Second Invasion of Israel from Assyria

The Bible mentions Shalmaneser as beginning the siege, but does not name the king who took the city. The Babylonian Chronicle states that the city Shamarain (probably Samaria) fell during the reign of Shalmaneser, but his successor, Sargon II, made the claim, in documents written toward the close of his reign, that he himself captured the city of Samaria at the beginning of his reign. If this claim is true, then it could have been in the capacity of commanding general of the Assyrian armies and not as king that he effected the capture of the city. Historians differ, but there seems to be reasonable evidence for its fall in the latter part of Shalmaneser's reign.

Israel had sinned. This was the primary reason for Israel's downfall. They could hardly display baser ingratitude than to forget God's mercy and goodness. Idolatry involved infinitely more guilt among the Hebrews than among other peoples, for the heathen had only a limited degree of enlightenment and had not experienced the wonderful blessings that God had bestowed on His chosen people. The Israelites knew by their own personal experience that God was kind and beneficent, and yet in spite of all this they turned away from Him to the worship of false gods.

The rulers of Israel were responsible for leading their people into sin. They introduced and encouraged the worship of such false gods as Baal, and turned the people from the worship of Jehovah to the most corrupt forms of worship. Nevertheless, the people were not thereby without excuse. Men are held responsible individually for their acts. The wrongdoing of the leader provides no excuse for the followers to adopt the same sinful course. However, the Israelites were largely dependent upon oral instruction. Copies of the Law were rare, and few, if any, were privileged to have the Holy Scriptures in their homes. The people received their knowledge of the will of God through the priests and other religious leaders. If these spiritual instructors were themselves teaching and practicing evil, the natural result would be for those under their charge to follow the same course. The majority of the Israelites lacked a personal religious experience.

So, they were carried off. A small remnant remained (see 2 Chron. 34:9). These intermarried with the heathen, adopted their ways, and so far forgot the customs of their fathers that the people of Judah refused to regard them as brethren. After some years they established a temple of their own on Mt. Gerizim, where they worshiped and carried on their ritual as a rival to that of the Temple at Jerusalem. The people who were carried away never returned. Some of their descendants joined the remnant of Judah who returned under the decree of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1—4). Others intermarried with the peoples where they lived, accepted their religion and their ways, and lost their identity. A few, no doubt, remained true to their religious convictions, letting their light shine in the lands to which they were carried, and influencing some there to accept the worship of the only true God.