Useful Bible Studies > 2 Kings Commentary > chapter 15
The king of Assyria had a new way to control the people in the nations that he defeated. He would not allow them to remain in the places where they were living. Instead, he deported them. In other words, he forced them to march for several hundred miles (or kilometres) to a different part of his vast country. There, they would have to live and work, and to make their new homes in that foreign country. That made it much more difficult for them to organise themselves to oppose his rule. They might even, after a long period of time, forget their former nation and its religion.
However, the king of Assyria did not at this time destroy northern and central Israel completely. He destroyed only enough of that country to show his power over it. So, he destroyed a series of towns across the northern part of Israel. He also took possession of two regions in Israel. One of these was Gilead, on the east side of the Jordan river. The kings of Aram, which the king of Assyria defeated at the same time (16:9), had previously taken Gilead from Israel (10:32-33).
The king of Assyria also took possession of Galilee. This was a region of land on the west side of the sea that is also called Galilee. It was the place where the people from one of Israel’s 12 tribes (groups of families) called Naphtali were living. The king of Assyria took the people in these regions away from their homes, to live in a distant country. For them, this was a truly terrible event. They had lost possession of the land that God himself had chosen for their families (Joshua 19:32-39). They could only pray that, in the future, God would permit them to return there (Deuteronomy 30:1-5; 1 Kings 8:46-51).
From this time, the people who remained in northern and central Israel had to pay an annual tax to the king of Assyria (17:4). When, a few years later, King Hoshea refused to pay that tax, the king of Assyria returned to destroy the rest of the country (17:1-6).
Next part: Hoshea murders Pekah (2 Kings 15:30-31)
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