In the late 700s BCE, the terrifying Neo-Assyrian Empire expanded again. Instead of being an innocent victim, Judah invited the Assyrians in through realpolitik (making political choices based on practical survival rather than morals). During the Syro-Ephraimite Crisis, the Northern Kingdom tried to force Judah to join an alliance against Assyria. King Ahaz of Judah refused. Instead, he emptied his treasury and paid the Assyrian Emperor to save him. Assyrian records confirm they received this tribute. Judah survived by willingly becoming a puppet state (a vassal), letting the Assyrians destroy their northern brothers.

In 722 BCE, the Assyrians absolutely destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Assyrian King Sargon II kept detailed records, bragging that he deported (forced out) 27,290 Israelites and scattered them across his empire. The Assyrians also brought in foreign captives from places like Babylon to live in the empty land. This mixing of populations created the ancestors of the Samaritans, leading to centuries of hatred between them and the Jews.

This destruction caused a massive refugee crisis. Thousands of northerners fled south into Jerusalem. The city’s population and size exploded almost overnight, spreading across a new area called the Western Hill.

These northern refugees brought their own stories, histories, and early prophetic writings. Because the city was now filled with both Northerners and Southerners, the scribes had to combine their different religious texts into one shared story to keep the peace. Historians call this the Documentary Hypothesis—the theory that the Hebrew Bible was formed by stitching together different textual traditions (like the Northern “Elohist” source and the Southern “Yahwist” source) into a single, unified narrative.

The historical reality of early Israelite religion was likely just as syncretic as its population. Early Israelites retained various Canaanite traditions, associating YHWH with the supreme deity El, and archaeological evidence (such as inscriptions reading “For YHWH and his Asherah”) indicates that YHWH was sometimes worshipped alongside a female consort. During this early phase, the religious framework is best described as henotheistic: acknowledging the existence of multiple deities while pledging exclusive loyalty to one’s own national God. The commandment to have “no other gods before me” did not necessarily deny the existence of neighboring deities but demanded exclusive socio-political and religious allegiance to YHWH. Over the course of several centuries, particularly following the profound theological crises of the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, this worldview evolved into the strict monotheism characteristic of later Judaism.