HOSHEA
(Ho·sheʹa) [salvation; deliverance].
1. One of the twelve sent by Moses to spy out the Land of Promise in 1512 B.C.E.; son of Nun of the tribe of Ephraim. Moses, however, preferred to call him Jehoshua, meaning “Jehovah is salvation.” (Num. 13:8, 16) In Greek the Septuagint has the name reading I·e·sousʹ (“Jesus”). As Moses’ successor he was generally called by the shortened Hebrew form “Joshua.”—Josh. 1:1.
2. The tribal prince of Ephraim during David’s reign; son of Azaziah.—1 Chron. 27:20, 22.
3. The Hebrew spelling of Hosea, Jehovah’s prophet, who lived in the eighth century B.C.E. during the reigns of Judah’s kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.—Hos. 1:1; see HOSEA.
4. Last king of the northern kingdom of Israel, which came to its end in 740 B.C.E.; son of Elah. He did what was bad in Jehovah’s sight, yet not to the same degree as his predecessors. (2 Ki. 17:1, 2) Hoshea had no hereditary claim to the throne, nor did he receive a special anointing from God to be king. Rather, it was by conspiracy against and murder of King Pekah that the usurper Hoshea gained the throne. Second Kings 15:30 states that Hoshea put Pekah to death and “began to reign in place of him in the twentieth year of Jotham.” Since Judean King Jotham is credited with only sixteen years (2 Ki. 15:32, 33; 2 Chron. 27:1, 8), this may refer to the twentieth year counting from the start of Jotham’s kingship, which would actually be the fourth year of the reign of Jotham’s successor Ahaz.—See JOTHAM No. 3.
It appears that Hoshea was not fully recognized as king over Israel until sometime later, however. Second Kings 17:1 states that, in the twelfth year of Ahaz, Hoshea “became king in Samaria over Israel for nine years.” So, it may be that at this point Hoshea was able to establish full control from Samaria. Possibly Assyrian backing at this point aided him, for the records of Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser (III) make the claim that he put Hoshea on the throne.—See chart of kings of Judah and Israel in CHRONOLOGY article; also the first four paragraphs under the heading “From the division of the kingdom to the desolation of Jerusalem and Judah (997 to 607 B.C.E.)” in the same article.
Shalmaneser, successor to Tiglath-pileser, compelled Hoshea to pay tribute, but it was not long before Hoshea sent messengers to So the king of Egypt appealing for assistance and subsequently withheld tribute from the Assyrians. Upon learning of this secret conspiracy, Shalmaneser put Hoshea in the house of detention and laid siege to Samaria in 742 B.C.E. Nearly three years later, in 740, the city fell, its inhabitants were carried off into exile, and the split-off ten-tribe kingdom of Israel came to its end.—2 Ki. 17:3-6.
5. One of the heads of the people whose descendant, if not himself, agreed to the Levitical proposal for a trustworthy arrangement in the time of Nehemiah.—Neh. 9:5, 38; 10:1, 14, 23.