event · E0004

Exile of the Ten Tribes גלות עשרת השבטים

The northern kingdom did not fall in a day. Assyria dismantled it in stages — first Tiglat-Pileser carried off Gilead and the Galil, then, after a three-year siege, Shomron itself fell and the remaining tribes were scattered across the Assyrian empire. Ten of the twelve tribes pass out of the mesorah's story here; from this point the chain of transmission runs through Yehudah alone.

I. Who

Hebrew
גלות עשרת השבטים
Also known as
Assyrian Exile, Fall of Shomron
Era
bible

II. When

Traditional
3187–3205 AM
Academic
c. 733–722 BCE
Date range
c. 733–722 BCE (academic)
Duration
≈18 years
Precision
approximate

V. How do we know

ClaimEvidenceConfidenceSources
In the days of Pekach ben Remalyahu, Tiglat-Pileser king of Assyria took Iyon, Avel Beit-Maachah, the Gilead, and the Galil — all the land of Naftali — and exiled them to Assyria: the first stage of the exile.
Confidence is for what the biblical text states.
biblical ★★★★★
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Shomron and exiled Israel to Assyria, settling them in Chalach, Chavor on the Gozan river, and the cities of Madai — the end of the northern kingdom. biblical ★★★★★
Seder Olam's regnal framework for the last kings of Israel — Menachem, Pekachiah, Pekach, and Hoshea, with the Assyrian campaigns woven through them — yields the traditional span 3187–3205 AM for the staged exile.
Academic dating (c. 733 BCE for Tiglat-Pileser III's campaign, 722 BCE for the fall of Samaria, both anchored in Assyrian royal records) diverges from the traditional AM-to-BCE arithmetic by the same ~166-year Persian-period seam flagged at Destruction of the First Temple; the atlas positions the event by traditional AM.
tradition ★★★☆☆