After many years of paying heavy levies, Israel and Judea as well as Damascus (in modern Syria) openly rebelled against the Assyrians by refusing to pay. The Assyrians, under Tiglath-Pileser III, who ascended the throne in 744 B.C.E., responded militarily. They set siege to Damascus and killed its king, Rezin.

As for the northern kingdom of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser annexed the Golan, the Galilee, and the Jezreel Valley outright. Large portions of the Israelite population were exiled from Israel and replaced by settlers from Syria and Mesopotamia--a common practice of the Assyrians in that period. In the inscription of Tiglath-Pileser's Annals of ca. 730 B.C.E., the Assyrian king claims to have replaced the king of Israel, Pekah, with Hoshea. The Bible gives a slightly different account in 2 Kings 15:30, claiming that Hoshea assumed the throne in a bloody coup d'etat. It is much more likely, however, that Tiglath-Pileser himself engineered the plot.

Regardless of the manner in which he took power, Hoshea, like his predecessors, was required to pay tribute to Tiglath-Pileser. Hoping to break free from the Assyrian yoke, Hoshea signed a pact with Egypt in 727 B.C.E. assuring their alliance against the Assyrians. When Hoshea refused to pay tribute to Tiglath-Pileser's successor, Shalmaneser V, the Assyrians attacked. By 722 B.C.E., the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and captured its capital at Samaria. Judea survived longer, but only by paying a crippling tribute.

Under Sargon II, Shalmaneser V's successor, the Assyrian empire extended from what is present-day central Iran to the Mediterranean. Following the practice of his predecessors, Sargon deported the inhabitants of the lands he conquered. Since the native Assyrian population was too small to provide an army large enough to police the ever-expanding empire, the Assyrians augmented their army with conscripts from conquered lands. The Assyrians forced many Israelites into military service as auxiliary troops. An inscription from Sargon's Annals from ca. 722 B.C.E. indicates that many of his chariots were manned by those deported from Samaria.

Over time, most Israelite deportees assimilated into Assyrian culture. They adopted local religious practices. They gave their children foreign names comprised of the monikers of foreign gods. The younger generations spoke Akkadian, the language of Assyria, or Aramaic, a Semitic languages that is closely related to Hebrew.

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