1 Chronicles 5 · a question people ask
If God answered them in battle, why were they carried away?
The chapter answers in its own words. In battle, "they cried to God in the battle, and he answered them because they put their trust in him" (5:20). Afterwards, "They trespassed against the God of their fathers, and played the prostitute after the gods of the peoples of the land" (5:25), "So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria" (5:26). When 2 Kings tells how the king of Assyria "carried Israel away to Assyria" (2 Kings 17:6), it says, "It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God" (2 Kings 17:7). The chapter doesn't say how long after the war the captivity came; it says only that they "lived in their place until the captivity" (5:22).
The verses
“They were helped against them, and the Hagrites were delivered into their hand, and all who were with them; for they cried to God in the battle, and he answered them because they put their trust in him.”
“For many fell slain, because the war was of God. They lived in their place until the captivity.”
“They trespassed against the God of their fathers, and played the prostitute after the gods of the peoples of the land whom God destroyed before them. So 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 away the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
“In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,”