ABSTRACT
The varying fortunes of the kings of Judah and Samaria in the 200 years after Solomon are narrated in 1 and 2 Kings. Several years of disarray followed in the northern kingdom of Samaria after the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II (d. c.746 bc: see Amos, p. 199), but seemed to be resolved by the accession of Pekah (c.736: see Isa 7:1ff., p. 219). Then in 734, Samaria and Syria formed a foolhardy alliance against Assyria; Judah in the south (advised by Isaiah) refused to join. Shalmaneser of Assyria decided to end these pinpricks once for all; Samaria fell to Assyria in 722 bc, everyone who mattered was exiled to the east, colonists from surrounding countries, with other religions, were brought in, and the Ten Tribes as such disappear from history. The annalist narrates these dire events with cool directness, but with a plain Judean bias. The fall of Samaria is blamed on the Samaritans’ moral weakness, whereas the bare simplicity describing the disasters overtaking Jerusalem day by day, a century later, masks the personal anguish of an observer.
