"In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years." (2 Kings 17:1) We first heard of this man in 2 Kings 15 when he conspired against Pekah to assassinate him. Although Hoshea is a wicked man, he's not as wicked as some of the kings have been. "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him." (2 Kings 17:2)
Considering that Hoshea was the final king of Israel before the nation fell to Assyria, it's surprising that not a great deal is told to us about him in the Scriptures. We know that he "did evil in the eyes of the Lord" and that may be a reference to his assassination of King Pekah. It may also be that he followed the religion of Jeroboam I by making offerings and sacrifices to the golden calves (that were being used as "representations" of the Lord). However, the Bible says that his wickedness was "not like the kings of Israel who preceded him", and I don't know precisely what to make of that. Certainly he was not as wicked as King Menahem who slaughtered many of his own people in 2 Kings 15. He was also not as wicked as the kings of the Ahab Dynasty who forsook the Lord entirely and gave their hearts to Baal.
According to the surviving records of ancient Assyria, Hoshea was a captain in King Pekah's army. Hoshea conspired with the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser III, to assassinate Pekah. In return for Hoshea's service, Tiglath-Pileser wrote in the annals of the Assyrian kings: "I placed Hoshea as king over them." This means that Hoshea was only a vassal king over Israel. He served at Tiglath-Pileser's pleasure and he did so faithfully until Tiglath-Pileser's son, Shalmaneser V, ascended to the throne upon his father's death. Shalmaneser V became not only king of Assyria but also inherited the title of King Of Babylon like his father before him.
After Shalmaneser's ascension to the throne, Hoshea felt it did not behoove him to remain a subject of the Assyrians. He attempted to secure an alliance with the king of Egypt in an effort to regain independence. At that time he stopped paying the required tribute to Assyria, which was correctly interpreted as rebellion against Assyrian sovereignty, and Shalmaneser acted quickly to quell the rebellion. "Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser's vassal and had paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison." (2 Kings 17:3-4)
Scholars and historians suggest that Hoshea felt his negotiations with the king of Egypt were going so well that he could go ahead and stop paying tribute to Assyria. They believe he felt so confident of help from Egypt that he thought his bid for independence would prove successful. But King So (largely believed to be Osorkon IV) did not come to his aid for reasons that are unknown. Perhaps So believed if Egypt maintained neutrality then Egypt would not be attacked by Assyria. If that was his reasoning, it proved to be a false belief because Assyria invaded and conquered Egypt, though not during the reign of King So. Some scholars posit that So was unable to muster a powerful enough army to help Hoshea successfully repel the forces of Shalmaneser V and that this is why he appears to have considered a military alliance with Hoshea but then backed out. It would have been to Egypt's advantage if Assyria could have been defeated at this time but for whatever reason there was no attempt made to do so.
Hoshea could not defend Israel from Assyria on his own. It is thought that after he was arrested he likely vowed his allegiance to Shalmaneser and promised to get caught up on the tribute owed to him and to continue paying it from there on out. But it was too late to appease Shalmaneser. He was no longer interested in being paid tribute by a vassal king over Israel. He wanted to seize the entire nation instead. "The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes." (2 Kings 17:5)
We will be learning more about the fall of the northern kingdom as we continue moving through our study of the kings and later when we arrive at the books of the prophets. But in all these books the Bible makes it perfectly clear that the fall of the nation was due to the people's abandonment of the Lord. Before the Lord brought them into the promised land He stated that no kingdom would be able to conquer them if they remained faithful to Him. And He warned them that they would not be able to stand against their enemies if they turned away from Him. I believe this principle holds true for any individual and for any nation who has been faithful to the Lord and then falls away from Him: there is no guarantee they can continue to stand for much longer. If they are not on the Lord's side, the Lord is not on their side.
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