Hoshea

Hoshea, son of Elah, conspired against Pekah of Israel and struck him down, taking the throne as Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria pressed in upon the north (2 Kings 15:30). 2 Kings 17:2 grants him a faint relative praise — 'he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him' — though the same chapter then catalogues the cumulative apostasy of Israel as the reason for the coming exile. Hoshea began as an Assyrian vassal, paying tribute to Shalmaneser V. But he sent envoys to So, king of Egypt, hoping for support, and withheld tribute. Shalmaneser arrested him, then besieged Samaria for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea (722 BC) the city fell; the population of the northern kingdom was deported to Halah, the Habor, the river of Gozan, and the cities of the Medes (2 Kings 17:6). Foreign peoples were imported to repopulate the land, mixing with the remnant to become the Samaritans. 2 Kings 17:7-23 supplies the theological epitaph: Israel had walked in the customs of the nations, set up sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill, served idols, used divination, made their sons pass through the fire, and rejected every prophet sent to warn them. So the northern kingdom ended. Only Judah remained.