“The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria…. All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God” (2 Kings 17: 5-7, NIV).

When I was a little boy I used to watch a cartoon on television called Popeye the Sailor. Popeye was a one-eyed mariner outfitted in a sailor cap and pipe. Most observably, he had over-developed forearms and under-developed biceps. Popeye also had a skinny girlfriend named Olive Oil who was much taller than he and a nemesis named Brutus who was a big muscular brute as his name suggested.

The theme of each Popeye episode was essentially the same. Brutus would beat up Popeye and steal Olive away. When Popeye became fed up with Brutus’ brutality, he would exclaim, “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more” and reach into his shirt and pull out a can of spinach!

Popeye would squeeze the contents of the can of spinach into his mouth, which would cause Popeye’s scrawny biceps to expand into powerful, muscular arms. Then, He would deliver a blow to Brutus that sent him soaring off into the distance. And, Popeye would reclaim Olive as his girl.

In 722 BCE, some ten to twenty years after the Assyrians had invaded Israel and begun deporting the Israelites, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel, Samaria, was finally seized by Sargon II, ruler of Assyria, after a three-year siege started by Shalmaneser V, his predecessor. This is the event these verses from 2 Kings 17 are referencing.