By Stan Goodenough
Mindful of the dire curses Moses said would come upon the Israelites if they forsook the God of their fathers, a prophet by the name of Hosea arose among the ten northern tribes, who had completely turned their backs on the Lord.
Hosea put them on notice that their time had run out. God would no longer have mercy on them, would no longer call them His people; they were to be destroyed – forever.
Hosea was instructed to marry a prostitute, Gomer, symbolizing Israel’s unfaithfulness to her Husband – the LORD. His first child by her was to be named Lo-Ruhamah (No Mercy) – “For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away.” (Hosea 1:6). The prophet was then told to name his second child by Gomer Lo-Ammi (Not My People) – “For you are not My people, and I will not be your God.” (1:9)
And so it was. In the ninth century BC, during the reign of Jehu, King of Israel, that the countdown to Israel’s final destruction began with the demanded tribute by the emergent Assyrians. These protection payments kept Assyria at bay until 745 BC, when the vicious warrior king, Tiglath-pileser III, transformed his country into an imperialist nation.
In 734, the Assyrian led his armies down the coast of Philistia, plundering the land as far as south of Gaza, then driving inland to take the Galilee and area east of the Jordan.
Tiglath died before taking Samaria, which fell to his successor, Shalmaneser V in 722-1. The following year yet another new Assyrian king, Sargon II, completed the destruction of the northern kingdom.
The Assyrian conquerors carried out terrible massacres of the Israelites. Of those not killed, the elite were deported to be scattered throughout the known gentile world, where they assimilated and disappeared.
The peasant remnant left behind were absorbed by foreigners – Chaldean and Aramean tribesmen – sent in to colonize the newly conquered lands. Their offspring became known as the Samaritans, who from that point onwards were looked down upon by Jews as no longer members of Am Israel (the People of Israel).
“Thus the first great mass tragedy in Jewish history took place. It was, too, a tragedy unrelieved by ultimate rebirth. The holocaust-dispersion of the northern people of Israel was final. In taking their last, forced journey into Assyria, the ten tribes of the north moved out of history and into myth.” (Paul Johnson, “A History of the Jews”.)
© Israel My Beloved
