Stories From The Hebrew Bible
HOW THE TEN TRIBES WERE LOST
Stories From The Hebrew Bible
HOW THE TEN TRIBES WERE LOST
The power and peace that Judah enjoyed under Jeroboam the Second did not last after his death. His great kingdom fell apart, and his son Zachariah reigned only six months. He was slain in the sight of his people by Shallum, who made himself king. But after only a month of rule, Shallum himself was killed by Menahem, who reigned ten years of wickedness and of suffering in the land, for the Assyrians spoiled the land and took away the riches of Israel. Then came Pekahiah, who was slain by Pekah, and Hoshea, who in turn slew Pekah. So nearly all the latter kings of Israel won the throne by murder and were themselves slain. The land was helpless, and its enemies, the Assyrians from Nineveh, won victories, carried away many of the people; and robbed those who were left. All these evils came upon the Israelites, because they and their kings had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers and worshiped idols.
Hoshea was the last of the kings over the Ten Tribes; nineteen kings in all, from Jeroboam to Hoshea. In Hoshea’s time, the king of Asskria, whose name was Shalmaneser, came up with a great army against Samaria. He laid siege against the city; but it was in a strong place and hard to take, because it stood on a high hill. The siege lasted three years, and before it was ended, Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, died, and Sargon, a great warrior and conqueror, reigned in his place. Sargon took Samaria and put to death Hoshea, the last king of Israel. He carried away nearly all the people from the land and led them into distant countries in the east, to Mesopotamia, to Media, and the lands near the great Caspian Sea.
Sargon did this in order to keep the Israelites from again breaking away from his rule.
The children of Israel had forsaken the Lord in their own land by worshiping idols, so, after they were taken away to these distant lands, they sought the gods of the people they lived among. They married the people of those lands and ceased to be Israelites. After a time they lost all knowledge of their own God, who had given them His Words and sent them His prophets. So, the Ten Tribes of Israel came to an end. They never again came back to their own land and were lost among the peoples of the far east.
But a small part of the people of Israel were left in their own land. The king of Assyria brought people to the land of Israel from other countries and placed them in the land. But they were too few to fill the land and to care for it. As a result, the wild beasts began to increase in Israel, and many of these strange people were killed by lions who lived in the mountains and valleys. They thought that the lions came upon them because they did not worship the God who ruled in that land, and they sent to the king of Assyria saying, “Send us a priest who can teach us how to worship the God to whom this land belongs; for he has sent lions among us, and they are destroying us.”
They supposed that each land must have its own God, like the Philistines who worshiped Dagon, and the Moabites who worshiped Chemosh, and the Tyrians and Zidonians, Baal and the Asherah. They did not know that there is only one God, Who rules all the world and who is to be worshiped by all men.
Then the king of Assyria sent to these people a priest from among the Israelites in his land; and this priest tried to teach them how to worship the Lord. But they mingled the worship of idols with God’s worship, and did not serve the Lord only, as He wanted them to do. Later, these people were called Samaritans, from Samaria – their chief city. They had a temple to the Lord on Mount Gerizim, near the city of Shechem.
