If you’ve ever wondered why you sometimes see 723, 722, or 721 BC as the date for the fall of the northern kingdom, I can explain it to you. A similar difficulty occurs with the fall of Jerusalem—was it in 587 or 586? The challenge is not simply determining the right date, but reconstructing the events that led to the collapse of these kingdoms. In the case of the northern kingdom, scholars have debated who conquered Samaria (Shalmaneser V or Sargon II?), what happened to Israel’s final king, when the siege occurred, and whether the capital city was destroyed.
There is a good reason these questions have tormented scholars: when kingdoms are falling, administrators have more on their minds than record-keeping. Whatever records are kept may soon be destroyed, and victors may revise history to make themselves look better. In this particular case, very few Assyrian records survive from the reign of Shalmaneser V. And the accounts preserved in Scripture were not written primarily to help historians like me pull all the pieces together.
But I have. Or at least, I’ve done my very best. And I think it came out pretty well. I think I have some answers. Perhaps few of my conclusions are original, but if they’re buried in old books or obscure journals, they are not much good to those without time to scour the libraries.
My study of the fall of the northern kingdom in the new A History of Ancient Israel covers everything from the collapse of Jehu’s dynasty in the north and Uzziah’s leprosy in the south to Israel’s demise and Ahaz’s death. But I’ll focus here on the vexing questions related to the Israel’s fall. This post can serve as an introduction to an article of mine that The Bible and Interpretation recently published. And that article can serve as an introduction to our new book.
I’ll start with the best-known and perhaps most difficult issue, with a simple statement: The northern kingdom fell in the summer of 723. I’m convinced of this conclusion, even though almost all of the books say 722 (and a few say 721). The Assyrian Eponym Chronicle records Shalmaneser V campaigning in 725, 724, and 723, while the Babylonian Chronicle credits him with the conquest of Samaria. The biblical record describes a three-year siege, which fits these years perfectly. Sargon II later attempted to rewrite history and claim the victory for himself, but the evidence indicates that he was occupied with unrest in Assyria in 722 and 721. The pieces fit together remarkably well, pointing to a conquest in 723 rather than either of the later dates.
Hoshea was Israel’s final king. He came to the throne in 732, and his nine-year reign ended in 723. However, I conclude that he was captured by Assyria in 725, before the siege of Samaria began. Thus, the final years of his reign continued to be counted while he was a prisoner, explaining what otherwise might seem to be a chronological contradiction.
The city of Samaria was not destroyed. That the Assyrians razed the rebel city is a natural assumption, and the archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon claimed as much. But assumptions are ill-advised, as is trusting the dame of biblical archaeology. A later reexamination of her excavation records by Ron Tappy indicates that the city suffered little physical destruction. Samaria surrendered and many of its inhabitants were deported, but the Assyrians preserved the city and made it the capital of the Assyrian province of Samerina a few years later.
There is another vexing chronological problem in this era, this one involving the kings of Judah. This one was so difficult that even Edwin Thiele, who figured out so much else, erred. He concluded that the biblical record was mistaken in indicating that Hezekiah was reigning when the northern kingdom fell, despite three explicit statements to that effect (2 Kgs 18:1, 9, 10). But Hezekiah’s father Ahaz had elevated him to co-regent, and with this recognition the numbers make sense. Except for one, and I have a suggestion for that. Why does the Bible date the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign to the start of his coregency in some places, but count from the beginning of his sole reign in another (2 Kgs 18:13)? Perhaps the righteous Hezekiah did not want to be credited with the evil years of his father and so began the count all over. I can’t prove that, but it makes sense of the preserved data.
It’s fun wrestling with long-standing problems when there is hope of a satisfactory solution. And given my confidence in Scripture, I believe that the answers can usually be found. I think that sometimes scholars give up too quickly. It can be easier to reject the biblical text than to understand it.
Much of what I’ve done is not particularly complicated, and I’m building on the work of many who have gone before and made critical breakthroughs. But I’ve brought it together in a way that is, to me at least, convincing. Every piece of biblical data is embraced; none is rejected. Ancient inscriptions are carefully evaluated, with their testimony accepted unless there’s a compelling reason to doubt it. Archaeological discoveries may clarify and confirm the written record. Altogether, we have more evidence than ever before, allow us to reconstruct a fuller picture of the history of ancient Israel.
It has been my happy privilege to tell the story all over again for those who have heard it before and those who have not. I hope the reading is as satisfying to you as the research and writing were to me.
