. Shalmaneser did
not "summon Hoshea before his presence to listen to his explanations," and then,
"as soon as he came, take him prisoner, put him in chains, and imprison him" (as
Ewald thinks), but simply declared war, invaded Hoshea's country, besieged him in
his capital, and ultimately, when he surrendered, consigned him to a prison, as
ebuchadnezzar afterwards did Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:15; 2 Kings 25:27).
Otherwise Hoshea's reign would have come to an end in his sixth or seventh, and
not in his ninth year.
5 The king of Assyria invaded the entire land,
marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for
three years.
BAR ES, "All the land - The second invasion of Shalmaneser (723 B.C., his fifth
year), is here contrasted with the first, as extending to the whole country, whereas the
first had afflicted only a part.
Three years - From the fourth to the sixth of Hezekiah, and from the seventh to the
ninth of Heshea; two years, therefore, according to our reckoning, but three, according
to that of the Hebrews. This was a long time for so small a place to resist the Assyrians
but Samaria was favorably situated on a steep hill; probably Sabaco made some attempts
to relieve his vassal; the war with Tyre must have distracted Shalmaneser; and there is
reason to believe that before the capture was effected a revolt had broken out at Nineveh
which must have claimed Shalmaneser’s chief attention, though it did not induce him to
abandon his enterprise.
CLARKE, "Besieged it three years - It must have been well fortified, well
provisioned, and well defended, to have held out so long.
GILL, "Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land,.... Of Israel,
there being none to oppose his march; Hoshea not daring to come out, and meet him
and fight him:
and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years; so long the city held out
against him, see 2Ki_18:9.