Hoshea
Israel · 732 – 722 BC · 9 years · 2 Kings 17
His Story
The last king of Israel. He began as Assyria’s vassal, then, trusting in Egypt’s promises, withheld tribute and plotted revolt. Shalmaneser came up, imprisoned him, and besieged Samaria for three years. In 722 BC the city fell, and the ten tribes were carried away to Assyria and scattered — the obituary of a nation, written by Scripture itself in 2 Kings 17.
His Sin — How He Displeased the LORD
His personal verdict carries a strange mercy in it: he did evil, “but not as the kings of Israel that were before him” — the least wicked of a wicked line. But he reigned over a people whose cup was full: calves, high places, pillars, children passed through fire, divination — the whole indictment of 2 Kings 17:7 – 23, accumulated over two centuries.
The Good He Did
Comparatively, he was less evil than his predecessors — some read in 2 Kings 18:4’s context and the removal of barriers to Passover pilgrimage under him a late softening. What is certain is that Scripture grades him above the line he ended — a reminder that God notices degrees, though degrees do not save nations whose hour has come.
The LORD’s verdict
“And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him.”2 Kings 17:2 (KJV)
How His Reign Ended
Bound in prison by Assyria before his capital even fell; Samaria was taken in his ninth year, and Israel went into an exile from which the ten tribes, as a nation, never returned.
Lessons for Believers Today
- “Not as the kings before him” — God is exact in judgment; no man is charged with another’s measure. Yet relative goodness is not righteousness, and late softening is no substitute for repentance.
- Nations fall the way men fall: not in a day, but by two hundred years of tolerated sin. Read 2 Kings 17 slowly — it is the autopsy.