Samaria falls and Israelites are deported
Divided Kingdom · Draft · BSB
Content revision: ba1bad4071eb1382 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Israel · Hoshea’s ninth year · After a three-year siege
Hoshea becomes Assyria’s vassal, then withholds tribute and seeks Egyptian support. Assyria imprisons him and besieges Samaria for three years. The city falls in his ninth year, and Israelites are deported to places including Halah, the Habor at Gozan and cities of the Medes.
The account names Shalmaneser as the attacker and then refers to the king of Assyria at the capture without naming him again. The card does not silently settle the historical question of the roles of Shalmaneser and Sargon. Deportation affects populations in stages; the passage does not require that every Israelite has left the land.
Primary Scripture
17:1 In the twelfth year of the reign of Ahaz over Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria nine years.
17:2 And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him.
17:3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria attacked him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.
17:4 But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea had conspired to send envoys to King So of Egypt, and that he had not paid tribute to the king of Assyria as in previous years. Therefore the king of Assyria arrested Hoshea and put him in prison.
17:5 Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.
17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.
Related Scripture
The Hezekiah narrative also recalls Samaria’s siege and capture, synchronizing it with his reign.
Location evidence
Samaria is identified. The broad Habor–Gozan region illustrates one named destination area; it is not all places of exile, and no exact route or individual deportee’s settlement is asserted.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.195, 32.276111]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Samaria: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.195, 32.276111]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible.info: Samaria (CC BY 4.0)
Habor–Gozan region: Approximate region. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [40.15, 36.55]. Classification source: editorial.
Illustrative regional extent: [[39.7,35.8],[40.8,37.1]]; not a measured confidence interval.
OpenBible.info: geographic context (CC BY 4.0); extent is editorial
OpenBible.info: Samaria (CC BY 4.0)
For the class
How does the account connect Hoshea’s changing alliances with the kingdom’s loss of independence?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/divided-kingdom.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm