Issues of the Deportations of the Israelites-Judeans and their Aftermath

Several issues of the Israelite-Judean history between 732 and 332 BCE are discussed below. Most of the discussion is devoted to the scale, process, and outcome of the two recorded deportations from the Kingdom of Israel and the several waves of counter-deportations to the province of Samaria. These counter-deportations left a long-term impact on that province founded in the core of the Kingdom of Israel. The pertinent documentation inevitably dictates the discussion, which is chronologically uneven and leaves many gaps. Most of the information concerning this province originates from the end of the period under discussion, namely the late-Achaemenid one. The second part of the paper is dedicated to two issues pertaining to the kingdom of Judah. The first is about the Assyrian deportation in 701 BCE, while the second is an attempt at assessing the geographical distribution of the Judean exiles in Babylonia during the periods of the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid empires.