SERIES N --- THE EXILE --- LESSON 06

ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY

KING HOSHEA OF ISRAEL

From 2 Kings 17

During the twelfth year of the reign of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea became king over Israel. He was an evil king and ruled in Samaria for nine years, but he was not as evil as some of the previous kings of Israel. During Hoshea’s reign, King Shalmaneser of Assyria invaded Israel and defeated him, forcing Israel to pay Assyria an annual tribute. Hoshea rebelled against Shalmaneser, formed a conspiracy with King So of Egypt and stopped paying regular tribute. Shalmaneser soon learned of this, arrested Hoshea and put him into prison. Then he marched against Israel’s capital city Samaria and besieged it for three years. During the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, Shalmaneser captured Samaria and took many of Israel’s people into exile in Assyria. He settled them in Halab and along the Habor River in Gozan, as well as among the cities of the Medes. This all happened because Israel had worshiped other gods and followed the customs of the people whom Adonai had driven from the land when they came from Egypt. Israel had sinned against Adonai, Who had delivered them from slavery. The people of Israel had also done many wrong things in secret against Adonai, such as building high places throughout the land where they could worship other gods, setting up pillars and idols on the tops of the hills and under the green trees. They had burned incense to the gods of the nations whom Adonai had driven from the land so that Israel could occupy it. In these evil practices, Israel provoked Adonai’s anger, worshiping the very idols which Adonai warned them not to worship. Adonai had sent one prophet after another to warn Israel and Judah to turn from their evil ways and obey His Commandments, according to the Law which He had given them through their ancestors and the prophets. But the people would not listen; they were as stubborn as their ancestors who refused to remain faithful to Adonai. These people rejected Adonai’s Laws, as well as the Covenant which He had made with their fathers and refused to listen to His warnings. They pursued the folly of false idols and received folly as their reward. They followed the very nations whom Adonai warned them to reject. They made shameful idols, worshiped golden calves, turned from Adonai’s Commandments and even worshiped the sun, moon and stars. They served Baal, burned their own children as offerings and gave themselves up to evil as they tried to discover life through fortune-tellers and through magic. Adonai was so angry at all of this that He put them out of His sight until only the tribe of Judah remained. But Judah also turned from His Commandments, following the same evil which the other tribes practiced. Adonai also gave up Judah and let the enemy nations sweep in and plunder the land. Adonai put aside all the descendants of Jacob. Israel had split off from the kingdom of David and had chosen as their king the evil Jeroboam who led them into idol worship. They continued this evil until Adonai swept them away, as His servants the prophets had warned He would do. The people of Israel were carried to Assyria as exiles, where they remained as of the time this was written. To replace the people of Israel who had lived in Samaria, the king of Assyria brought other people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava and Sepharvaim and located them in Samaria. Assyria ruled over Samaria and the other cities of Israel. But the new people of the land did not worship Adonai, so Adonai sent lions to kill many of them. The new people sent an urgent message to the king of Assyria: [We who have been placed here in Samaria do not know the Law of YHVH of this land, so He has sent lions to kill many of us.] For this reason, the king of Assyria commanded, [Send back one of the priests who was taken away from the land so that he may teach these new residents about the Law of YHVH of the land.] One of the priests returned to Bethel and taught the people who had been brought into Israel from Babylon about Adonai. Those people however, continued to worship their own gods as well as Adonai, setting up shrines to their gods in the high places on the hills. The people from Babylon worshiped Succoth-benoth, the people from Cuth worshiped Nergal and the people of Hamath worshiped Ashima. The Avvites worshiped Nibhaz and Tartak and those from Sephar burned their children as sacrifices to their gods Adrammelech and Anammelech. The people tried to mix their heathen worship with the worship of Adonai and appointed priests from among their own people to offer sacrifices on the altars in the hills. This mixed worship continued until the time when this was written. The people followed the heathen worship from the lands from which they came while also trying to worship Adonai. They actually followed their own religious customs more than the service of Adonai and obedience to His Laws. Adonai had made a Covenant with His people about such things, requiring that they should never worship other gods but worship Him only, for He had brought them from Egypt with great miracles and a mighty arm of power. He had contracted with them to obey His Laws which He recorded for them and never to worship other gods. It was Adonai alone they should honour, for He had delivered them from their enemies. But the people would not listen and followed other gods instead. These people from Babylon tried to do the same thing - worshiping Adonai as well as the heathen gods. To the day this was written, they still tried to do the same thing.

COMMENTARY

SARGON II AND HIS PALACE

Shalmaneser laid siege to Samaria when Hoshea rebelled. But the Assyrian king’s brother, Sargon II, is credited with the defeat of the city at the start of his reign in 721 B.C. Sargon campaigned in the south against Elam and Babylonia, north against Urartu, and in the west against Syria, Egypt and Palestine, later against Ashdod, Phoenicia and Judah. In 710 B.C. Sargon crowned himself king of Babylonia. Sargon used thousands of captives to start the building of his own palace northeast of Nineveh, at what is now Khorsabad. The foundations of Dur-Sharrukin, {Fortress of Sargon,} as he named it, were laid in 717 B.C. Surrounded by mud-brick walls over forty feet thick, the city stretched a mile across a fertile plain. Seven gates pierced the walls, which were topped by a road wide enough for troops to use in defence. To the northwest, an artificial terrace as high as the outer walls supported a citadel where the king and his court lived. Half the citadel stood inside the city walls while the fortified remainder jutted onto the plain. Visitors ascended staircases and ramps in the wall of the citadel. Huge figures of winged bulls faced the windowless palace front. Passages from the courts led to storerooms and kitchens. Only one hall opened to the king’s private rooms. Cedar roofs and pine doors scented his parlour, his guest rooms and bath rooms. Reliefs on the walls filled the rooms with scenes of Sargon worshiping, warring and at play. Another passage led to three shrines with altars, overshadowed by a ziggurat. Carved wood columns overlaid in bronze gleamed in the chapels’ courtyard. The citadel’s western gate led to palaces for the nobility. One palace had a stone threshold carved to look like a patterned rug with fringes. Larger-than-life paintings of the king were everywhere. Across from the palaces stood a group of several temples, dedicated to many gods. The large temple of Nabu, god of writing, was linked to the palace by a beautiful bridge of stone. The city of Dur-Sharrukin was dedicated in 706 B.C. A year later Sargon died, either killed in battle or murdered by his soldiers. His capital never reached its full capacity of eighty thousand residents. Sargon’s son and heir Sennacherib moved to Nineveh and Dur-Sharrukin fell into ruins like the cities Sargon had boasted of levelling in war.