Captivity

The captivity of Israel refers to two major deportations that ended the independent existence of the two Israelite kingdoms. The Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom (Israel) occurred in stages: Tiglath-pileser III deported the Transjordanian tribes and Galilean population in 732 B.C. (2 Kings 15:29), and Shalmaneser V and Sargon II completed the deportation of Samaria's population in 722/721 B.C. (2 Kings 17:6), resettling the land with peoples from Babylon and other Assyrian territories. The Babylonian captivity of the southern kingdom (Judah) was carried out by Nebuchadnezzar in three phases: 605 B.C. (including Daniel), 597 B.C. (including Ezekiel and the young king Jehoiachin), and 586 B.C., when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed and the bulk of the remaining population deported (2 Kings 25). The return from Babylonian exile, authorized by Cyrus of Persia in 538 B.C. (Ezra 1), fulfilled Jeremiah's prophecy of a seventy-year exile (Jeremiah 25:11) and is theologically interpreted as a second exodus.