Extra-Biblical evidence complements and supplements what 2Ki 14:23–29 already tells us about life in Israel under Jeroboam II, king over Hosea the public prophet. The scenario painted there reflects the time before Tiglath-Pileser III took the throne of Assyria late in the spring of 745 BC. During Jeroboam’s reign, Assyria had had little influence in Israel, but Syria, Israel’s neighbor and traditional rival to the north, had been in recurring conflict. Syria’s losses were economically and militarily advantageous for Israel, allowing Jeroboam II to reclaim strategic territory to the north and east.
The economic windfall created a buffer zone that helped the elite in Israel accumulate the wealth that they badly abused, as Amos and Hosea eloquently remind us. Such abuse of wealth might be reflected in the archaeological record at the former capital city of Tirzah (Tell el-Farah [North]; see 1Ki 15:33; 16:8). There in Stratum III, dating to the eighth century BC, were found solidly built, stately four-room houses in the neighborhood immediately south of an administrative headquarters, while farther to the south was a cluster of four-roomed houses that were very poorly built and shabbily aligned. Samaria had a large cluster of impressive building complexes outside the city (especially to the south toward Shechem), which possibly suggests a similar gap between the socioeconomic classes.
History, especially as it relates to the other kings of Israel, sheds further light on Hosea’s time. The murder of Jeroboam II’s son, Zechariah, spelled an end not only to the Jehu dynasty (the longest in Israel’s history) but also to any semblance of political stability in Israel. From then on, as one short-lived, illegitimate king replaced another, all that reigned with consistency was chaos itself. And it could not have come at a worse time for Israel. Starting with the kingdom of Urartu near Turkey in the north (743–740 BC) and moving progressively southward over an additional three campaigns (in 738, 734, 733–732 BC), the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III, a brilliant military strategist, systematically mobilized his army against the entire eastern Mediterranean seaboard in order to quell rebellions and redirect needed goods along trade routes to Assyria.
Assyria’s foreign policy in effect allowed kingdoms like Israel three main options: (1) submit voluntarily and pay tribute; (2) be conquered and pay tribute as an independent puppet state; or (3) be conquered and pay tribute as a full-fledged province of Assyria, complete with an Assyrian overseer. Israel graduated from option one to option two under Tiglath-Pileser III (campaigns of 738 and 732, respectively) and to option three later under Sargon II (722).
Each of these three stages of Israel’s subjugation is attested in Assyrian sources. Records of Tiglath-Pileser found on slabs at Calah record Menahem of Israel (745–737 BC) paying voluntary tribute. The Assyrian king’s annals also record Israel’s ill-fated final king, Hoshea, being installed as a puppet king (in keeping with option two). And finally came option three. Annals from stone slabs and inscriptions on walls at Khorsabad contain the Assyrian king Sargon II’s boast of besieging and conquering Samaria, carrying away exiles, and installing one of his own officers to rule there. ◆
Key Concepts
• Loving God and being compassionate and merciful to those around you are the values most desired by God.
• Israel is guilty of syncretism and injustice.
• The key theme of the prophets concerns whether the people will respond to God’s warnings and instructions.