The Northern Kingdom (Israel)
The Northern Kingdom (Israel)
he Northern Kingdom consisted of 10 of the tribes (excluding Judah and
Benjamin). It lasted for about 210 years until it was destroyed by Assyria in 722 BC.
Its capital was Samaria. Every king of Israel was evil. In the northern kingdom
there were 9 dynasties (family lines of kings) and 19 kings in all. An average
of 11 years to a reign. 8 of these kings met death by violence.
The epitaph written over every one of its kings was:
IKing 15:34
and he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam,
and in his sin by which he had made Israel to sin.
It was king Ahab who introduced Baal worship to them.
IKing 16:30-33
Now Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who
were before him. And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for
him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife
Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served
Baal and worshiped him. Then he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal,
which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to
provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were
before him.
The last king was Hoshea (2 Ki 17). The petty wars of the past, wars with
Syria and Edom, Ammon and Philistia, were now to give way to war on an ominous new
scale. A world empire was being gathered into the ruthless hands of the
Assyrians. The ruthless and cruel Assyrians (under Sargon II) besieged Samaria for 3
years and finally it fell, Israel was doomed. The Assyrians hauled them away
into captivity (722 BC). 
But the Lord always reminded them of why judgement came:
II Ki 17:7-23
For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their
God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of
Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they had feared other gods, and had walked in the
statutes of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of
Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
Also the children of Israel secretly did against the LORD their God things
that were not right, and they built for themselves high places in all their
cities, from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves sacred pillars
and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree. There they
burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom the LORD had carried
away before them; and they did wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger, for
they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, "You shall not do this
thing."
Yet the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah, by all of His
prophets, every seer, saying, "Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and
My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which
I sent to you by My servants the prophets." Nevertheless they would not hear,
but stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe
in the LORD their God. And they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He
had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified
against them; they followed idols, became idolaters, and went after the nations who
were all around them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them that they should
not do like them.
So they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, made for themselves a
molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the host of
heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and daughters to pass
through the fire, practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do
evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger.
Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His
sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone. . And the LORD rejected all
the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of
plunderers, until He had cast them from His sight. For He tore Israel from the
house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Then Jeroboam
drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them commit a great sin. For the
children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not
depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He had
said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own
land to Assyria, as it is to this day.
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