Useful Bible Studies > 2 Kings Commentary > chapter 17
When Assyria’s rulers defeated a nation, they tried to destroy it completely. They did not want that nation ever to become powerful enough in the future to fight against them. They wanted the people from such a nation to forget that they had even belonged to that nation.
So, they forced vast groups of people to march to distant nations where those people would now have to live. They would not allow the people to remain in their former towns or even their former nations.
That had already happened to the people in Naphtali when Assyria’s army took control of their region called Galilee (15:29). The people from Naphtali had to march to Assyria, 600 miles (1000 kilometres) away. There, they had to live and work, and to establish new homes.
When Assyria’s army defeated the rest of Israel, many more people suffered in this way. The king of Assyria ordered them to go to different places in the vast country that he ruled. Some of them even had to march to Media, the country of the people called Medes. This was beyond Assyria; parts of it were 1000 miles (1600 kilometres) from Israel.
Many of Israel’s people died in the war against Assyria. We expect that more would have died on these marches than in the war. After the war, the people would have been weak and hungry. It would be possible to carry few possessions on these marches. If the people still had anything valuable, the soldiers from Assyria would rob them. However, some people from Israel did manage to reach these new countries, and they made their homes there.
Next part: Israel's people must serve only the true God (2 Kings 17:7-8)
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