The popularly told story of the Israelites’ exile under Assyrian rule is a simple one: The Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.E. and deported the population. These Israelites—the “Ten Lost Tribes”—were never heard from again. Actually, the situation was more complicated—and more interesting. The demise of the northern kingdom of Israel was a longish affair, lasting from 734 B.C.E. to the conquest of the capital at Samaria in 722 B.C.E. and its reconquest in 720 B.C.E. And, though the deportation of the Israelites began with the early Assyrian campaigns in 734–732 B.C.E., it continued […]
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Endnotes
1.
That the names Tiglath-pileser (Tukulti-apil-Esûarra) and Pul (Puµlu) were used to designate the same ruler is no longer seriously questioned. The name Pul is often understood as Tiglath-pileser’s Babylonian throne name. Today, however, many Assyriologists understand it either as Tiglath-pileser’s original name or as a quasi-short form for the second element of the name Tiglath-pileser—apil. In either case, the term puµlu, péµlu, meaning “limestone block,” served in folk etymology as a pejorative nickname for the ruthless empire-builder.
2.
William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr., eds., Context of Scripture (Leiden: Brill, 1997–2002), vol. 2, p. 286.
3.
Since these passages are late, a question has been raised as to how reliable they are. See H.G.M. Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 67.
4.
Summary Inscription 4:6’-8a’, 15’b-19’a, in Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 2, p. 288.
5.
Annals 18 and 24, in Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 2, p. 286.
6.
Zvi Gal, Lower Galilee During the Iron Age, trans. M. R. Josephy (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), p. 109.
7.
William G. Dever, “Excavations at Shechem and Mt. Gerizim,” Eretz Shomron. The Thirtieth Archaeological Convention, September, 1972 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1973), pp. 8–9 (Hebrew).
8.
Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 2, p. 296.
9.
Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 2, pp. 295–296.
10.
See Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 3, p. 279.
11.
Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 3, p. 246.
12.
See Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 3, pp. 259–260.
13.
Hallo and Younger, Context of Scripture, vol. 3, p. 260.
