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722 BCEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Assyria Conquers the Northern Kingdom and Scatters the Ten Tribes

Samaria falls, tens of thousands are deported, and ten of Israel's twelve tribes vanish from history

On the timeline · around 722 BCE · Ancient IsraelAncient IsraelSecond Temple and ExileAssyria Conquers the Northern Kingdom and Scatters the Ten Tribes900 BCE850 BCE800 BCE750 BCE700 BCE650 BCE600 BCE550 BCE

Quick facts

Samaria falls
722 BCE
Assyrian kings involved
Shalmaneser V, then Sargon II
Deportees, per Sargon's inscriptions
27,290 Israelites
Surviving kingdom
Judah (south)

What happened

After Solomon's kingdom split around 931 BCE into a northern Kingdom of Israel and a southern Kingdom of Judah, the northern kingdom fell first. The Assyrian king Shalmaneser V besieged the Israelite capital of Samaria, and his successor Sargon II completed its capture in 722 BCE. World History Encyclopedia records that Sargon's own inscriptions boast of deporting 27,290 Israelites, resettling them across the Assyrian Empire from Anatolia to the Zagros Mountains. The biblical account in 2 Kings states the Assyrian king deported the Israelites to Halah, the river Habor, the river Gozan, and the towns of Media. TheTorah.com, a project of academic biblical scholars, notes the Assyrian deportation policy deliberately scattered deportees across the empire to dissolve their identity, unlike the later Babylonian exile of Judah, whose deportees were kept together and eventually returned. The scattered Israelites of the north never returned as a body and became known in later tradition as the Ten Lost Tribes.

Why it matters

The disappearance of the northern tribes left the smaller southern Kingdom of Judah, and its inhabitants the Judahites, as the sole surviving branch of ancient Israel, the branch from which the words Jew and Judaism both descend. Had Judah fallen the same way a century and a half later, there might be no continuous Jewish history to tell at all.

How we know

The fall of Samaria and the Assyrian deportation are recorded in the Hebrew Bible's Second Book of Kings and independently confirmed by Sargon II's own Assyrian royal inscriptions, which record the number of deportees and the campaign in the king's own words.

Sources

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Part of a timelineHistory of Judaism26 events · A small highland people, a book that outlasted every empire that tried to erase it, and a faith that survived exile twice and built a state a third timeView all →
Assyria Conquers the Northern Kingdom and Scatters the Ten Tribes · History of Judaism · SourcedStory