In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, for nine years.
This verse reads like a plain line in a royal register. It is not. It names Israel's last king, and the nine years it counts are the years in which his kingdom ends.
He did not inherit the crown. He seized it, and the dates around that seizure take some untangling.
Son of Elah and the last king of Israel. He conspired against Pekah and killed him, and reigned in his place, "in the twentieth year of Jotham." But Jotham reigned only 16 years. This probably means that Pekah was killed in the twentieth year after Jotham became king. There was then anarchy for about 9 years, thought to be noticed in Hosea 10. Hoshea began to reign B.C. 730, the twelfth year of Ahaz, which agrees with 2 Kings 17:1.
Another writer measures the gap a little differently, and admits the record leaves out the reason.
At least eight years with no king passed between the murder of Pekah, his predecessor, and his own taking of the throne. Why this kingless interval, we have no means of knowing, nor how the time was occupied.
Hoshea's nine years close a much longer story.
After the split, the Northern Kingdom continued about 260 years. Then the kings of Assyria destroyed it and deported the people. Nineteen kings in all reigned over the ten tribes. Sadly, there was not a single good king among them. Some, it must be said, were more desperate in their wickedness than others.
Hoshea's answer to Assyria was payment, not repentance.
Hoshea, the murderer of Pekah, reigned nine years in Samaria while doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. His conduct toward Him was less profane than that of his predecessors. But he took no account of the judgments of God. Through all the prophets God had foretold that Israel would fall under Assyria. Year after year king Hoshea had been sending presents to the king of Assyria. In this he followed one of his predecessors, Menahem.
God had borne with nineteen kings. With Hoshea that patience ends.
Hoshea, although less wicked than his predecessors, ends the list of kings whom the patience of God had borne with in Israel. God thought of His people; and now there was no more hope for them. They were not even a vessel fit to hold the election of God, to whom He made Himself known. Brought into subjection to the king of Assyria, Hoshea had sought help from Egypt. After the king of Assyria had put him in prison, Samaria and all Israel could not hold out long.
Even the king's name carried a message.
Israel's last king was Hoshea. His name means "deliverance." It shows what might have been if he and the people had repented of their sins.
The name outlived the man. Another writer hears in it a promise still ahead.
His name means deliverer. It may have a prophetic significance, as a gracious reminder to the now long-scattered nation. It points to that great "Deliverer" who will "come from Zion" (God's grace) and "banish ungodliness from Jacob." And then, and so, "all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26).
- Conspiracy. Hoshea reached the throne by killing Pekah, and the crown he seized was the last one Israel would ever wear.
- Delay. At least eight years passed with no king at all. No writer claims to know why.
- Deafness. The prophets had already warned that Assyria would rule Israel. Hoshea sent presents year after year instead of repenting.
- Deadline. Nineteen kings had tried God's patience. With this one it ends. The nation was no longer a vessel fit to hold what God had given it.
- Deliverance. The last king's name means deliverance. Israel refused it then. Grace still holds it out to a scattered people.
And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, but not as the kings of Israel that had been before him.
Israel's northern kingdom ends with Hoshea, and God's verdict on him is unusual: he did evil, but not like the kings before him. So was he really better, and why does judgment fall in his reign?
Hoshea is the last of those kings. One writer sees the end of God's patience here, not a fresh start.
Hoshea was less wicked than the kings before him. Yet he closes the list of kings whom God's patience had borne with in Israel. God thought of His people; and now there was no more hope of them. They were not even a vessel fit to hold God's election — the people to whom He had made Himself known.
The comparison may sound like progress. One commentator gives a different reason: the golden calf-idols at Bethel and Dan were already gone.
Israel's last king was Hoshea. His name means "deliverance." It shows what might have been if he and the people had repented of their sins. The record of his character is brief: "And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him." This does not mean that he improved. The Assyrian had already taken the golden calves away from Bethel and Dan. So he could no longer sin like Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and the other kings of Israel. Hosea had predicted this (Hosea 10:5-8).
If the idols were gone, not worshipping them earns nothing. Another writer presses the point: skipping a sin is not the same as hating it.
He was the last of the nineteen kings who ruled — or rather misruled — Israel. That last clause gives Hoshea no credit. The Assyrian plunderers had most likely removed and carried away the golden calves of Dan and Bethel. See Hosea 10:5-8. If he did not worship them, or other detestable things, it was not because he "abhorred idols" (Rom. 2:22).
Commentators differ on how much this clause means. Where some see no credit for Hoshea, another sees how God weighs each life.
It is interesting to see what the Lord notes here. Hoshea did evil in His sight, but not as the kings of Israel before him did. The Judge of all the earth always does right. He knows the heart and weighs with the balances of the sanctuary.
So what was his evil? One writer points to what Hoshea left out of his reckoning.
Hoshea, the murderer of Pekah, reigned nine years in Samaria while doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. His conduct toward Him was less irreverent than that of the kings before him. But he took no account of the judgments of God. Through all the prophets God had foretold that Israel would come under Assyria.
Hoshea then tried to keep both Assyria and Egypt on his side. It cost him his throne and his city.
His Assyrian overlord now imprisoned him. He overran the land with his armies and besieged Samaria for three years, till it fell. He had found treachery in Hoshea. Instead of paying his normal tribute, Hoshea had sent envoys to the king of Egypt to ask for help. Our Lord Jesus plainly declares that no man can serve two masters — an important lesson for us to learn, too.
Hoshea's name promised deliverance. One writer points past him to the only One who brings it.
Hoshea (deliverance) proved anything but that to his people. One alone will bring deliverance to the ten tribes. Israel was taken captive into Assyria and resettled in various places. The ten tribes have never returned from their captivity. They will not return until the Lord Himself brings them back in a day to come.
- Measured — God weighs Hoshea with care. His evil was real, but it was not the evil of the kings before him. The Judge of all the earth always does right and reads the heart.
- Not excused — the milder record is no compliment. The calf-idols were already gone, so he could not sin as Jeroboam did. Avoiding an idol you cannot reach is not hating it.
- Still evil — he ignored the judgment the prophets had announced. Then he tried to serve Assyria and Egypt at once.
- Ended — he closes the list of kings God's patience had borne with. Israel was no longer even a vessel fit to hold God's election, and hope for it was gone.
- Unfulfilled — his name meant deliverance, and it showed what repentance could have brought. Instead the ten tribes went into a captivity that only the Lord Himself will reverse.
Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his servant, and tendered him presents.
An Assyrian army comes up against Israel. Hoshea's answer is not repentance but payment. He submits to Shalmaneser and buys peace with tribute. Commentators ask what it cost Israel to lean on the power God had raised up against her.
Hoshea's throne was never really his own. One writer gives two possible reasons for his shaky start.
It seems he had trouble tightening his hold on a kingdom that was now sinking fast. Or perhaps he had to get his right to rule approved by the powerful Assyrians. Either way, he ruled only as a vassal of the Assyrian king.
Becoming a vassal was not a one-off surrender. A vassal kept his throne by paying a stronger king, year after year. Hoshea copied an earlier king of Israel who had done the same — and he ignored what the prophets had said was coming.
His conduct toward Him was less godless than that of his predecessors. But he took no account of the judgments of God, by which all the prophets had foretold that Israel would be put under Assyria. Year after year king Hoshea had been sending gifts to the king of Assyria (v. 3). In this he followed one of his predecessors, Menahem, who by gifts had made himself a vassal of the Assyrian king Pul, so that Pul would establish the kingdom in his hands.
Shalmaneser's arrival was not bad luck. One writer traces it straight to Hoshea's own conduct.
But his evil deeds, whatever they were, quickly brought the Assyrian — "the rod of God's anger" — down on him and his wicked subjects… He had conspired against his weaker Israelite master. He tried the same thing, to his sorrow, with his powerful Gentile lord.
The title cuts both ways. Assyria is a tool in God's hand, and the tool is answerable too:
God used this power as His rod to chasten His people… It is as if God says to this mighty power: I am using you to chastise My straying people. But if you lift yourself up against Me, I must bring you down.
The verse just before ours calls Hoshea less evil than the kings before him. Commentators differ on how to read that. One takes it as no compliment:
Nothing in that last clause counts in Hoshea's favour. The Assyrian raiders had most likely already carried away the golden calves of Dan and Bethel… If he did not worship them, or other detestable things, it was not because he "abhorred idols."
Another reads the same clause as a sign that God measures each man exactly:
It is striking to see the Lord note that Hoshea did evil in His sight, but not like the kings of Israel before him. The Judge of all the earth always does right. He knows the heart, and He weighs it in the balances of the sanctuary.
Hoshea did not stay loyal to Assyria. He also turned to Egypt, and the prophets had already named that habit.
The prophet speaks of the king's two-faced, untrustworthy conduct: "Ephraim feeds on wind and pursues the east wind; all day long they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt" (Hosea 12:1), and again "Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria" (Hosea 7:11).
One writer puts the lesson bluntly, and it reaches past Hoshea:
Egypt gave Israel no help and only wounded them badly. Egypt was like a staff that breaks under the weight of the man leaning on it, and then pierces his hand. Whenever God's people turn to Egypt — a picture of the world — for help, and make godless alliances, they do so to their own hurt and shame.
- Sin first. Hoshea's evil deeds brought the Assyrian down on him. The invasion was a consequence, not an accident.
- Rod second. Commentators call Assyria "the rod of God's anger." God chastens His people with the empire, then brings the empire down if it lifts itself up against Him.
- Tribute third. Becoming a vassal meant gifts sent year after year, copying Menahem. Hoshea took no account of the judgments the prophets had foretold.
- Double-dealing fourth. A covenant with Assyria and oil sent to Egypt at the same time — the prophets called Ephraim a silly dove, calling to Egypt and going to Assyria.
- Ruin last. Egypt was a staff that breaks and pierces the hand. Turning to the world for help ends in hurt and shame.
But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and sent up no present to the king of Assyria as [he had done] from year to year. And the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.
Hoshea's reign ends with a secret message sent to Egypt, not with a battle. His Assyrian overlord found out, and that one move cost Hoshea his freedom and opened the way to the fall of Samaria.
Hoshea had come to the throne by plotting against his predecessor. One writer sees the same instinct turned on a far stronger master, with a very different result.
He who conspired against his weaker Israelite master attempted the same — to his sorrow — with his powerful Gentile lord.
One reference work names him as an Egyptian king, and traces where Hoshea's gifts to Egypt led.
The twenty-fifth dynasty was a foreign one, of Ethiopians who reigned in Nubia. Its first king, named Shabaka, or Sabaco, was the So of Scripture. Hoshea, king of Israel, tried to form an alliance with this king in order to break free from his allegiance to Assyria. He made presents to Egypt; but the scheme was not carried out. It led to the capture of Samaria and the captivity of the ten tribes.
A prophet had already described this double game: a covenant with Assyria, and oil sent down to Egypt.
The prophet mentions this two-faced, suspicious conduct of the king. "Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt" (Hosea 12:1). And again: "Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria" (Hosea 7:11). So, discovering Hoshea's conspiracy, Shalmaneser "shut him up and bound him in prison" (v. 4).
Another writer takes the dove further. The bird does not just lack sense; it flies toward the trap while looking for safety.
The Lord was their help and their rest, but they did not fly back to Him. Like a moth around a flame, they fluttered around Egypt and Assyria, trying to find deliverance there. They went from Egypt to Assyria and from Assyria back to Egypt. They never saw the net spread to destroy them — and that net was Assyria itself. In this net the Lord caught them. Their freedom would end and captivity would begin.
Turning to Egypt was an old habit that never once paid off. One writer names what Egypt really was, then turns the point on the reader.
Egypt has been a breaking staff to Israel; a staff of reed, which offered much but never kept its promises, bringing only ruin to all who trusted it. Going down to Egypt for help was the constant snare of the people of God. Yet God had rescued them from that land, and in that rescue they had seen His judgment on it. Yet they could turn back to it again and again. This is an inconsistency that none of us who knows himself can claim to be a stranger to! ... The lesson is as plain as it is basic. It is the lesson, "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"
Hoshea was less wicked than the kings before him, yet the line of kings closes with him. One writer reads his imprisonment as the point where hope for the kingdom ran out.
Hoshea, although less wicked than his predecessors, ends the list of kings whom the patience of God had borne with in Israel. God thought of His people; and now there was no more hope for them. They were not even a vessel fit to hold the election of God, to whom He made Himself known. Brought under subjection to the king of Assyria, Hoshea had sought help from Egypt. After the king of Assyria put him in prison, Samaria and all Israel could not hold out long.
- Habit. Hoshea plotted his way past a weaker king, then tried the same trick on a stronger one. The habit that won him a throne cost him his freedom.
- Bait. Egypt was a staff of reed. It promised much and kept nothing, yet God's people kept going down to it for help.
- Blindness. Israel flew between Egypt and Assyria like a dove without sense. It never saw that Assyria itself was the net.
- End. With Hoshea in prison, God's long patience with the northern kingdom closed. Samaria could not stand for long.
- Lesson. The prop they leaned on instead of God became the chain that held them. No one who knows himself is a stranger to that habit.
And the king of Assyria overran the whole land, and went up against Samaria, and besieged it three years.
Hoshea had secretly asked Egypt for help, and Assyria found out. Now the empire he tried to escape floods the whole land and shuts up his capital for three years.
The verse follows a report of Hoshea bound in prison, yet the siege it describes came first. One writer explains the order of events, and notes that Assyria's own monuments record the city's fall:
What follows, about the siege of Samaria, happened before Hoshea's imprisonment, though the account records it later. "Hoshea's imprisonment did not come before the capture of Samaria. The writer of Scripture first records what finally happened to Hoshea himself, then gives the details of the invasion as it affected Samaria and Israel" (Fausset)... Assyria's own monuments record this siege and capture of Samaria just as 2 Kings 17 tells it.
The siege outlasted the king who began it. One writer notes that the account credits the capture only to "the king of Assyria":
These inscriptions tell us that the siege of Samaria had lasted two years when Sargon replaced Shalmaneser. Sargon took Samaria in the first year of his reign. The record here does not name Sargon. But note that it does not credit the capture of Samaria to Shalmaneser either. Both passages, 2 Kings 17:6 and 18:10-11, speak only of the king of Assyria.
Politics explains part of the invasion. One writer points to what Hoshea ignored, and to the reason Scripture itself gives:
Hoshea did not take into account the judgments of God by which all the prophets had foretold Israel's subjection to Assyria... These political motives are not given to us in the Word. God's own motive is shown by a word in Chronicles: "So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile" (1 Chr. 5:26).
Hoshea's own conduct brought that army down on him:
But his evil doings, whatever they were, quickly brought the Assyrian, "the rod of God's anger," on him and his guilty subjects... He had conspired against his weaker Israelite master. He tried the same thing with his powerful Gentile lord, and it cost him dearly.
The prophets spoke of Israel "returning to Egypt." One writer explains what that phrase means:
"Return into the land of Egypt" does not have to mean fleeing there. It means looking there for help. Isaiah 31:1 says the same thing: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help."
Hoshea tried to hold on to both Assyria and Egypt. One writer draws the lesson for us:
His Assyrian overlord now imprisoned him and overran the land with his armies, besieging Samaria for three years till it fell. He had found treachery in Hoshea. Instead of paying his normal tribute, Hoshea had sent envoys to the king of Egypt to ask for help. Our Lord Jesus says clearly that no one can serve two masters — an important lesson for us to learn, too.
The invasion was not sudden. One writer shows what God's long patience with this kingdom was for, and when it ended:
God's patience bore long with the rebellion of His people, and He took pity on their affliction (see 2 Kings 17). That patience lasted as long as it could still be a testimony to the real character of the God who showed it. It never denied His holiness and righteousness. It never gave approval to sin. So God could still bless the people and keep a true testimony to what He is — a testimony even the nations could see. In a word, His patience lasted "until there was no remedy."
The three years closed a kingdom. One writer marks how final this judgment was:
This was a sweeping judgment of God against His people Israel, and the ten tribes have never returned to their land since that time... Only a miraculous act of God at the end of the Tribulation will bring His people Israel back to their land.
The last king's name carried a promise his reign never kept:
Hoshea (deliverance) proved anything but that to his people. One alone will bring deliverance to the ten tribes.
- Cause — the army at the gate ended a long story. Scripture gives the reason: God stirred up the spirit of the king of Assyria.
- Patience — God bore with this kingdom while His patience could still witness to His holiness — "until there was no remedy."
- Double-dealing — Hoshea served Assyria and courted Egypt at once. To the prophets, asking Egypt for help was "returning" there. No one can serve two masters.
- Record — the account tells the siege out of order, and it never names the king who finished it. Assyria's own monuments record the same events.
- Deliverance — a king named "deliverance" delivered no one. The ten tribes have never come back. One alone will bring them home.
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
This verse closes the story of the northern kingdom with a bare list of place names. Behind the list lies the end of a nation — ten tribes taken from their land — and the question the chapter answers: who moved Israel, and will they ever come back?
The fall was no surprise. One writer shows what Hoshea overlooked, and who stood behind the invading army:
Hoshea took no account of the judgments of God, by which all the prophets had foretold that Israel would be brought under Assyria… The Word does not give us the political reasons, but a word in Chronicles shows us the divine reason: "And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser … and he carried them away" (1 Chr. 5:26).
Hoshea is the last name in Israel's line of kings, and the chapter jails him before Samaria falls. Two things explain the verse here: the order of the telling, and the record kept outside the Bible:
Hoshea was the last of the nineteen kings who ruled — or rather misruled — Israel… "Hoshea's imprisonment did not come before the capture of Samaria. The sacred writer first records the eventual fate of Hoshea himself, then gives the details of the invasion as it affected Samaria and Israel" (Fausset)… The monuments of Assyria record this siege and capture of Samaria just as 2 Kings 17 tells it.
The verse credits the capture to "the king of Assyria." The siege lasted three years, and the throne changed hands before it ended:
…it was not Shalmaneser in person who took the city, for we are told, "And at the end of three years they took it" (2 Kings 18:10). During this interval Sargon (Isa. 20:1) had succeeded Shalmaneser, or at least was at the head of the army during a short gap between reigns.
The verse opens with a date and ends with four place names. A Bible dictionary fills in both:
Scripture gives a more definite date for the captivity of the rest of Israel. It was in the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, and the sixth year of Hezekiah, that the Assyrians took Samaria after a three years' siege: this would be 722 B.C. The captives were carried to Halah and Habor by the river of Gozan (the same names appear in 1 Chr. 5:26, with Hara added there). These places are supposed to be in the north of Assyria. But in the passage in Kings the words "and in the cities of the Medes" are added. That region lies much further east. There they would be far removed from their fellow Israelites in Assyria and from Judah, who were afterwards carried to Babylon.
Earlier deportations took parts of the nation. This one took what was left:
This was a sweeping judgment of God against His people Israel. The ten tribes have never been restored to their land since that time… Now that God has allowed this great scattering of the ten tribes, only a miraculous intervention of God at the end of the Tribulation will bring His people Israel back to their land.
The verse names the towns. It records no return, and that silence has kept people searching:
No one knows clearly or certainly where the ten tribes are; nor does it seem to be anyone's business to search it out beforehand. We may leave them in the obscurity where God has put them. If we believe His word, we know that He has preserved the scattered remnant of the two tribes. Just as surely, He will bring the descendants of the ten out of their hiding place.
This verse states the fact. The verses that follow give the reason, and God put that reason on record for readers far beyond Israel:
While God has no obligation to explain to us why He does what He does, in His Word He often does so. As He concludes the story of the ten-tribe kingdom, God gives us a detailed list of particulars in 2 Kings 17:7-23 as to why He brought an end to this kingdom. God has placed it in His Word for our warning and instruction. We do well to examine it. Romans 11:20-21 tells us: "Do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you."
- Cause — Scripture leaves the politics unstated. Chronicles gives the real reason: God stirred up the spirit of the Assyrian kings.
- Record — The account is not in strict order. Hoshea's fate comes first, then the invasion; Assyria's own monuments confirm the siege and fall of Samaria.
- Scattering — Assyria placed the captives in the north and in the far eastern cities of the Medes, cut off from each other and from Judah.
- Consequence — The ten tribes have never come back. Only a direct act of God will bring them home.
- Warning — God did not just record this judgment. He explained it, so that later readers would not presume on His patience.