HOSHEA hō she’ ə (הﯴשֵׁ֥עַ, prob. hypocoristicon for יְהﯴשֻֽׁעַ, or הﯴשַׁ֣עְיָ֔הוּ, May Yāhū save). 1. The son of Nun. This was the original name of Joshua before Moses changed it (Num 13:8, 16). If the Heb. text of Deuteronomy 32:44 is original, apparently he was known by both names for a time.

2. The son of Beeri. He was the prophet whose name is normally anglicized Hosea (q.v.), whose oracles and biographical and autobiographical accounts have been preserved in the book of the same name.

3. The son of Azaziah. He was one of David’s officers set over the tribes of Israel, representing Ephraim (1 Chron 27:20).

4. One of the leaders of the people who set their seal to the covenant of Nehemiah (Neh 9:38; 10:23).

5. The son of Elah. He was the nineteenth and last king of Israel in that period of social and moral upheaval prior to the fall of Samaria, in which a total of six kings came to the throne of Israel in a period of only fourteen years (746-732 b.c.). He ruled for nine years, 732-724 b.c., finally being imprisoned by Shalmaneser V. (See 2 Kings 15:30; 17:1-6; 18:1, 9, 10.)

Hoshea became king by forming a conspiracy against and murdering his predecessor Pekah the son of Remaliah (2 Kings 15:30), apparently due to the utter failure of Pekah’s policy of resistance to Assyria. This policy had ended in complete defeat. When Hoshea came to the throne in 732 b.c., Tiglath-pileser had annexed virtually the whole kingdom of Israel to the Assyrian empire. In 733 he attacked the northern part of the Jordan valley, making Gilead in the Trans-Jordan and Galilee into Assyrian provinces (15:29; cf. Isa 9:1). The former removed all Israelite holdings in the Trans-Jordan, while the latter extended S of Megiddo, since this city was its administrative capital. In his own annals Tiglath-pileser records that he also added the coastal plain of Sharon as a third province with a capital at Dor, prob. extending all the way to the Philistine border near Joppa (see Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible [Phila.: Westminster, 1967], pp. 329-333, esp. map 31), cf. “the way of the sea” (Isa 9:1). This left only the capital city of Samaria and the surrounding hill country of Ephraim as Israelite domain. It is likely this also would have been taken had not Hoshea murdered Pekah, apparently with Assyrian confirmation (at least Tiglath-pileser could say in one of his annals that he “placed Hosea as king over them [i.e. the Israelites],” see ANET, p. 284). Over this truncated kingdom Hoshea reigned as the vassal king of Assyria, under heavy tribute (cf. 2 Kings 17:3). Nothing is known of the details of his reign except the laconic evaluation of the editor of 2 Kings to the effect that though he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, “yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him” (17:2). Tiglath-pileser III died in 727 b.c. and Shalmaneser V succeeded him. This probably led Hoshea, apparently seeking such an opportuni ty, to withhold tribute and so declare independence. At the same time he sought help from Egypt, sending messengers to So (17:4). Hosea denounces the Israelites for their divided loyalty and machinations: “Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria” (Hos 7:11), and “Ephraim herds the wind,...they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a bargain with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt” (12:1). Shalmaneser marched against Israel in 724. Hoshea capitulated and paid tribute (2 Kings 17:3), but he was too badly compromised to clear himself. Shalmaneser, doubting his loyalty, imprisoned him (2 Kings 17:4).

Shalmaneser then invested Samaria and after a siege of three years, the city fell. Whether it was captured before Shalmaneser died, or in the first few weeks of his successor, Sargon II, is still a matter of some doubt. Although the vast majority of scholars have accepted the latter view, recent investigations have cast doubt on the credibility of the scribes of the Khorsabad inscrs. which mention Sargon’s capture of Samaria; see E. R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (1965), pp. 141-147, and H. Tadmor, “The Campaign of Sargon II of Assur,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 12 (1958), 33-39. This latter understanding fits best with the natural understanding of 2 Kings 17:6, where the “king of Assyria” is most simply taken as the “Shalmaneser” of v. 3; so also 2 Kings 18:9, 10. After Hoshea’s imprisonment by Shalmaneser, nothing more is heard of him. It would appear that Samaria endured the three years of her siege without royal leadership.