Assyrian Captivity
187
speedily as possible instituted important reforms in the temple service
at Jerusalem. A Passover celebration was arranged for, and to this feast
were invited not only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, over which
Hezekiah had been anointed king, but all the northern tribes as well.
A proclamation was sounded “throughout all Israel, from Beersheba
even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover unto the Lord
God of Israel at Jerusalem: for they had not done it of a long time in
such sort as it was written.
“So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes
throughout all Israel and Judah,” with the pressing invitation, “Ye
children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped
out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.... Be ye not stiff-necked, as
your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into
His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified forever: and serve the Lord
your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you.
For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children
shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they
shall come again into this land: for the Lord your God is gracious and
merciful, and will not turn away His face from you; if ye return unto
Him.”
2 Chronicles 30:5-9
.
[289]
[290]
[291]
“From city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh
even unto Zebulun,” the couriers sent out by Hezekiah carried the
message. Israel should have recognized in this invitation an appeal to
repent and turn to God. But the remnant of the ten tribes still dwelling
within the territory of the once-flourishing northern kingdom treated
the royal messengers from Judah with indifference and even with
contempt. “They laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.” There
were a few, however, who gladly responded. “Divers of Asher and
Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem,
... to keep the feast of unleavened bread.”
Verses 10-13
.
About two years later, Samaria was invested by the hosts of Assyria
under Shalmaneser; and in the siege that followed, multitudes perished
miserably of hunger and disease as well as by the sword. The city and
nation fell, and the broken remnant of the ten tribes were carried away
captive and scattered in the provinces of the Assyrian realm.
The destruction that befell the northern kingdom was a direct
judgment from Heaven. The Assyrians were merely the instruments