The Assyrian captivity, also called the Assyrian exile, is the period in the history of ancient Israel and Judah during which tens of thousands of Israelites from the Kingdom of Israel were dispossessed and forcibly relocated by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. One of many instances attesting Assyrian resettlement policy, this mass deportation of the Israelite nation began immediately after the Assyrian conquest of Israel, which was overseen by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V. The later Assyrian kings Sargon II and Sennacherib also managed to subjugate the Israelites in the neighbouring Kingdom of Judah following the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE, but were unable to annex their territory outright. The Assyrian captivity's victims are known as the Ten Lost Tribes, and Judah was left as the sole Israelite kingdom until the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, which resulted in the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people. Not all of Israel's populace was deported by the Assyrians; some of those who were not expelled from the former kingdom's territory eventually became known as the Samaritan people.
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👉 Assyrian captivity in the context of Ten Lost Tribes
The Ten Lost Tribes were those from the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been exiled from the Kingdom of Israel after it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE. They were the following: Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Manasseh, and Ephraim – all but Judah and Benjamin, both of which were based in the neighbouring Kingdom of Judah, and therefore survived until the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Alongside Judah and Benjamin was part of the Tribe of Levi, which was not allowed land tenure, but received dedicated cities. The exile of Israel's population, known as the Assyrian captivity, was an instance of the long-standing resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire implemented in many subjugated territories.
The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that "there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers." In the 7th and 8th centuries CE, the return of the Ten Lost Tribes was associated with the concept of the coming of the Hebrew Messiah. Claims of descent from the "lost tribes" have been proposed in relation to many groups, and some Abrahamic religions espouse a messianic view that Israel's tribes will return.
- ⭐ Core Definition: Assyrian captivity
- 👉 Assyrian captivity in the context of Ten Lost Tribes
- Assyrian captivity in the context of Jewish diaspora
- Assyrian captivity in the context of Israelite
- Assyrian captivity in the context of Shechem
- Assyrian captivity in the context of Samaritans
- Assyrian captivity in the context of Jewish history
- Assyrian captivity in the context of History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel
Assyrian captivity in the context of Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora (Hebrew: גוֹלָה gōlā), alternatively the dispersion (תְּפוּצָה təfūṣā) or the exile (גָּלוּת gālūṯ; Yiddish: גלות gōləs), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southern Levant and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the world, which gave rise to the various Jewish communities.
In the Hebrew Bible, the term gālūṯ (lit. 'exile') denotes the fate of the Twelve Tribes of Israel over the course of two major exilic events in ancient Israel and Judah: the Assyrian captivity, which occurred after the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BCE; and the Babylonian captivity, which occurred after the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the 6th century BCE. While those who were taken from Israel dispersed as the Ten Lost Tribes, those who were taken from Judah—consisting of the Tribe of Judah and the Tribe of Benjamin—became known by the identity "Jew" (יְהוּדִי Yehūdī, lit. 'of Judah') and were repatriated following the Persian conquest of Babylonia.
Assyrian captivity in the context of Israelite
The Israelites, also known as the Children of Israel, were an ancient Semitic-speaking people who emerged in Canaan during the Iron Age. They were a Hebrew people that spoke an archaic Hebrew language commonly called Biblical Hebrew through association with the Hebrew Bible. In biblical myth, the population was divided into the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The group went on to form the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanite populations and other peoples of the ancient Near East. The Israelite religion revolved around Yahweh, who was an ancient Semitic god with less significance in the broader Canaanite religion. Around 720 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, triggering the Assyrian captivity; and around 586 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, triggering the Babylonian captivity. While most of Israel's population was irreversibly dispossessed as a result of Assyrian resettlement policy, Judah's population was rehabilitated by the Achaemenid Empire following the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE.
Assyrian captivity in the context of Shechem
Shechem (/ʃəˈkɛm/ shə-KEM; Biblical Hebrew: שְׁכֶם, romanized: Šəḵem, Biblical pronunciation: [ʃəˈxɛm]; Samaritan Hebrew: ࠔࠬࠥࠊࠝࠌ, romanized: Šăkēm), also spelled Sichem (/sɪˈkɛm/ sik-KEM; in the Septuagint, Koine Greek: Συχέμ, romanized: Sykhém) and other variants, was an ancient city in the Southern Levant. Mentioned as a Canaanite city in the Amarna letters, it later appears in the Hebrew Bible as the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) following the split of the United Monarchy. According to Joshua 21:20–21, it was located in the tribal territorial allotment of the tribe of Ephraim. Shechem declined after the fall of the Kingdom of Israel. The city later regained its importance as a prominent Samaritan center of Hellenistic Palestine.
Traditionally associated with the city of Nablus, Shechem is now identified with the nearby site of Tell Balata in Balata village in the West Bank, Palestine.
Assyrian captivity in the context of Samaritans
Samaritans (/səˈmærɪtənz/; Samaritan Hebrew: ࠔࠠࠌࠝࠓࠩࠉࠌ, romanized: Šā̊merīm; Hebrew: שומרונים, romanized: Šomronim; Arabic: السامريون, romanized: as-Sāmiriyyūn), often preferring to be called Israelite Samaritans, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of ancient Israel and Judah that comprises the northern half of the West Bank in Palestine. They are adherents of Samaritanism, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion that developed alongside Judaism.
According to their tradition, the Samaritans' ancestors, the Israelites, settled in Canaan in the 17th century BCE. The Samaritans claim descent from the Israelites who, unlike the Ten Lost Tribes of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, were not subject to the Assyrian captivity after the northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed and annexed by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE.
Assyrian captivity in the context of Jewish history
Jews originated from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah, two related kingdoms that emerged in the Levant during the Iron Age. The earliest mention of Israelites is inscribed on the Merneptah Stele c. 1213–1203 BCE; later religious literature tells the story of Israelites going back at least as far as c. 1500 BCE. Traditionally, the name Israel is said to originate with the Hebrew patriarch Jacob, who provides a narrative etiology for the name – after wrestling with an angel, Jacob is renamed Israel, meaning "he who struggles with God". The Kingdom of Israel based in Samaria fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire c. 720 BCE, and the Kingdom of Judah to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. Part of the Judean population was exiled to Babylon. The Assyrian and Babylonian captivities are regarded as representing the start of the Jewish diaspora.
After the Achaemenid Empire conquered the region, the exiled Jews were allowed to return and rebuild the temple; these events mark the beginning of the Second Temple period. After several centuries of foreign rule, the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom, but it was gradually incorporated into the Roman imperial system. The Jewish–Roman wars, a series of unsuccessful revolts against the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, and the expulsion of many Jews. The Jewish population in Syria Palaestina gradually decreased during the following centuries, enhancing the role of the Jewish diaspora and shifting the spiritual and demographic centre from the depopulated Judea to Galilee and then to Babylon, with smaller communities spread out across the Roman Empire. During the same period, the Mishnah and the Talmud, central Jewish texts, were composed. In the following millennia, the diaspora communities coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled: the Ashkenazim in Central and Eastern Europe, the Sephardim initially in Iberia, and the Mizrahim in the Middle East and North Africa.
Assyrian captivity in the context of History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel
The history of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel begins in the 2nd millennium BCE, when Israelites emerged as an outgrowth of southern Canaanites. During biblical times, a postulated United Kingdom of Israel existed but then split into two Israelite kingdoms occupying the highland zone: the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (circa 722 BCE), and the Kingdom of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian Empire (586 BCE). Initially exiled to Babylon, upon the defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (538 BCE), many of the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem, building the Second Temple.
In 332 BCE the kingdom of Macedonia under Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, which included Yehud (Judea). This event started a long religious struggle that split the Jewish population into traditional and Hellenized components. After the religion-driven Maccabean Revolt, the independent Hasmonean Kingdom was established in 165 BCE. In 64 BCE, the Roman Republic conquered Judea, first subjugating it as a client state before ultimately converting it into a Roman province in 6 CE. Although coming under the sway of various empires and home to a variety of ethnicities, the area of ancient Israel was predominantly Jewish until the Jewish–Roman wars of 66–136 CE. The wars commenced a long period of violence, enslavement, expulsion, displacement, forced conversion, and forced migration against the local Jewish population by the Roman Empire (and successor Byzantine State), beginning the Jewish diaspora.