Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
2 Kings 17:1–6,”In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present 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 into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”
Hoshea was Israel’s last king. During his reign he was a tribute to Shalmaneser, who was his suzerain or overlord. He didn’t do anything about Jeroboam’s false religion but he was not as overtly sinful as other Israeli kings like Ahab, for example. After while he grew tired of paying large sums of money to the Assyrians so he tried to conspire with Egypt and escape from Assyrian domination. However, Shalmaneser brought his army to Samaria and besieged the city for three years. Eventually the city was taken. In the mean time Shalmaneser died and was replaced by Sargon II as king and Sargon actually conquered the city. The Assyrians had a cruel but effective way of colonising nations. They would take people from one part of their empire and force them to live in another place, a long way from their homeland. They moved different conquered people around to other places as well. The transported people would be so busy trying to survive in a new land with no help that they were unlikely to rebel against their conquerors. The Israelis were sent to the northeastern parts of the Assyrian Empire as they came from the south. They may have been sent into parts of southern Russia, between the Volga and Don Rivers.
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