“From city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh even unto Zebulun,” the couriers sent out by Hezekiah carried the message. Israel should have recognized in this invitation an appeal to repent and turn to God. But the remnant of the ten tribes still dwelling within the territory of the once-flourishing northern kingdom treated the royal messengers from Judah with indifference and even with contempt. “They laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.” There were a few, however, who gladly responded. “Divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem, ... to keep the feast of unleavened bread.” 2 Chronicles 30:10-13. (PK 291.1) MC VC

About two years later, Samaria was invested by the hosts of Assyria under Shalmaneser; and in the siege that followed, multitudes perished miserably of hunger and disease as well as by the sword. The city and nation fell, and the broken remnant of the ten tribes were carried away captive and scattered in the provinces of the Assyrian realm. (PK 291.2) MC VC

The destruction that befell the northern kingdom was a direct judgment from Heaven. The Assyrians were merely the instruments that God used to carry out His purpose. Through Isaiah, who began to prophesy shortly before the fall of Samaria, the Lord referred to the Assyrian hosts as “the rod of Mine anger.” “The staff in their hand,” He said, “is Mine indignation.” Isaiah 10:5. (PK 291.3) MC VC

Grievously had the children of Israel “sinned against the Lord their God, ... and wrought wicked things.”(2 Kings 17:7, 11) “They would not hear, but ... rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them.” 2 Kings 17:14, 15. It was because they had “left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal,”(2 Kings 17:16) and refused steadfastly to repent, that the Lord “afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight,”(2 Kings 17:20) in harmony with the plain warnings He had sent them “by all His servants the prophets.” 2 Kings 17:23. (PK 291.4) MC VC

“So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria,” “because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded.” 2 Kings 17:7, 11, 14-16, 20, 23; 18:12. (PK 292.1) MC VC

In the terrible judgments brought upon the ten tribes the Lord had a wise and merciful purpose. That which He could no longer do through them in the land of their fathers He would seek to accomplish by scattering them among the heathen. His plan for the salvation of all who should choose to avail themselves of pardon through the Saviour of the human race must yet be fulfilled; and in the afflictions brought upon Israel, He was preparing the way for His glory to be revealed to the nations of earth. Not all who were carried captive were impenitent. Among them were some who had remained true to God, and others who had humbled themselves before Him. Through these, “the sons of the living God” (Hosea 1:10), He would bring multitudes in the Assyrian realm to a knowledge of the attributes of His character and the beneficence of His law. (PK 292.2) MC VC