Hosea worked in the Kingdom of Israel, the northern Jewish kingdom, in the lead up to the Assyrian invasion. He kept warning them to change their ways. “Out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me.” Finally in 721 BC disaster struck. The Assyrians destroyed Samaria and took the ten northern tribes into exile … where they were lost to history. Thirteen decades later the southern Kingdom of Judah was also taken into exile — but they kept their identity and were able, in time, to return to the Holy Land. The difference seems to have been that the Judahites worked at keeping the faith, putting together from various sources the documents which began the formation of the Bible.
JULY92020
By Church Staff
