Hosea was Israel's last king. He reigned in Samaria for 9 years (732-722 B.C.). He was a bad king, but he was not as bad as his predecessors.108
Shalmaneser V (727-722 B.C.) had succeeded his father Tiglath-Pileser III on Assyria's throne. Hoshea became the servant of Assyria rather than of Yahweh (v. 3). However he was not a faithful servant even of Shalmaneser (v. 4). This led to the end of his freedom and the siege of his capital (vv. 4-5). Samaria fell to Assyria in 722 B.C., and a second deportation of the population to various parts of the Assyrian empire followed in harmony with Assyria's policy toward conquered peoples (cf. 15:29).109
"So"(v. 4) may be the Hebrew pronunciation of the Egyptian capital, Sais, rather than the name of a pharaoh.110The verse so translated would read ". . . who had sent messengers to So [to the] king of Egypt,"as in the NIV margin. Alternatively So may have been Pharaoh Tefnakht111or Pharaoh Piankhy.112
As God had promised, the Israelites' apostasy had resulted in their scattering among other peoples (Deut. 28:64). According to 1 Chronicles 7 some members of the ten northern tribes returned to the Promised Land at the end of the 70-year Babylonian Captivity. Apparently most of the Northern Kingdom exiles intermarried and lost their identity among the other Semitic people among whom they went to live. There is no evidence that the "ten lost tribes"became the American Indians, the Afghans, the Armenians, the Nestorians, or the English, as some cults claim.
Israel had suffered for 209 years under 20 different kings from 9 dynasties. Seven of these kings died at the hands of assassins. All of them were evil. They did not comply with the will of Yahweh as contained in the Mosaic Law and the revelations of His prophets.
