1. Apologia!
Every word of God is tested…
Proverbs 30:5

2. Prophecy Concerning Samaria
Beginnings of Samaria with Omri in 1 Kings 16.
1 Kings 16:23 – “In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel and reigned 12 years…He bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; and he built on the hill, and named the city which he built Samaria….”

3. Royal City of Israel Omni buried in Samaria
His son Ahab reigned over Israel from Samari for 22 years.
Erected altar for Baal in a temple dedicated to Baal that he built in Samaria.
1 Kings 16

4. Prophecy Against Samaria
Hosea 3:16 -- Samaria will be held guilty, For she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, Their little ones will be dashed in pieces, And their pregnant women will be ripped open.
Micah 1:6 – For I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the open country, planting places for a vineyard. I will pour her stones down into the valley and will lay bare her foundations.

5. Main Elements Fall by the sword Children dashed to pieces
Pregnant women ripped open
Turned into a place for a vineyard
Stones poured into the valley
Foundations laid bare

6. Brief History of Samaria
Capital city of Israel in the divided kingdom.
Built by Omri and Ahab and subjected to idolatry through the wickedness of Ahab and Jezebel.
Spared by God from the king of Aram and 32 kings, but Ahab would not repent (1 Kings 20)

7. Brief History of Samaria
Every king of Israel who ever reigned was wicked.
Samaria center of the worship of Baal, Asherah, and other Canaanite gods.
Many kings lasted only a short time, murdering one another for power.
Eventually, besieged by the king of Assyria (2 Kings 17)

8. Shalmaneser and Assyria
2 Kings 17:1,3, 5 – “In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah became king over Israel…Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute….Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years.”

9. Assyria Conquered
2 Kings 17:6 – “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”
Shalmanesser V started the siege, Sargon II probably finished the siege and destroyed the city in 722 B.C.

10. Timeframe for Prophesies
Hosea prophesied between B.C.
Micah prophesied between B.C.
Critics who say these “prophecies” were really post-dated “histories” could be defended on the initial parts of the prophecies, except why wouldn’t they then record that history? And, what about the final outcome? Not so.

11. The extended history Samaria was destroyed by Sargon.
Violence during war was and is well known. One of the most violent nations in the ancient world was Assyria.
Their records and monuments depict impalements, flayings, beheadings, mutilations, and dismemberments.
Poem dating to, possibly, Tiglath-Pileser I ( B.C.) speaks of some of these horrors.

12. The Brutal Poem
“He slits the wombs of pregnant women He blinds the infants He cuts the throats of their strong ones….
Such violence known in other instances as well.
2 Kings 8:11-12 – Elisha prophesies about King Hazael
Amos 1:3 – about Ammon’s treatment of the women of Gilead.

13. Concerns Of God’s Morality
Some struggle because they think God is commanding that these things be done.
However, Hosea is simply prophesying what God already knows will happen because of the Assyrians.
God will not stop it, however, because Israel refused to repent. Otherwise He would have relented.

14. Additional Destructions Of Samaria
Neither Hosea’s nor Micah’s prophesies were completely fulfilled by Assyria, however. Samaria was rebuilt.
Destruction by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. – 391 years later. Rebuilt.
Destruction by John Hyrcanus in 120 B.C. – 602 years later.
These cannot possibly be “histories” rather than “prophecies”

15. The Remaining Prophecies
Historian, clergyman and traveler Henry Maundrell, recorded in 1697, “Sabaste is the ancient Samaria….This great city is now wholly converted into gardens, and all the tokens that remain to testify that there has ever been such a place, are only on the north side, a large square piazza encompassed with pillars, and on the east some poor remains of a great church….”

16. Other historians/scholars say the following:
C.W. Van De Velde – “Samaria, a huge heap of stones! Her foundations discovered, her streets ploughed up, and covered with corn fields and olive gardens…her rubbish has been thrown down into the valley; her foundation stones…lie scattered about on the slope of the hill.”

17. Floyd Hamilton – “…the top of the hill where Samaria stood is a cultivated field with the foundations of the columns marking the place where the palaces and mansions stood. At the foot of the hill, in the valley, are the foundation stones of the city….”

18. Again, all of the prophecies made had specific fulfillment more than a thousand years after the prophecy was made.
Even more evidence for the prophecy originating with Almighty God.