Lives of Scripture

Hoshea son of Elah seized Israel's throne through assassination, conspiring against King Pekah, striking him down, and becoming king in his place (2 Kings 15:30). He reigned nine years in Samaria as Israel's last king, doing evil in the LORD's sight -- though, Scripture notes almost as a footnote, "not as the kings of Israel who were before him" (17:1-2). Hoshea became a vassal of Assyria's Shalmaneser, paying tribute to avoid invasion, but then gambled on rebellion: he sent secret envoys to "So, king of Egypt," seeking an alliance, and stopped paying Assyria's tribute (17:3-4). Shalmaneser discovered the conspiracy, seized Hoshea, and bound him in prison, then marched on Israel itself, besieging Samaria for three years (17:4-5). In Hoshea's ninth year, Samaria fell; Assyria deported the northern kingdom's population, resettling foreign peoples in their place -- the end of the ten northern tribes as an independent nation (17:6). The chapter immediately follows this with a long theological verdict: Israel's exile came "because the sons of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God" through generations of idolatry, ignoring prophet after prophet's warning (17:7-23). Hoshea's brief, unheroic reign -- born in violence, ended in captivity -- closes the book on the northern kingdom exactly as its prophets, including Hosea, had long warned would happen (Hosea 10:15).