13. What is “Galilee of the nations,” and how does it come to be “treated with contempt”?

¹³ Isaiah now alludes to one of the worst of the cataclysmic events that come upon the descendants of Abraham: “The obscureness will not be as when the land had stress, as at the former time when one treated with contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali and when at the later time one caused it to be honored​—the way by the sea, in the region of the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.” (Isaiah 9:1) Galilee is a territory in the northern kingdom of Israel. In Isaiah’s prophecy it includes “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali” and also “the way by the sea,” an ancient road that ran by the Sea of Galilee and led to the Mediterranean Sea. In Isaiah’s day, the region is called “Galilee of the nations,” likely because many of its cities are inhabited by non-Israelites.c How is this land “treated with contempt”? The pagan Assyrians conquer it, take the Israelites into exile, and resettle the whole region with pagans, who are not descendants of Abraham. Thus the ten-tribe northern kingdom disappears from history as a distinct nation!​—2 Kings 17:5, 6, 18, 23, 24.