2 Kings 17:23
Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day. Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
The verse describes the Assyrian capture of Samaria and the scattering of the shattered remnant of the ten tribes among the nations, which took place during the earlier part of Hezekiah's reign. The removal means the Lord afflicted Israel, delivered them into the hand of spoilers, cast them out of His sight, and removed them from His presence by carrying them away out of their own land to Assyria. Their fall set the background for remarkable providences in Hezekiah's reign that revealed to the surrounding nations that the God of Israel was with His people, with the final test of whether the gods of the heathen would prevail not coming until some years later toward the close of Hezekiah's reign, after Assyria attacked the fenced cities of Judah with some success and then withdrew for a season because of difficulties in other parts of its realm.
Israel was exiled because the people grievously sinned against the Lord, disobeyed Him, broke His covenant, and rejected His statutes, His covenant made with their fathers, His testimonies, and what Moses commanded by leaving all His commandments. They wrought wicked things, would not hear, and steadfastly refused to repent despite calls to repent, while the people and their kings rebelled by making molten images of two calves and a grove and by worshiping all the host of heaven and serving Baal. The downfall followed Israel's rejection of God's ways for human ways, an apostasy that began with adopting heathen practices and continued until the people were conquered and became prey, carried away from their land by the nations whose practices they had chosen to follow.
The loss of the land and captivity fulfilled God's judgment and the plain warnings He had declared by all His servants the prophets, because Israel persisted in rejecting God and His covenant. The success of Assyria led many to question the power of the God of the Hebrews and emboldened Nineveh, which had set aside the message of Jonah and become defiant in opposition to Heaven.