A Journey Through The Old Testament - Elmer Towns

years (v. 5) the city was under siege before it finally surrendered to Sargon II who had succeeded
Shalmaneser. The land was depopulated and Hoshea spent the remaining days of his life in an
Assyrian prison.
When the Assyrians defeated their enemies, it was their policy to remove them from their
homeland and establish settlements in the newly conquered territory. According to Assyrian
records, exactly 27,292 were taken captive. “Then the king of Assyria brought people from
Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria
instead of the Children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities” (v.
24).
As a result, the Northern Kingdom disappeared. In accordance with the superstitions of
that day, the new settlers established a religion loosely based on the worship of the God of Israel.
But the faith of the Samaritans as they were later called was a hybrid faith. A priest of the Lord
who had been captured by Assyria was returned to Bethel to teach the new inhabitants of that
land how they should worship God; but the result was a merging of the practices of the true
religion of Israel and the pagan worship to which the people were accustomed. “They feared the
Lord, yet served their own gods—according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they
were carried away” (v. 33).
PERSPECTIVE
Though Isaiah ministered in the south as a prophetic seer, he could not miss seeing
Jehovah’s message of judgment in the north. He constantly warned Judah that she would fall.
Perhaps the influence of Isaiah was best felt on the next king of the south, Hezekiah. As so often
happened, an ungodly king had a godly son.
FORTY-FIVE
ISAIAH:
The Revival Years
(2 Kings 18:1-23:30; 2 Chronicles 29-35; Isaiah 36:1-39:8)
Isaiah had two sons who symbolized his message. The first was named Shear-Jashub
which means, “a remnant shall return.” Isaiah predicted the south would go into Captivity, but a
remnant would return to the Holy Land. His second son was named Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz
meaning “hasten to the spoil, hurry to the prey,” the message of imminent judgment.
The Book of Isaiah is divided into three distinct parts. Chapters 1-35 deal with messages
of judgment and the key word is Assyria. When young Isaiah began to preach, the north was not
concerned with Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh, but with another nation with a similar
name-Syria, whose capital .was Damascus. The second portion of the book, chapters 36-39 is a
historical section that describes the invasion of Assyria and the reaction of Hezekiah. The final
section deals with the promise of a coming deliverer (the Messiah) and the restoration of the
kingdom. The key word is Babylon, which would conquer the Southern Kingdom. When Isaiah
wrote, Babylon was not yet a world power.
Hezekiah began his reign at age twenty-five (716 B. C. ). Hezekiah was a revival king,
and one of the factors in that revival was the ministry of Isaiah that called the nation to