1 Chronicles 5:26
And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.
The verse records that the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria and the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, who carried away the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh. It thus presents their removal from their land as a divinely directed judgment executed through Assyrian kings. The deportation took place in the reign of Pekah, when Tiglath-pileser invaded Israel. In that invasion he carried away multitudes from the tribes east of the Jordan and from Galilee, scattering them in lands far from Palestine.
The judgment on Israel came gradually, with an earlier Assyrian intervention leaving Israel under tribute rather than taking its king captive. The later deportation under Pekah was a heavier blow, from which the northern kingdom never recovered. The early captivity of Reuben named in the verse shows that the tribe never rose to prominence in Israel after Reuben forfeited his birthright through grievous sin.