In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria. Shalmaneser is not named as the conqueror (cf. 2 Kings 18:10), for he had compelled to hasten to Assyria on account of a formidable rebellion at home; but he left a portion of his army before the walls of Samaria, intending, as soon as he had suppressed the revolt, to return and prosecute the war in Israel. But these hopes were disappointed by the success of the usurper, who, having by his audacity, vigour, or popular influence, established himself on the Assyrian throne, determined, amount other military expeditions he planned, to employ his turbulent subjects to march into Syria, and complete the siege of Samaria, which Shalmaneser had not been able to accomplish. The event fulfilled the prophecy of Hosea (Hosea 13:16), and terminated the actual existence of Israel as a kingdom. "The king of Assyria," who "took Samaria" was Sargon (Isaiah 20:1), or Sargina, as it stands on the monumental inscriptions-a name which signifies 'king de facto;' and by assuming that title, he virtually and publicly proclaimed himself a usurper.
It was the invariable custom of the Assyrian monarchs at their secession to parade in their annals their name end royal pedigree. But Sargon had no ancestry to boast of; and while of course the absence of any stick customary allusions to his personal descent plainly shows that he possessed no hereditary or legal title to the throne, the small number of monuments relating to his predecessor's reign that have been discovered, furnish an inferential argument to the same purport, having probably been destroyed by Sargon (Oppert, 'Inscriptions,' quoted Rawlinson's 'Ancient Monarchies' 2: p. 408). On the fall of Samaria, which Sargon says he took in his first year, the conqueror adopted a policy which consisted of two very different measures: one was the deportation to Assyria of the major portion of the inhabitants, and the other, the establishment in the depopulated districts of Israel of an Assyrian colony with a deputy governor to rule them, and exact the tribute which had been imposed on that dependent province. Such was the end of the kingdom of Israel. The fall of Samaria and Damascus was, according to the prediction of the prophet, synchronons (Isaiah 7:7-9); and the devastation both of Syria and Israel was foretold at a time and in circumstances when no human sagacity could have anticipated it, (Amos 1:1-15.)
And carried Israel away into Assyria - i:e., the remaining tribes (see the notes at 2 Kings 15:29). From inscriptios in the palace at Khorsabad (Layard's 'Nineveh and Babylon,' p. 618), which record the number of Israelite captives, it appears that 27,280 were transported into Assyria from Samaria and other parts of the kingdom of Israel. The removal of entire populations from vanquished countries to some other portion of the conqueror's dominions had not been adopted, so far as reliable history testifies, as the policy of any ancient sovereigns in the East, until it was introduced and acted upon by the later Assyrian kings. Soldiers when taken captive in battle, women and children belonging to the conquered enemy, it had, indeed, for ages, been the custom to carry into the land of the victor; and even numerous tribes of foreigners, resident within the territory, and reduced to a state of bondage, like the Israelites in Egypt, had frequently, by the arbitrary will of ancient kings, been dragged to different quarters of their kingdom to labour on their public works.
But such removals, compulsory though they were, were totally different in character and design from the wholesale transportations which became the policy of the later Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and even to some extent the Romans-the policy of refoulement, or deporting en masse the inhabitants of a conquered country. The exhumation of the Ninevite relics, followed by the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, has put us in full possession of the annals of ancient Assyria; and in the minute legends on the walls of the palaces we find details, registered by the authority and under the direction of the conquerors themselves, of the quantity and quality of the spoil-of the amount of oxen and sheep-of the number, rank, and treatment of the captives-with the horrid tortures inflicted upon the fallen chiefs.
But few traces have been found, though there are some in the times of the old Assyrian empire, of the removal of an entire nation. Tiglath-pileser appears to have been the introducer of this novel experiment for ensuring the submission of a vanquished people (Josephus 'Antiquities,' b. 9:, ch. xii); and as it proved successful, it was followed on a large scale by Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon in Assyria, as well as by the great despots of the succeeding old-world empires-Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon (cf. Jeremiah 39:8-9; Daniel), Darius, Artaxerxes in Persia (Esther), etc.
This policy of transplanting a conquered people into a foreign land was founded on the idea, that among a mixed multitude, differing in languages and religion, they would be kept in better subjection, and have less opportunity of combining to recover their lost independence. The rulers of those vast empires became convinced from experience, that it was difficult or impossible to keep together the heterogeneous masses of people under their sway, especially the people of newly conquered provinces, while they remained in their own country and amid their old associations; and hence, political expediency suggested the scheme of transporting the vanquished to some remote part of their dominions, and stocking the land thus left vacant by a colony of strangers (see Layard 'Nineveh and its Remains,' 2:, pp. 374, 375; Rawlinson's 'Ancient Monarchies,' 2: pp. 326, 343, 397, 398, 423, 528, 529; Fox Talbot's 'Assyrian Texts,' Philippians 3:4, Philippians 3:7, Philippians 3:11, Philippians 3:17; Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' 2:, pp. 563, 564). The practice is continued still in the East (Chardin's 'Voyage en Perse,' 3:, p. 292).
And placed them ... This passage should stand thus, omitting the particle by, which is printed in italics, to show it is not in the original-`and placed them in Halah, and on the Chabor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.'
Halah - the same as Calah (Genesis 10:11-12), in the region of the Laycus or Zab river, about a day's journey from the ruins of Nineveh.
Chabor - is a river, and it is remarkable that there is a river rising in the central highlands of Assyria which retains this name, Khabour, unchanged to the present day. Gozan (pasture), or Zozan, are the highlands of Assyria, which afford pasturage. The region in which the Chabour and the Zab rise, and through which they flow, is peculiarly of this character. The Nestorians repair to it with their numerous flocks, spending the summer on the banks or in the highlands of the Chabour or the Zab. Considering the high authority we possess for regarding Gozan and Zozan as one name, there can be no doubt that this is the Gozan referred to in this passage. [The Septuagint makes both of these rivers: en Alae kai en Aboor potamois.]
Cities of the Medes - `villages,' according to the Syriac and Vulgate versions. [The Septuagint has: kai oree Meedoon , and mountains of the Medes.] This was the second and last deportation of the Israelites (cf. 2 Kings 15:29). It was accomplished by Sargon, of course not all at once, but progressively, perhaps extending over weeks; and the conqueror has recorded the event on the walls of his palace at Khorsabad, in the following terms:-`Samaria I looked at, I captured ... 27,280 men who dwelt in it I carried away ... I appointed a governor over the country, and continued upon them the tribute of the former people' (see Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' 1:, 493). The Medish inhabitants of Gozan having revolted, had been destroyed by the kings of Assyria, and nothing was more natural than that they should wish to place in it an industrious people, like the captive Israelites, while it was well suited to their pastoral life. This is the view that has been generally taken of the geographical position of those localities to which the last portion of the Israelites was transported (Bochart's 'Geog. Sac.,' 3:, 14; Keil, in loco; Kitto's 'Cyclopaedia,' article 'Gozan:' cf. Grant's 'Nestorians').
Rev. G. Rawlinson (in 'Bampton Lectures,' p. 425, and in his article 'Gozan,' Smith's 'Dictionary') advocates the theory that these places were all, excepting those mentioned in the last clause, to be found in Mesopotamia-that Halah was a district called Chalcitis, the modern Gla; Habor, the Aborrhas, or Chaboras; Gozan, which (2 Kings 19:12) is coupled with Haran, stood in a district which was anciently called Gauzanitis, or Gozan (Mygdonia; Ptolemy, 5:, 18). Hara is added, 1 Chronicles 5:26, which is evidently Haran or Charran. 'Undoubtedly,' he adds, 'the bulk of the Israelites were settled in this country (Mesopotamia), while Sargon selected a certain number to colonize his new cities in Media.'