2 Kings 18:11. The king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
The practice of carrying into captivity all the inhabitants of a city or of a section of country was in use by the Assyrians from a very early period of their history, and is frequently referred to and illustrated on their monuments. “In the most flourishing period of their dominion—the reigns of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon—it prevailed mast widely, and was carried to the greatest extent. Chaldeans were transported into Armenia; Jews and Israelites into Assyria and Media; Arabians, Babylonians, Lusianians, and Persians into Palestine—the most distant portions of the empire changed inhabitants, and no sooner did a people become troublesome from its patriotism and love of independence than it was weakened by dispersion, and its spirit subdued by a severance of all its social associations” (Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies, vol. 2, p. 238).
Tiglath Pileser carried a large number of captives to Assyria twenty years before the captivity referred to in the text. See 2 Kings 15:29. Eight years after this Sennacherib took “the fenced cities of Judah” (2 Kings 18:13). An account of this event is given on one of the Assyrian monuments. The king claims to have carried away over two hundred thousand of the inhabitants. More than a hundred years after this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, invaded Judea, and by several distinct deportations carried the people into captivity. See 2 Kings 25:14; 24:11; 2 Chronicles 36:20; Jeremiah 52:28-30.