01_Dubovský_321_346 28/10/14 10:32 Pagina 341 WHY DID THE NORTHERN KINGDOM FALL? 341 ture of this narrative frame. Consequently the problem of the North- ern Kingdom is defined in terms of its relations to Judah. In the first part of the frame the relations between Judah and Israel are not mentioned 44. At the end of the chapter Israel allied with Aram and started attacking Judah. This split between the two kingdoms de- veloped into a fully-fledged armed conflict described in 2 Kings 16 and Isaiah 7. Thus another latent element responsible for the collapse of the Northern Kingdom can be discerned: Pekah deliberately broke off the natural connections with Judah and formed a coalition with Israel’s former enemy ― Aram. This shift of international relations triggered an avalanche: in the course of less than twenty years Israel broke off and re-established contacts with Assyria, Aram, and Egypt. The rupture between Israel and Judah incorporated into the nar- rative frame of chapter 15 suggests that Israel’s breaking-off its kin- dred-based relations with Judah, which constituted a solid “frame” for Israel’s international relations, went hand-in-hand with forming a series of senseless coalitions, ironically all of them concluded with their former or current enemies (Assyria, Aram, Egypt). It can therefore be concluded that the breaking-off with Judah and the shifting allegiances led to the gradual disintegration of Israelite in- ternational relations. IX. Why did Samaria fall according to 2 Kings 15? Let us now sum up the previous results. Without any doubt the Assyrian invasions were the main cause of the fall of the Northern Kingdom that resulted in the transformation of the independent kingdom into the Assyrian province Sāmirīna that was repopulated by the nations deported from other parts of the Neo-Assyrian Em- pire 45. However, according to 2 Kings 15 the Assyrian campaigns were only one among many other reasons that caused the downfall of the Northern Kingdom. The analyses presented above suggest 44 It may be that there was some mutual co-operation between Azariah and Zechariah; see M. HARAN, “The Rise and Decline of the Empire of Jer- oboam ben Joash”, VT 17 (1967) 266-297. 45 N. NA’AMAN – R. ZADOK, “Assyrian Deportations to the Province of Samerina in the Light of Two Cuneiform Tablets from Tel Hadid”, TA 27 (2000) 159-188.