2 Kingschapter 17
41 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This is the chapter the book of Kings has been building toward, written for exiles who had lost their land and wanted to know why. Tradition gives Kings to Jeremiah, and the text names no writer. The siege takes only a few verses, and then the writer stops the history to speak in his own voice at length. Listen for how often the prophets are mentioned, and for the list of charges drawn from the law of Moses. The chapter closes on the new settlers of Samaria, and it explains a division still alive in the Gospels.
Context
- Who
- Israelites and Judeans reading the obituary of half their nation
- What
- An account of the fall of Samaria and the exile of Israel, followed by the writer's own explanation of why it happened and a report of the peoples settled in the land.
- Where
- Samaria under siege, the places of exile in Assyria and among the Medes, and the towns of Samaria resettled with people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim.
- When
- The siege began about 725 BC and Samaria fell in 722 BC, with the resettlement in the years that followed.
- Why
- To answer the exiles' question of how the northern kingdom ended, by setting its history against the covenant and the prophets it refused.
Historical context
Hoshea's fatal move was to stop the annual tribute and send messengers to So, king of Egypt. Egypt was the standard alternative patron for small states trying to escape Assyria, and it delivered for none of them. The Assyrian answer was a three-year siege of a capital built on a steep isolated hill, which is why it took that long.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
Two Assyrian kings claim the city. Shalmaneser V began the siege and died about the time it ended. Sargon II, who took the throne in 722 BC, claims the conquest in his own annals and gives the number deported as 27,290. Both claims can stand together, one king starting the siege and the other finishing it and carrying out the deportation. The wording of Kings, which says only that the king of Assyria took Samaria, leaves the question open.
The resettlement is described with names. People were brought in from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled in the towns of Samaria. This was Assyrian standard practice: deport the leading population, import others, and a nation's identity dissolves within a generation.
The lion attacks that followed were read by the settlers as the local god being offended, so a captured Israelite priest was sent back to Bethel to teach them. The result was a people who feared the LORD and served their own carved images at the same time. That mixture is the beginning of the long Samaritan question still live in the Gospels seven centuries later.
The centre of the chapter is the explanation rather than the battle. It is long and unsparing. They walked in the customs of the nations, built high places in every town from watchtower to fortified city, served idols, burned their children, used divination, and refused the prophets God sent again and again. The writer is answering the one question that mattered to his readers, which is how this happened.
Significance
For the first hearers, ten tribes had just vanished from history. This chapter tells them the cause was two hundred years of warning refused rather than Assyrian strength.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The closing lines quietly turn the mirror. Judah also failed to keep the commandments. The south read this obituary knowing the writer could see the same road under their own feet.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
This is the chapter the north ends in, and the classical reading of it turns on two questions: how many exiles there were, and why the last one fell when it did.
On the first, Rashi builds a chronology out of three verses and says where he got it. He refuses the plain reading of the opening verse, because the last king of Israel had already taken the throne in the fourth year of Ahaz, and because nine years cannot cover a reign that ran until Samaria fell. He reads the nine years instead as the length of the king's revolt against Assyria, and says he learned it in Seder Olam. That done, he lays the deportations out as three. The first came in the twentieth year of Pekah, when the far north and Naphtali were carried away. The second came eight years later, when the tribes east of the Jordan were taken, which he ties to the notice of Pul in the other book that gives no date. The third came eight years after that, the siege of Samaria, when after three years the city was taken and everyone went. He reads the prophet's words about the first and the last against each other. The earlier blows were dealt lightly, two tribes at a time, and at the end "he swept everything out like one who sweeps a house" (Rashi on II Kings 17:1:1, the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY). At the sixth verse he holds to it in three words, the ninth year is "Of Hoshei'a's revolt" (Rashi on II Kings 17:6:1).
On the second question his answer at the second verse is the sharpest thing the corpus carries on this book. The verse says the last king did evil, but not like the kings of Israel before him, and Rashi explains the exception: he took away the guards that had stood on the roads since Jeroboam to stop Israel going up to Jerusalem for the festivals. The calves had already gone into exile in the two earlier deportations, so nothing held the people back any longer. They still did not go up. And so, Rashi writes, "their verdict to be exiled in his days was sealed, for until now, they had blamed the corruption on their kings, but now they had no one to blame" (Rashi on II Kings 17:2:1). The Metsudah edition's note at that verse carries Radak recording what was done in memory of it: the guards were removed on the fifteenth day of Av, and that day was made a minor holiday, with the Talmud at Taanis 30b behind the ruling.
The rest of the chapter is read in short strokes. The two calves are placed, "In Beis Eil and in Dan" (Rashi on II Kings 17:16:1). Selling oneself to do evil is read as exactly that, "They sold themselves for that purpose" (Rashi on II Kings 17:17:1). The warning of the prophets is read from the Hebrew verb for bearing witness (Rashi on II Kings 17:13:1). At the ninth verse, where Israel did things secretly, Rashi reads the verb as concealment and then says openly that this is only how it reads in context. The same note carries Targum Jonathan reading it as what Israel said, and Radak reading it as Israel claiming that God did not see them (Rashi on II Kings 17:9:1). At the eighteenth, where they are removed out of his sight, the note carries Metzudat David reading it as removal from the land (Rashi on II Kings 17:18:1).
One grammatical point at the twenty-third verse carries more than grammar. Rashi notes that the word for the exile is pointed with a chirik, which makes it the active form: Israel went into exile, and the verse is not saying Israel was exiled (Rashi on II Kings 17:23:1). The chapter's last reading is set against the nations brought in to replace them. The text says the settlers did not fear the LORD, and Rashi asks how that can be said when the nations do fear him and call him the God of gods. His answer is what they concluded from what they had just seen: they said that if he were worthy of fear, "He would not have allowed for His people to be exiled" (Rashi on II Kings 17:25:1). A Christian reader meets his own question there, and the classical Jewish comment answers it by naming the reasoning as the settlers' error rather than as the lesson of the chapter.
Metzudat David, Radak and Malbim comment across this chapter as well, and the corpus carries their refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted: Metzudat David on II Kings 17:3:1, 17:4:1, 17:7:1, 17:10:1, 17:14:1, 17:15:1, 17:19:1, 17:20:1 and 17:22:1; Radak on II Kings 17:5:1, 17:8:1, 17:21:1 and 17:24:1; and Malbim on II Kings 17:12:1. The long indictment that begins at the seventh verse, which is the compiler's own essay on why the exile came, is covered by Metzudat David at its head and by Radak at the eighth, and what either makes of it waits on a fetch that carries the text.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Four stand on the second verse and the third, on the last king of Israel and the guards he removed: Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Gittin 9:1, Ein Yaakov, Gittin 9:2, the Babylonian Talmud at Gittin 88a:18, and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Zuta 9:1 across both verses. Four more stand on the third verse, where Shalmaneser comes up: Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 33, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:25, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 11:24, and Jerusalem Talmud Taanit 4:7:2.
The deportation itself carries three, all of them from the collections that gather what was said about the tribes taken away: on the sixth verse, Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on the Ten Lost Tribes, Introduction 1, Otzar Midrashim, The Ten Exiles 2:5, and Otzar Midrashim, The Ten Exiles, The Travails of R' Jacob 17, with Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 810:5 on the siege at the fifth verse and Seder Olam Rabbah 22:2 on the first.
Four stand on the ninth verse: Ein Yaakov, Moed Katan 3:18, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 26:3:2, Midrash Tanchuma, Bechukotai 2:1, and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai 2:1. Four stand on the thirteenth, where the LORD testifies against Israel by every prophet: Bamidbar Rabbah 9:45, Eikhah Rabbah 2:17, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 31, and Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 31:19:1. Two stand on the twenty-first, where the kingdom is torn from the house of David, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:72 and the Babylonian Talmud at Sanhedrin 102a:13.
The largest group falls on the settlers who were brought in. Four stand on the twenty-fourth verse: Bamidbar Rabbah 9:7, Eikhah Rabbah 2:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 2:12, and Otzar Midrashim, The Ten Exiles 1:6. Four stand on the twenty-fifth, where the lions come among them: Jerusalem Talmud Gittin 1:4:4, Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:5, Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 2:13, and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 38:23. Three stand on the thirtieth, where the gods the nations made are named, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 7:15, Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zarah 3:2:3 and the Babylonian Talmud at Sanhedrin 63b:16, with Sanhedrin 63b:17 on the verse after it. Two stand on the thirty-second, Kiddushin 75b:8 and 75b:9. Three stand on the thirty-third, where they feared the LORD and served their own gods: Bamidbar Rabbah 8:9, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 17:21, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 348:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 17:1:1, 17:2:1, 17:6:1, 17:9:1, 17:13:1, 17:16:1, 17:17:1, 17:18:1, 17:23:1 and 17:25:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak, the readings the Metsudah edition carries at II Kings 17:2:1 and 17:9:1, and his own refs at 17:5:1, 17:8:1, 17:21:1 and 17:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 17:3:1, 17:4:1, 17:7:1, 17:10:1, 17:14:1, 17:15:1, 17:19:1, 17:20:1 and 17:22:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on II Kings 17:12:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/17.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Hoshea's treachery, three years of siege, and exile to Halah
2 Kings 17:1-2
Hoshea son of Elah: Hoshea reigns as the last king of the northern throne. The historian allows him one comparative mercy: he did evil, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him. The judgment falls anyway, because national sin can reach a point where a milder king no longer turns it back.
2 Kings 17:1
“It was two years before Hoshea was acknowledged king of Israel, that is, in the fourth of Ahaz, and twentieth of Jotham. In the twelfth year of Ahaz his reign began to be tranquil and prosperous [CALMET].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Kings 17:1
“To reign - He usurped the kingdom in Ahaz's fourth year; but either was not owned as king, by the generality of the people; or was not accepted and established in his kingdom, 'till Ahaz's twelfth year.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
not like the kings of Israel: Wesley gave the reasons Hoshea did less evil than the kings of Israel. He served no Baal and forced no one to worship the calves, and Jewish writers held that the calf at Dan had been carried away. Wesley also reported that he let Israelites go up to Jerusalem.
2 Kings 17:2
“Not as the kings of Israel that were before him - The repentance of a nation like that of an individual, may be “too late.” God is long-suffering; but after national sins have reached a certain height, after admonitions and warnings have been repeatedly rejected, after lesser punishments have failed - judgment begins to fall. Forces have been set in motion, which nothing but a miracle could stop; and God does not see fit to work a miracle in such a case. Compare Butler, ‘Analogy, ‘ Pt. I ch. 2 end.”
2 Kings 17:3-4
Shalmaneser king of Assyria: Shalmaneser attacked him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute, then sent envoys to King So of Egypt and stopped the yearly tribute. So appears here by name alone. The broken tribute turned the vassal into a prisoner before Assyria reached Samaria's gate.
2 Kings 17:3
“Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria,.... Which some take to be the same with Tiglathpileser, see 1Ch 5:26 but he rather seems to be his son; his name was to be found, as Josephus (w) relates, in the archives of the Tyrians, against whom he had an expedition; his name is Salmanassar in Metasthenes (x), who says he reigned seventeen years: and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents, to depart from him; he became tributary to him, and agreed to pay him a yearly tax. (w) Antiqu. l. 9. c. 14. sect.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 17:3
“Of Shalmaneser, the successor of Tiglath-pileser in the Assyrian Canon, we know little from Assyrian sources, since his records have been mutilated by his successors, the Sargonids, who were of a wholly different family. The archives of Tyre mention him as contemporary with, and warring against, a Tyrian king named Elulaeus. The expedition, referred to here, was probably in the first year of Shalmaneser (727 B.C.). Its main object was the reduction of Phoenicia, which had re-asserted its independence, but (except Tyre) was once more completely reduced.”
2 Kings 17:3
“Shalmaneser - The son, or successor of Tiglath-pileser. The ancient Hebrew writers made him the same with Sennacherib, who eight years after this time, invaded the kingdom of Judah; it being very frequent in the Eastern parts, for one man to be called by several names.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
King So of Egypt: Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown identified So with Shebek, an Ethiopian who ruled Egypt as king. Barnes noted that Israel had sent to Egypt for help only once before, under Jeroboam. Hosea 7:11 pictures Ephraim calling to Egypt and turning to Assyria.
2 Kings 17:4
“Shalmaneser, incensed at this rebellion, proclaimed war against Israel. This was in the sixth year of Hoshea's reign. he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt--the Sabaco of the classic historians, a famous Ethiopian who, for fifty years, occupied the Egyptian throne, and through whose aid Hoshea hoped to resist the threatened attack of the Assyrian conqueror.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:4
“Men get nothing by struggling with the net, but entangle themselves the more. That it was an utter destruction that came upon them. The king of Israel was made a prisoner; he was shut up and bound, being, it is probable, taken by surprise, before Samaria was besieged.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 17:5-6
besieged it for three years: The king of Assyria marched up to Samaria and besieged it for three years, and Kings calls him only the king of Assyria. Assyrian records credit the fall to Sargon II, who claims it, though Shalmaneser V began the siege, and the text leaves the question open.
2 Kings 17:5
“All the land - The second invasion of Shalmaneser (723 B.C., his fifth year), is here contrasted with the first, as extending to the whole country, whereas the first had afflicted only a part. Three years - From the fourth to the sixth of Hezekiah, and from the seventh to the ninth of Heshea; two years, therefore, according to our reckoning, but three, according to that of the Hebrews.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:5
“Three years it held out after the country was conquered, and no doubt a great deal of misery was endured at that time which is not particularly recorded; but the brevity of the story, and the passing of this matter over lightly, methinks, intimate that they were abandoned of God and he did not now regard the affliction of Israel, as sometimes as he had done.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
In the ninth year of Hoshea: Barnes cited the count of the king of Assyria, Sargon, of 27,280 captives carried away from Samaria in 721 BC. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown noted that the Habor River keeps its name as the Khabour. Micah 1:6 had foretold the ruin of Samaria.
2 Kings 17:6
“Took Samaria - According to the prophets Hosea, Hos 13:16, and Micah, Mic 1:6. He exercised great cruelties on this miserable city, ripping up the women with child, dashing young children against the stones, etc. etc. Carried Israel away into Assyria - What were the places to which the unfortunate Israelites were carried, or where their successors are now situated, have given rise to innumerable conjectures, dissertations, discourses, etc. Some maintain that they are found on the coast of Guinea; others, in America; the Indian tribes being the descendants of those carried away by the Assyrians.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 17:6
“Carried Israel away, &c. - There, we have reason to think, after some time, they were so mingled with the nations, that they were lost, and the name of Israel was no more in remembrance.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 17:6
“Chabor--is a river, and it is remarkable that there is a river rising in the central highlands of Assyria which retains this name Khabour unchanged to the present day. Gozan--("pasture") or Zozan, are the highlands of Assyria, which afford pasturage.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The long indictment: they walked in the statutes of the nations
2 Kings 17:7-8
had sinned against the LORD their God: Verses 7 to 23 form the longest editorial in the historical books, and the sin is named at its root before any list of practices. They had worshiped other gods. The Exodus itself grounds the charge, since the God who delivered them is the God they set aside.
2 Kings 17:7
“The reasons for which God suffered the Israelites to be deprived of their land and carried into captivity were: 1. their idolatries; 2. their rejection of the Law; 3. their disregard of the warning voices of prophets and seers.”
the customs of the nations: Barnes divided the idolatry into two kinds: the customs of the nations, and the practices the kings of Israel themselves introduced, such as the calves. Gill pointed to Leviticus 18:3, where the LORD forbade the customs of Canaan. Both kinds are charged.
2 Kings 17:8
“And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel,.... Meaning the Canaanites, in whose idolatrous ways they walked, and whom they imitated; though their ejection out of the land should have been a warning to them, and they were the more inexcusable, as they were particularly cautioned against walking in them, Lev 18:3. and of the kings of Israel, which they had made; their laws and statutes, to worship the golden calves, and not go up to Jerusalem to worship.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:8
“Idolatry was worse in the Israelites than in other nations, since it argued not merely folly and a gross carnal spirit, but also black ingratitude Exo 20:2-3. The writer subdivides the idolatries of the Israelites into two classes, pagan and native - those which they adopted from the nations whom they drove out, and those which their own kings imposed on them.”
2 Kings 17:9-12
From watchtower to fortified city: They built high places in all their cities. The idols are named only by kind, because the point is how far the practice spread. The LORD had told them, “You shall not do this thing,” and the chapter sets that one command against generations of practice across the land.
2 Kings 17:9
“With the words "from watchtower to fortified city" [the Scripture] denounces the large number of their idols, that is, [there were] idols from border to border. The text refers to the "fortified city" as Jerusalem, but other [interpreters] say Antioch.”
Ishodad of Merv · written before 850 · Books of Sessions 2 Kings 16:15patristic
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 17:9
“Literally, the words run thus - “And the children of Israel concealed (or ‘dissembled’) words which were not so concerning the Lord their God;” the true meaning of which probably is, the Israelites cloaked or covered their idolatry with the pretence that it was a worship of Yahweh: they glossed it over and dissembled toward God, instead of openly acknowledging their apostasy.”
2 Kings 17:9
“If in any place there was but the tower of the watchmen (a country tower that had no walls, but only a tower to shelter the watch in time of danger), or but a lodge for shepherds, it must be honoured with a high place, and that with an altar. If there was a fenced city, it must be further fortified with a high place.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
sacred pillars and Asherah poles: Sacred pillars were standing stones, and Asherah poles were wooden objects set up for the goddess Asherah. Deuteronomy 16:21 to 22 forbade setting up either beside the altar of the LORD. Clarke tied these to the rites of Ashtaroth.
2 Kings 17:10
“And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:10
“Images and groves - Images of different idols, and places for the abominable rites of Ashtaroth or Venus.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
burned incense on all the high places: Barnes observed the Egyptians and the people of Babylon burned incense as a common rite, and the nations the LORD drove out did the same. Hosea 4:13 charges Israel with burning offerings on the hills under oak and poplar. Gill added that Judah did it too.
2 Kings 17:11
“The burning of incense was a common religious practice among the Egyptians and the Babylonians; and from the present passage we gather that the Canaanite nations practiced it as one of their ordinary sacred rites. The Israelites are frequently reproached with it Hos 2:13; Hos 4:13; Isa 65:3.”
They served idols: The Hebrew word for idols here, gillulim, is a word of scorn, and Gill tied it to dung. The LORD had commanded against other gods and images in the first commandments given at Sinai, Exodus 20:3 to 4. Ezekiel uses gillulim more than any other book.
2 Kings 17:12
“For they served idols,.... Baalim, as the Targum; dunghill gods, as the word signifies, as they are often called in Scripture; and Sterculius was one of the names of Saturn, an Heathen deity, which he had, as is supposed, by his finding out the method of making land fruitful with dung (i): whereof the Lord said unto them, ye shall not do this thing; see Exo 20:3. (i) Vid. Macrob. l. 1. c. 7. Lactant. de fals. Relig. l. 1. c. 20.”
the LORD warned Israel and Judah: This verse sums up centuries of prophetic ministry: the LORD warned Israel and Judah, “Turn from your wicked ways and keep My commandments and statutes”. The warning named both kingdoms, so the fall of the north stands as Judah's warning, still open when chapter 25 closes the book on Jerusalem.
2 Kings 17:13
“Seers - To whom he declared his mind, by Revelations and visions, and by whom he published it, bearing witness, from heaven to their doctrine by eminent and glorious miracles.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 17:14-15
they stiffened their necks like their fathers: Verse 15 names the mechanism, they pursued worthless idols and themselves became worthless, as worship shapes the worshipper into the likeness of what is worshipped. Paul's argument in Romans 1 runs on the same logic: people who trade God's truth for falsehood are handed over to what they chose.
2 Kings 17:14
“Notwithstanding, they would not hear,.... Their instructions, advice, and admonitions, and obey them: but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God: as Terah and Nahor, who were idolaters; or rather, their fathers in the wilderness, that made and served the calf, and those that rebelled against Moses and Aaron; it is a metaphor taken from oxen, that will not submit their necks to the yoke, but draw back from it, or cast it off, see Act 7:51.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:14
“To “harden” or “stiffen the neck” is a common Hebrew expression significative of unbending obstinacy and determined self-will. See the marginal references.”
worthless idols: The Hebrew word behind worthless is hevel, breath, which Barnes took as an image of idols that are nothing. Jeremiah 2:5 brings the same charge against the fathers of Judah. Barnes saw those who served such idols left without strength.
2 Kings 17:15
“As idols are “vanity” and “nothingness,” mere weakness and impotence, so idolators are “vain” and impotent. Their energies have been wasted, their time misspent; they have missed the real object of their existence; their whole life has been a mistake; and the result is utter powerlessness. Literally, the word rendered “vanity” seems to mean “breath” or “vapor” - a familiar image for nonentity. It occurs frequently in the prophets, and especially in Jeremiah (e. g. Jer 2:5; Jer 8:19; Jer 14:22, etc.).”
2 Kings 17:16-17
They bowed down to all the host of heaven: They made two cast idols of calves and added an Asherah pole, the host of heaven and Baal, the whole of Canaanite and astral religion. The host of heaven is the sun, moon and stars, which Josiah later purges from the temple at 2 Kings 23:5.
2 Kings 17:16
“This was the sin that did most easily beset them; this was, of all sins, most provoking to God: it was the spiritual adultery that broke the marriage-covenant, and was the inlet of all other wickedness. Hence it is again and again mentioned here as the sin that ruined them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
divination and soothsaying: Deuteronomy 18:10 puts passing a child through fire, divination and soothsaying in a single list of practices the LORD forbade. The Hebrew behind devoted themselves means they sold themselves, the verb used of Ahab at 1 Kings 21:25. Adam Clarke read it as utter abandonment to evil.
2 Kings 17:17
“Sold themselves to do evil - Abandoned themselves to the will of the devil, to work all iniquity with greediness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:17
“Compare 2Ki 16:3 note, and see Lev 20:2-5 note.”
Only the tribe of Judah remained: The sentence falls in one verse: the LORD was very angry with Israel, and He removed them from His presence. The text states plainly that ten tribes went in one stroke, after generations of provocation. The anger is the end point of everything verses 7 to 17 describe.
2 Kings 17:18
“Removed them out of his sight - Banished them from the promised land, from the temple, and from every ordinance of righteousness, as wholly unworthy of any kind of good. None left but the tribe of Judah only - Under this name all those of Benjamin and Levi, and the Israelites, who abandoned their idolatries and joined with Judah, are comprised. It was the ten tribes that were carried away by the Assyrians.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 17:19-20
even Judah did not keep the commandments: The text turns the same charge on the surviving kingdom in one clause: even Judah did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God. Verse 20 widens the word Israel to cover both kingdoms. The chapter makes Judah read the north's fall as its own story.
2 Kings 17:19
“Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God,.... But were infected with the idolatry of the ten tribes, and drawn into it by their example, and persisted therein, notwithstanding what befell the ten tribes; which are aggravations of the sins of them both, see Jer 3:7, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made; worshipping the calves as they did, particularly in the times of Ahaz, he setting the example, see 2Ki 16:3.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:19
“This verse and the next are parenthetical. Here again, as in 2Ki 17:13, the writer is led on from his account of the sins and punishment of the Israelites to glance at the similar sins and similar punishment of the Jews. It was the worst reproach which could be urged against any Jewish king, that he “walked in the way of the kings of Israel” 2Ki 8:18; 2Ki 16:3; 2Ch 21:6; 2Ch 28:2. The Baal worship is generally the special sin at which the phrase is leveled; but the meaning here seems to be wider. Compare Mic 6:16.”
all the descendants of Israel: Barnes listed the plunderers the LORD sent against each kingdom: Pul and Tiglath-pileser against Israel, and Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Nebuchadnezzar against Judah. Wesley noted that many of the tribes of Israel had already gone to Judah, as 2 Chronicles 11:16 records. Luke 2:36 names Anna of the tribe of Asher.
2 Kings 17:20
“All the seed of lsrael - The Jews, i. e. as well as the Israelites. God’s dealings with both kingdoms were alike. “Spoilers” were sent against each, time after time, before the final ruin came on them - against Israel, Pul and Tiglath-pileser 2Ki 15:19, 2Ki 15:29; 1Ch 5:26; against Judah, Sennacherib 2Ki 18:13-16, Esar-haddon 2Ch 33:11, and Nebuchadnezzar thrice.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:20
“All Israel - All the tribes of Israel: first, one part of them, and now the rest. But this extends not to every individual person of these tribes; for many of them removed into the kingdom of Judah, and were associated with them.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 17:21-23
had torn Israel away from the house of David: They made Jeroboam son of Nebat king, who led Israel away from following the LORD and caused them to commit a great sin. This is the root of the refrain from 1 Kings 14:16 to 2 Kings 23:15, and every northern king is measured against it.
2 Kings 17:21
“The strong expression “drave Israel” is an allusion to the violent measures whereto Jeroboam had recourse in order to stop the efflux into Judea of the more religious portion of his subjects 2Ch 11:13-16, the calling in of Shishak, and the permanent assumption of a hostile attitude toward the southern kingdom.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:21
“A great sin - So the worship of the calves is called, to meet with that idle conceit of the Israelites, who esteemed it a small sin, especially when they were forced to it by severe penalties; which yet he shews did not excuse it from being a sin, and a great sin too.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
all the sins that Jeroboam had committed: John Gill read Jeroboam's sins as two: the ban on going up to Jerusalem to worship and the worship of the calves. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown counted nineteen kings before Hoshea. Here the charge falls on the people themselves.
2 Kings 17:22
“For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did,.... They observed his injunction, not to go to Jerusalem to worship, and they worshipped the calves he did: they departed not from them: in all succeeding reigns, until the time of their captivity.”
through all His servants the prophets: Barnes named the prophets behind this line: Moses at Leviticus 26:33 and Deuteronomy 28:36, Ahijah at 1 Kings 14:15, Hosea 9:3 and Amos 7:17. Ahijah had declared it when Jeroboam first became king of Israel. The LORD waited about two hundred years.
2 Kings 17:23
“Until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight,.... Suffered them to be carried captive into the land of Assyria: as he had said by all his servants the prophets; by Hosea, Amos, Micah, and others; see their prophecies, and also 1Ki 13:32, so was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria, unto this day; the time of the writing this book; nor have they returned unto our days, nearly 2,800 years later.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:23
“As he had said by all his servants the prophets - The writer refers not only to the extant prophecies of Moses (Lev 26:33; Deu 4:26-27; Deu 28:36, etc.), Ahijah the Shilohite (marginal reference), Hosea Hos 9:3, Hos 9:17, and Amos Amo 7:17, but also to the entire series of warnings and predictions which prophet after prophet in a long unbroken succession had addressed to the disobedient Israelites 2Ki 17:13 on their apostasy, and so leaving them wholly “without excuse” (see the 2Ki 17:13 note).”
Imported peoples, lions sent among them, and a mixed religion
brought people from Babylon: The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in Samaria. These five named origins make up the population that becomes the Samaritans of the Gospels. Babylon enters here as a source of colonists for a land just emptied of its own people.
2 Kings 17:24
“The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon - He removed one people entirely, and substituted others in their place; and this he did to cut off all occasion for mutiny or insurrection; for the people being removed from their own land, had no object worthy of attention to contend for, and no patrimony in the land of their captivity to induce them to hazard any opposition to their oppressors.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 17:24
“The Hebrews, however, call a guard somer, and thus they also hand on in their tradition that the Samaritans first received this name because the king of the Assyrians sent them to be guards of the land of Israel after the captivity, that is, that other Israel besides Judah, which was taken captive into Assyria because of their many sins.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · Commentary on the Gospel of John 20.321patristic
2 Kings 17:24
“Believing that he would adopt the best and simplest method for them, it is unlikely that he took the written law with him, and so gave origin to the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch [DAVIDSON, Criticism]. Besides, it is evident from his being one of the exiled priests, and from his settlement at Beth-el, that he was not a Levite, but one of the calf-worshipping priests.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 17:25-26
so He sent lions among them: They did not worship the LORD, so He sent lions among them, a judgment stated as plainly as any sent on Israel. The settlers read the lions as the act of a local god. A priest is sent, and verse 33 shows the worship that follows stays divided.
2 Kings 17:25
“The depopulation of the country, insufficiently remedied by the influx of foreigners, had the natural consequence of multiplying the wild beasts and making them bolder. Probably a certain number had always lurked in the jungle along the course of the Jordan Jer 49:19; Jer 50:44; and these now ventured into the hill country, and perhaps even into the cities. The colonists regarded their sufferings from the lions as a judgment upon them from “the god of the land” (2Ki 17:26; compare 1Ki 20:23 note).”
the requirements of the God of the land: Adam Clarke gave the Hebrew behind requirements as mishpat, the due order of worship owed to the God of the land. Matthew Henry observed that these settlers read the lions as a message from God faster than Israel had read its own judgments. Leviticus 26:22 had threatened wild beasts.
2 Kings 17:26
“The manner of the God of the land - משפט mishpat, the judgment; the way in which the God of the land is to be worshipped.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:26
“Herein they shamed the Israelites, who were not so ready to hear the voice of God's judgments as they were, and who had not served the God of that land, though he was the God of their fathers and their great benefactor, and though they were well instructed in the manner of his worship.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 17:27-28
The priest came from the calf worship of the north and lived in Bethel, where Jeroboam had set up a golden calf two centuries before. What the settlers learned was Israel's own corrupted worship, and the root sin of the north becomes the seed of a second people's religion.
2 Kings 17:27
“Carry one of the priests ...; let them go and dwell there, and let him teach - The double change of number is curious; but rise text needs no emendation. The priest would require to be accompanied by assistants, who would “go and dwell,” but would not be qualified to “teach.” The arcana of the worship would be known to none excepting the priests who had ministered at the two national sanctuaries of Dan and Bethel.”
came and lived in Bethel: Henry left open whether the priest taught the settlers from the book of the Law or by word of mouth. Barnes judged that a priest of the calves would let the nations worship the LORD and serve their own gods together. 17:33 shows the result.
2 Kings 17:28
“The priest sent to the colonists was not a true Yahweh-priest, but one of those who had been attached to the calf-worship, probably at Bethel. Hence, he would be willing to tolerate the mixed religion, which a true Yahweh-priest would have unsparingly condemned.”
2 Kings 17:29-31
the people of each nation continued to make their own gods: Each nation set up its own gods in the shrines that the people of Samaria had made on the high places. The Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the child sacrifice verse 17 charged against Israel, so their replacements practice it.
2 Kings 17:29
“The “Samaritans” here are the Israelites. The temples built by them at the high places 1Ki 12:31; 1Ki 13:32 had remained standing at the time of their departure. They were now occupied by the new-comers, who set up their own worship in the old sanctuaries.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:29
“Like other heathens, they combined His worship with that of their own gods; and as they formed a promiscuous society from different nations or provinces, a variety of idols was acknowledged among them.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the men of Cuth made Nergal: Barnes took Nergal, made by the men of Cuth, for the god of war and hunting, whose name stands in Nergal-sharezer at Jeremiah 39:3. Barnes tied Succoth-benoth, made by the men of Babylon, to Zirbanit, wife of Merodach. Henry reported a Jewish tradition picturing Nergal as a cock.
2 Kings 17:30
“The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth - This, literally, signifies the tabernacles of the daughters or young women, and most evidently refers to those public prostitutions of young virgins at the temple of Melitta or Venus among the Babylonians. See at the end of the chapter, 2Ki 17:41 (note). From benoth it is probable that the word Venus came, the B being changed into V, as is frequently the case, and the th into s, benoth, Venos. The rabbins say that her emblem was a hen with her chickens; see Jarchi on the place.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 17:30
“If we may credit the traditions of the Jewish doctors, they tell us that Succoth-Benoth was worshipped in a hen and chickens, Nergal in a cock, Ashima in a smooth goat, Nibhaz in a dog, Tartak in an ass, Adrammelech in a peacock, Anammelech in a pheasant. Our own tell us, more probably, that Succoth-Benoth (signifying the tents of the daughters ) was Venus.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 17:30
“Succoth-benoth--that is, the "tents" or "booths of the daughters," similar to those in which the Babylonian damsels celebrated impure rites (Am 2:8). Nergal--The Jewish writers say this idol was in the form of a cock, and it is certain that a cock is often associated with a priest on the Assyrian monuments [LAYARD].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Adrammelech and Anammelech: Albert Barnes suggested that Nibhaz and Tartak may be scornful Jewish corruptions of Babylonian divine names. Adrammelech and Anammelech end in melek, king, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown compared the first with Molech. A son of Sennacherib bears the name Adrammelech at 19:37.
2 Kings 17:31
“Nibhaz and Tartak are either gods of whom no other notice has come down to us, or intentional corruptions of the Babylonian names Nebo and Tir, the great god of Borsippa, who was the tutelar deity of so many Babylonian kings. The Jews, in their scorn and contempt of polytheism, occasionally and purposely altered, by way of derision, the names of the pagan deities. Anammelech is possibly an instance of the same contemptuous play upon words. Adrammelech, “the glorious king,” signifies the sun.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:31
“Adrammelech--supposed by some to be the same as Molech, and in Assyrian mythology to stand for the sun. It was worshipped in the form of a mule--others maintain in that of a peacock. Anammelech--worshipped in the form of a hare; others say in that of a goat.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 17:32-33
appointed for themselves priests of all sorts: Verse 33 states the result in one sentence that becomes this people's religious character: they worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods. The Gospel of John assumes this origin when Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well.
2 Kings 17:32
“So they feared the Lord,.... Worshipped the God of Israel in the manner they were taught: and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places; these were made after the manner of Jeroboam's priests, 1Ki 12:31, and were to sacrifice to the God of Israel in the high places, and temples built there; for otherwise they had, no doubt, priests of their own to sacrifice to their gods, and which they brought with them.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 17:32
“Of the lowest of them priests - One priest was not enough for this motley population; and, as the priesthood was probably neither respectable nor lucrative, it was only the lowest of the people who would enter into the employment.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 17:32
“Sacrificed - Unto the true God: for as to the worship of their own gods, they needed no instruction, and would not permit a person of another religion to minister therein.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
served their own gods: Albert Barnes read the last clause as the customs of the settlers' home countries. John Gill read it as Israel's own manner, the worship of the LORD through images as the north had used the calves. Adam Clarke traced their fear to the lions.
2 Kings 17:33
“They feared the Lord, and served their own gods,.... Worshipped both: after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence; the Israelites, whom they had carried captive from Samaria; they worshipped the Lord in their idols, as they did, who pretended to worship God in the calves; so they worshipped the supreme God in and by their idols, and made use of them as mediators with him.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:33
“Understand the passage thus: “They (the colonists) served their own gods after the manner of the nations from which they (the government) removed them,” i. e., after the manner of their own countrymen at home.”
They feared Jehovah, and served their graven images
the descendants of Jacob, whom He named Israel: To this day marks the writer's own present, a mixed worship still standing generations after the events it records. It sets the whole apparatus of statutes, ordinances, laws, and commandments against a people who keep none of it in full. The verse functions as a hinge, opening the covenant recitation.
2 Kings 17:34
“They fear not the Lord - The new-comers in one sense feared Yahweh 2Ki 17:33, 2Ki 17:41. They acknowledged His name, admitted Him among their gods, and kept up His worship at the high place at Bethel according to the rites instituted by Jeroboam 2Ki 17:28. But in another sense they did not fear Him. To acknowledge Yahweh together with other gods is not really to acknowledge Him at all.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 17:34
“They fear not - Though they pretended to fear, and serve both the Lord and idols, yet in truth they did not, and do not fear or worship the Lord, but their own calves, or other vain inventions: and God will not accept that mongrel and false worship, which they pretend to give to the true God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 17:34
“Their religion was a strange medley or compound of the service of God and the service of idols. Such was the first settlement of the people, afterwards called Samaritans, who were sent from Assyria to colonize the land, when the kingdom of Israel, after having continued three hundred fifty-six years, was overthrown.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 17:35-39
Verses 35 to 39 recite the Sinai covenant, the commandments of Exodus 20:2 to 5, in the LORD's own words. Its first command is “Do not worship other gods or bow down to them”. Five verses circle one command broken for generations, and the chapter states what was always required.
2 Kings 17:35
“With whom the Lord had made a covenant,.... As he did at Sinai, 2Ki 17:15. and charged them, saying, ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them; all which is contained in the first and second commandments of the law.”
an outstretched arm: The outstretched arm is exodus language from Exodus 6:6 and Deuteronomy 5:15, where rescue from Egypt grounds the claim to Israel's worship. John Gill read the clause as a debt of gratitude. Worship here follows deliverance.
2 Kings 17:36
“But the Lord, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt, with a great power, and a stretched out arm,.... Which is observed, to show the obligations they lay under, in point of gratitude, to serve the Lord: him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice: and him only, and not other gods; none but he being the object of religious fear and divine worship, and to whom sacrifices should be offered.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:36
“But the Lord - Jehovah, the supreme, self-existent, and eternal Being; author of all being and life. This was to be the sole object of their adoration. Who brought you up - This was a strong reason why they should adore Him only: he had saved them from the hands of their enemies, and he did it in such a way as to show his power to be irresistible; in such a Being they might safely confide. Him shall ye fear - Here is the manner in which he is to be worshipped.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
He wrote for you: Barnes drew two things from the words He wrote: the writer took the whole Law in written form, and he took God as its author. Matthew Henry counted the ban on other gods three times, in verses 35, 37 and 38. The repetition marks the chief article.
2 Kings 17:37
“Which he wrote for you - It is worth observing here, first, that the author regards the whole Law as given to the Israelites in a written form; and secondly, that he looks on the real writer as God.”
Do not forget the covenant: John Gill identified this covenant as the law given at Sinai, whose first table governed the worship of God alone. Deuteronomy 4:23 gives the same warning against forgetting the covenant. Moses gave that warning first.
2 Kings 17:38
“And the covenant that I have made with you, ye shall not forget,.... The law given at Mount Sinai; the first table of which chiefly concerned the worship of the one true and living God, and forbid the worship of any other, as follows: neither shall ye fear other gods; or make them the object of worship.”
Gill read the promise as bound to the fear of the LORD your God alone. Israel was delivered to plunderers at 17:20. Hezekiah trusted the LORD, and Assyria was turned back from Jerusalem at 19:35.
2 Kings 17:39
“But the Lord your God ye shall fear,.... Or worship him, both internally and externally, according to his revealed will; for the fear of God includes both internal and external worship: and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies; that is, provided they feared and served him as he required, and it became them to do.”
2 Kings 17:40-41
they would not listen: The chapter ends where it began, with a refusal: they would not listen, and they persisted in their former customs. Verse 41 gives the verdict on the settlers in one sentence spanning generations. The chapter that opened with Israel's exile closes with a replacement people practicing Israel's own unfinished repentance.
2 Kings 17:40
“So they did, and so did the nations that succeeded them. Well might the apostle ask, What then, Are we better than they? No, in no wise, for both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, Rom. iii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
their children and grandchildren: Clarke took to this day as evidence that the line was written before the exile to Babylon, and allowed it may refer to the nations. Spurgeon preached it as Mongrel Religion. He applied to this day to the heirs of these nations in his own time.
2 Kings 17:41
“‘So these nations feared the Lord and served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.’’2 Kings 17:41. SO DO THEY unto this day,’ said the writer of the Book of Kings, who has long since passed away unto his fathers. Were he alive now he might say concerning the spiritual descendants of these Samaritans, ‘So do they unto this day.’ This base union of fearing God and serving other gods is by no means obsolete.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 17:41
“Their graven images - The Babylonians appear to have made a very sparing use of animal forms among their religious emblems. They represented the male Sun, Shamas, by a circle, plain or crossed; the female Sun, Anunit, by a six-rayed or eight-rayed star; Nebo by a single wedge or arrow-head, the fundamental element of their writing; the god of the atmosphere by a double or triple thunderbolt. The gods generally were represented under human forms.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Indictment, the compiler's own argument set out at length rather than narrative, as book classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The Lord removed Israel out of his sight | The sentence of removal falls three times across the chapter rather than once. It closes the indictment at verse 18, widens to cover all the seed of Israel at verse 20, and closes the historical report at verse 23. The repetition makes the verdict a formula rather than a single remark. | 2 Kings 17:18, 2 Kings 17:20, 2 Kings 17:23 |
| Unto this day | The phrase marks the writer's own present three times in this chapter, at the close of the exile notice, at the hinge into the covenant recitation, and at the last verse. It is written from a vantage point still inside the exile, and it is why the chapter reads as a standing charge rather than a closed report. | 2 Kings 17:23, 2 Kings 17:34, 2 Kings 17:41 |
| They followed vanity and became vain | Verse 15 names the mechanism of the whole indictment in one clause built on a single root. Worship shapes the worshipper into the likeness of what is worshipped, so the emptiness pursued becomes the emptiness acquired. Paul's argument at Romans 1:21 to 25 runs on the same logic this verse already states. | 2 Kings 17:15 |
| High places in every city, from the watchtower to the walled town | Verses 9 to 12 measure the idolatry by scale rather than by inventory. The shrines stand in every city, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. The images and groves stand on every high hill and under every green tree, and incense burns in all of them. The idols are named only by category, because saturation is the charge. | 2 Kings 17:9, 2 Kings 17:10, 2 Kings 17:11, 2 Kings 17:12 |
| The gods of the five resettled nations | The colonists' religions are listed one by one, Succoth-benoth and Nergal from Babylon and Cuth, Ashima from Hamath, Nibhaz and Tartak from the Avites, and Adrammelech and Anammelech of the Sepharvites. The list reads as a small table of nations of gods. Each import keeps its home religion, and the Sepharvites burn their own children, the same charge already laid against Israel at verse 17. | 2 Kings 17:30, 2 Kings 17:31 |
| They did not hearken | The chapter's charge opens with a refusal at verse 14, where they hardened their necks like their fathers, and closes with the same refusal at verse 40, where they did after their former manner. The covenant recitation of verses 35 to 39 stands inside that frame, so the command and the refusal to keep it are set around each other. | 2 Kings 17:14, 2 Kings 17:40 |
The historical value
13 more paragraphs on the patterns
The places of exile are real Assyrian resettlement districts. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that Habor is a river, and that a river rising in the central highlands of Assyria keeps the name Khabour unchanged to the present day. They gloss Gozan as pasture, the highlands of Assyria that afford pasturage.
The deportation and repopulation described here is standard Assyrian imperial policy. Adam Clarke states the method and the reason for it. The king removed one people entirely and substituted others in their place, to cut off occasion for insurrection. A people moved off its own land has no patrimony there to fight for.
Verse 24 carries the first occurrence of the word Babylon in Scripture. It arrives as a source of colonists for a land just emptied rather than as a conqueror, and the name takes its later weight only when Babylon ends Judah eight chapters on.
Verses 29 to 33 are the origin of the Samaritans of the Gospels. John's account of the woman at the well assumes this background and gives no explanation of it, because this chapter has already supplied one.
The debated concept
The chapter leaves two historical questions open and the estate keeps them open. The first is which Assyrian king took Samaria. Kings names only the king of Assyria, and Assyrian records credit the conquest and the deportation to Sargon the second, though Shalmaneser the fifth began the siege. This row states the gap rather than closing it.
The second is the identity of So king of Egypt at verse 4. Readers name him variously as Osorkon of the Twenty-second Dynasty, or take the word as the Egyptian city of Sais read as though it were a king's name. The identification stays open.
A third question belongs to the priest sent back at verse 28. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown argue from his exile and from his settlement at Bethel that he was a priest of the calf religion. They judge it unlikely that he took the written law with him. What the colonists learned was therefore Israel's own corrupted worship rather than the law given at Sinai.
The New Testament's use
Verse 15 states the principle Paul argues at Romans 1:21 to 25, that those who exchange the truth for a lie are given over to what they chose. The chapter states the mechanism and Paul states its general form.
The Samaritan background of verses 24 to 41 stands underneath John 4:4 to 26 and Luke 9:52 to 56, and underneath the Samaritan of Luke 10:33. Verse 33 gives the sentence that becomes this people's whole religious character in Scripture, that they feared the Lord and served their own gods.
The divine connection
The chapter's argument is that the exile is the covenant keeping its own terms. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 named exile as the penalty long before the events. Verse 13 states that the Lord testified against both kingdoms by all the prophets and all the seers, with one demand, to turn from their evil ways. The guide's themes table states the reading the estate holds here, that exile shows the Lord keeping every warning as precisely as every promise. The claim is the text's own, stated at verses 13 and 23, and this row states it at that tier.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
the compiler of Kings, the accession formula at 2 Kings 17:1 to 2 and the colonist report at 2 Kings 17:24 to 41 and the site's own guide to this book.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1622: “Mongrel Religion” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); F. W. Farrar, The Second Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.