In the year B.C. 721 Sargon captured Samaria, and removed into captivity the remains of the ten tribes, already decimated by Tiglath-Pileser[174], and located them partly in Gozan or Mygdonia, and partly in cities recently captured from the Medes. This was not a partial but a complete evacuation of the country, which was wiped clean of its inhabitants as a man wipeth a dish (2 K. xxi. 13), in accordance with a not unusual custom of Oriental conquerors actually to exhaust a land of its inhabitants[175].
In this desolate condition the country remained till about the year B.C. 677, when Esarhaddon during the invasion of Judah perceived the impolicy of leaving it thus exposed, and resolved to garrison it with foreigners. Accordingly he gathered men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim (2 K. xvii. 24; comp. Ezra iv. 2, 9, 10), and entrusting them to an officer of high rank, the great and noble Asnapper, had them conveyed to the country formerly occupied by the Ten Tribes, and there settled them.
These strangers (comp. Lk. xvii. 18) from the further East[176] were of course idolaters, and worshipped various deities, and knowing not the God of the land provoked Him by their heathenish rites to send lions among them, which slew some of them (2 K. xvii. 25). In their distress they applied to the king of Assyria, who sent one of the captive priests to instruct them how they should fear the Lord. Under his teaching they added the acknowledgment of Jehovah as the God of the land, to their ancient idolatries, and in course of time detached themselves more and more from heathen customs, and adopted a sort of worship of Jehovah.
Refused permission, on the return from the Captivity, to participate in the rebuilding of the Temple, they became the open enemies of the Jews, and erected a rival temple on Mount Gerizim[177], where they continued to worship till it was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, B.C. 130. After this they built another temple at Shechem, and there, under its modern name of Nablûs, they have a settlement, consisting of about 200 persons, at the present hour.
Gradually detaching themselves from their ancient idolatries, the Samaritans adopted the Mosaic religion, but received as Scripture only the Pentateuch, rejecting every other book in the Jewish Canon. They celebrated the Passover (and celebrate it even now), on Mount Gerizim, and even after their temple had fallen, directed their worship towards that mountain. Holding the doctrine of the coming of the Messiah (Jn. iv. 25), whom they called Hashah, “the Converter[178],” their conceptions of His functions and character were derived chiefly from the original promise of a Saviour (Gen. iii. 15), the Shiloh or Peace-maker predicted by Jacob (Gen. xlix. 10), and the Prophet promised to the Israelites like unto Moses (Num. xxiv. 17; Deut. xviii. 15), and they mainly expected that He would teach all things (Jn. iv. 25), and restore the glory of the holy Law on Mount Gerizim[179].
The feud between the Jews and Samaritans, engendered by the refusal of the former to permit their participation in the rebuilding of the Temple, ripened into a mutual hostility of the most bitter description.
The Jews were perpetually reminding the Samaritans that they were “Cuthites,” mere “strangers from Assyria.” They loved to call them “proselytes of the lions” (2 K. xvii. 25), and to accuse them of worshipping the idol-gods buried long age under the oak of Shechem (Gen. xxxv. 4). To such an extent did they carry their dislike, that they cursed them publicly in their synagogues; declared their testimony was naught, and could not be received; affirmed that any who entertained a Samaritan in his house was laying up judgments for his children; that to eat a morsel of his fare was to eat swine’s flesh[180]; refused to receive him as a proselyte, and declared that he could have no part in the resurrection of the dead. Moreover they would have no dealings with them that they could possibly avoid, and in travelling from the South to the North preferred to take the long circuit through Peræa rather than pass through their hated country.
On the other hand, the Samaritans were not behind-hand in recriminations. They would refuse hospitality to the pilgrim companies going up to the feasts at Jerusalem (Comp. Lk. ix. 53), and sometimes even waylay and murder them[181]. On one occasion certain of them are said to have entered the Temple at Jerusalem, and defiled it by scattering on the pavement human bones[182]. One special mode of annoyance was frequently practised. The Jews were in the habit of communicating to their numerous brethren in Babylon, the exact day and hour of the rising of the Paschal moon, by means of a system of beacon fires, which telegraphed the welcome news from the Mount of Olives, through Auranitis, to those who sat by the waters of the Babylon. The Samaritans would, therefore, annoy the watchers on the mountain-tops by kindling a rival flame on the wrong day, and thus perplex them, and introduce confusion.