2 Kings 17:1-6
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 17
Reign of Hoshea of Israel. 1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hoshea, son of Elah, became king in Samaria over Israel for nine years.
2 He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, yet not to the extent of the kings of Israel before him. 3 Shalmaneser,[a] king of Assyria, advanced against him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.(A) 4 But the king of Assyria found Hoshea guilty of conspiracy for sending messengers to the king of Egypt at Sais, and for failure to pay the annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested and imprisoned him. 5 Then the king of Assyria[b] occupied the whole land and attacked Samaria, which he besieged for three years.
X. The End of Israel[c]
Israelites Deported. 6 In Hoshea’s ninth year, the king of Assyria took Samaria, deported the Israelites to Assyria, and settled them in Halah, and at the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.(B)
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- 17:3 Shalmaneser: son and successor of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III. Vassal: lit., “servant”; cf. 16:7; so also in 24:1.
- 17:5 The king of Assyria: Shalmaneser was succeeded by Sargon II, who usurped the Assyrian throne in 722/721 B.C. In his inscriptions, Sargon claims to have captured Samaria during the first year of his reign.
- 17:6–41 This brief section is the Deuteronomistic historian’s theological reflection on the causes and aftermath of Assyria’s conquest of the Northern Kingdom. The text contrasts the Israelites, who were deported (v. 6) because they abandoned the worship of the Lord (vv. 7–23), with the foreigners who were brought into the land (v. 24) and undertook, however imperfectly, to worship the Lord alongside their own traditional deities (vv. 25–34a). The last verses recapitulate the apostasy of the Israelites (vv. 34b–40) and the syncretism of the foreigners (v. 41). This is a deliberately disparaging, and not wholly accurate, account of the origin of the Samaritans; it reflects the hostility the Judahites continued to hold toward the inhabitants of the northern territories.
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