Home > Hoshea

Hoshea ("salvation") was the last king of Israel and son of Elah. Albright has dated his reign to 732 - 721 BC, while Thiele offers the dates 732 - 722 BC.

There are two versions of how he became king. According to the author of 2 Kings, Hoshea conspired against and slew his predecessor, Pekah ( 2 Kings 15:30); Shalmaneser V then campaigned against Hoshea, and forced him to submit and render tribute(17:3). However, an undated inscription of Tiglath-Pileser III boasts of making Hoshea ("A-ú-si-' ") king after his predecessor had been overthrown, and extracted 10 talents of gold and 10,000 talents of silver in tribute. It may be that both Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser invaded Israel and both extracted tribute; Assyrian records show that Shalmaneser campaigned in Phoenicia in the years 727 BC and 725 BC.

Hoshea eventually withheld the tribute he promised Shalmaneser, expecting the support of "So, the king of Egypt". There is some mystery as to the identity of this king of EgyptAncient Egypt (also see Ancient Egyptian) was the civilization of the Nile Valley between about 3000 BC and the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. As a civilization based on irrigation it is the quintessential example of an hydraulic empi: some scholars have argued that "So" refers to the Egyptian city SaisSais is the name of a city in Ancient Egypt. SAIS is also the commonly used name of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington D., and thereby refers to king Tefnakht of the 24th DynastyHistory of Ancient Egypt, Twenty-fourth Dynasty The Twenty-fourth was a short-lived dynasty with its capital at Sais in the western Nile Delta. Tefnakhte formed an alliance of the kinglets of the Delta, with whose support he attempted to conquer Upper Egy; however the principal city of Egypt at this time was TanisTanis (Djani in Egyptian) is an important archeological site in north-east Egypt on the Tanitic branch of the Nile. The main excavation team is currently the Societe Francaise des Fouilles de Tanis (French Society for the Excavation of Tanis). It was the, which suggests that there was an unnecessary correction of the text and Kenneth KitchenKenneth Kitchen is an often referenced Professor of Archaeology based at the University of Liverpool. In his private life, he holds himself to be an Evangelical Christian. He is most frequently cited by Creationists trying to denounce the theory of the Do is correct in identifying "So" with Osorkon IV of the 22nd Dynasty .

The account in 2 Kings 17:4 states that Shalmaneser arrested Hoshea, then laid siege to SamariaModern usage Samaria or Sumaria ( Hebrew: Shomron ) is a term used for the mountainous northern part of the West Bank. In modern times, the name "Samaria" is most often used by Zionists when speaking a language other than Hebrew. Others prefer to use the; some scholars explain that Shalmaneser must have summoned Hoshea to his court to explain the missing tribute, which resulted in the imprisonment of the king of Israel, and the Assyrian army sent into his land. Regardless of the sequence of events, the Assyrians captured Samaria after a siege of three years. However, Shalmaneser died shortly after the city fell, and the Assyrian army was recalled to secure the succession of Sargon II. The land of Israel, which had resisted the Assyrians for years without a king, again revolted. Sargon returned with the Assyrian army in 720 BC, and pacified the province, deporting the citizens of Israel beyond the Euphrates (some 27,290 according to the inscription of Sargon II), and settling people from Babylon, Cuthah , Avva , Hamath and Sepharvaim in their place (2 Kings 17:6, 24). The author of the Books of Kings states this destruction occurred "because the children of Israel sinned against the Lord" (2 Kings 17:7-24), not because of a political miscalculation on Hoshea's part.

What happened to Hoshea following the end of the kingdom of Israel, and when or where he died, is unknown.