the kingdom of
Israel, have been interpreted in such a way as to give us
two campaigns by Shalmaneser against Hoshea: (1) Hoshea
having failed to pay the tribute imposed upon him by
Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser made war upon him and compelled
him to resume its payment (2 Kings xvii. 1-3); (2) Hoshea
having intrigued with Egypt, and declined to pay tribute,
Shalmaneser again took the field against him, made him
prisoner, and besieged Samaria for three years (2 Kings
xvii. 4-6; xviii. 9-12). The first expedition must, in this
case, have taken place in 727, while the second must have
lasted from 725-722. Most modern historians believe that the
Hebrew writer has ascribed to Shalmaneser the subjection of
Hoshea which was really the act of Tiglath-pileser, as well
as the final war against Israel. According to Winckler, the
two portions of the narrative must have been borrowed from
two different versions of the final war, which the final
editor inserted one after the other, heedless of the
contradictions contained in them.

Hoshea, who had ascended the throne with the consent of Tiglath-pileser,
was unable to keep them quiet. The whole of Galilee and Gilead was now
an Assyrian province, subject to the governor of Damascus; Jerusalem,
Moab, Ammon, and the Bedawin had transferred their allegiance to
Nineveh; and Israel, with merely the central tribes of Ephraim,
Manasseh, and Benjamin left, was now barely equal in area and population
to Judah. Their tribute weighed heavily on the Israelites; passing
armies had laid waste their fields, and townsmen, merchants, and nobles
alike, deprived of their customary resources, fretted with impatience
under the burdens and humiliations imposed on them by their defeat;
convinced of their helplessness, they again looked beyond their own
borders for some nation or individual who should restore to them their
lost prosperity. Amid the tottering fortunes of their neighbours, Egypt
alone stood erect, and it was, therefore, to Egypt that they turned
their eyes. Negotiations were opened, not with Pharaoh himself, but
with Shabi, one of the petty kings on the eastern frontier of the Delta,
whose position made him better qualified than any other to deal with
Syrian affairs.*

* This individual is called Sua, Seveh, and So in the Hebrew
text (2 Kings xvii. 4), and the Septuagint gives the
transli