Chapter LXVII.
FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. — ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY.
TOBIAS.
[4 Kings 17 — 18. Tobias 1 — 3.]
THE Lord ceased not to send to the Israelites holy prophets[1] who preached penance to them both by word and example. But the Israelites would not be converted, and their wickedness[2] increased to such an extent that the Almighty resolved to punish them in His wrath, and utterly to destroy them. He therefore caused Salmanazar, king of Assyria, to come against them with a mighty army. He laid siege[3] to the strong city of Samaria, and after three years took it and carried off most of its inhabitants captives[4]; and thus the kingdom of Israel ceased[5] to exist. Thus the prophecy of Amos (9, 8) was fulfilled: “Behold, the eyes of the Lord God [are] upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth: but yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob.”
The Israelites having been slain or carried off into captivity, their land had become almost a wilderness[6], and the Assyrian king, in order to people it again, sent thither thousands of his pagan subjects who, settling amongst the scattered remains of the ten tribes, were soon so mixed up with them that they became, as it were, a new nation, and scarcely a trace remained of the people of Israel.
- ↑ Prophets. Among these prophets were Osee and Amos, who announced the judgments of God which were to come.
- ↑ Wickedness. The prophet Osee (4, 2 and 11) thus describes the moral condition of the people: “Cursing, and lying, and killing, and theft, and adultery have overflowed. Wine and drunkenness take away the understanding." Sedition, regicide and civil war became more and more common.
- ↑ Siege. He encamped all round the town so that no necessaries of life could be brought to it.
- ↑ Captives. Imagine to yourselves with what tears and aching hearts they must have left their homes. Now, no doubt, they repented of their sins and deplored their blindness; but it was too late. The Israelites were divided among the towns in Northern Assyria and were much hampered in the free practice of their religion.
- ↑ Ceased. Being merged in the Assyrian Empire in the year 721 B. C.
- ↑ A wilderness. Because its inhabitants were very few, and the land only partially cultivated.
