Sargon Repopulates Samaria with Foreign Peoples

When the Assyrian king Sargon II finished his three-year siege of Samaria in 722 BCE, he completed the project begun by his predecessor Shalmaneser V: deporting the ten northern tribes of Israel into exile across the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 17:5-6, 17:23-24). To prevent the depopulated land from collapsing into anarchy or being recaptured by surviving Israelite remnants, the Assyrian administration brought in fresh colonists "from Babylon, Cuth, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel" (2 Kings 17:24). The newcomers brought their gods with them — the men of Cuth set up Nergal, the men of Babylon set up Succoth-benoth, the men of Avva set up Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children to Adrammelech and Anammelech. When lions began ravaging the colonists, they appealed to the king of Assyria for an Israelite priest to teach them "the law of the god of the land." A Samaritan-Israelite priest was sent back to Bethel to teach Yahweh-worship — but the colonists merely added Yahweh to their pantheon (2 Kings 17:33). The mixed religious and ethnic population that emerged became the ancestors of the Samaritans, whom Jewish writers would later derogate as "Cutheans" (Kuthim) — preserving the memory of this Assyrian-era population transplant for centuries.

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