King Shalmaneser reigned over Assyria for only five years, but in that time he changed the land and the people of Israel forever.
The northern kingdom of Israel was already a subservient kingdom to Assyria when Shalmaneser became king, but eventually Israel’s leader, Hoshea, rebelled. He turned to King So of Egypt to support him and refused to pay tribute money to Assyria. As a result, Shalmaneser invaded Israel and laid siege to Samaria for three years.
Eventually the city fell, and the Assyrians deported many Israelites to faraway places in the Assyrian Empire (2 Kings 17). Unlike the southern kingdom of Judah, which would experience exile later, Israel would never truly recover from its exile. Instead, foreign peoples were resettled in Israel, and the resulting mixing of the population and their religions created the Samaritan people and religion. Israel would be dominated by these people and other non-Jews for the rest of biblical history, including the time of Jesus.
The Samaritans are spoken of several times in the New Testament. Jesus told a story about a Samaritan man who acted as a neighbor by helping a Jew who had been attacked by robbers (Luke 10:25– 37). Jesus healed a Samaritan man of leprosy (Luke 17:11–19).
Jesus also spoke with a Samaritan woman at a well near Sychar (John 4). Peter and John preached the gospel in several Samaritan towns (Acts 8:25).