Samaria falls; Israel exiled to Assyria
After a three-year siege, Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel; the northern kingdom came to an end.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
2 Kings 17:6 (World English Bible)
King Hoshea had stopped paying tribute and turned to Egypt for help. Assyria besieged Samaria for three years and carried the Israelites off to Assyria and Media, then resettled the land with foreigners, whose mixed descendants became the Samaritans.
2 Kings 17 explains why: Israel had rejected God's covenant, followed Jeroboam's calves and the Baals, and ignored every prophet God sent.
Places
EgyptBabylonAssyriaSamariaBethelSepharvaimGozanHalahHaborCuthHamathAvva
Ancient witnesses outside the Bible
Historical sources, not Scripture.
- Antiquities 9.14.2 — Menander on Shalmaneser’s war against Tyre
Dating notes
Hoshea's ninth year (2 Kings 17:6). Ussher dates the fall to 721 BC, and conventional dating gives 722/721 BC, one of the points where the two chronologies meet.