By Gary D. Myers
Baptist Press
TEL HADID, Israel — Nestled between accounts of Israel’s defeat at the hands of the Assyrian army and the rise of Hezekiah’s kingship in Judea, the importance of 2 Kings 17:24-40 can be easy to overlook.
The verses speak of the people groups the Assyrians sent to the region of Samaria in Israel after the fall of the Northern Kingdom and the deportation of the Israelite elites.
The passage in 2 Kings states that the Assyrians relocated people from “Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim” to Samaria. Many scholars believe these newcomers later intermarried with the remnant of Israelites and ultimately formed the religious sect known as the Samaritans. [Read more…]