Israel’s last king, the evil Hoshea
17
📚In the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel. He reigned nine years. 2 📚And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not like the kings of Israel who were before him.The destruction of the northern kingdom and the exile of the Israelites
3 📚Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute.
4 📚And the king of Assyria found out a conspiracy by Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So, king 📖 of Egypt, and brought no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.
17:4 When God has given up an individual or a people to punishment, there will be no help from human beings in trying to avert it.⚜
5 📚Then the king of Assyria came up throughout the whole land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years. 6 📚In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes.
17:6 Israel’s captivity was the inevitable punishment for their sin, as the following verses make clear. See also Lev 26:33; Deut 28:63-64. All the curses God pronounced on a disobedient people in Deuteronomy chapter 28 came upon them. God always does exactly as He says He will do.⚜
The reason for Israel’s destruction and exile
7 📚Now this occurred because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and they had feared other gods, 8 📚and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out from before the children of Israel, and those of the kings of Israel which they had introduced. 9 📚And the children of Israel secretly did those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the watchman’s tower to the fortified city. 10 📚And they set up images and groves for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree, 11 📚and there they burnt incense 📖 on all the high places, like the nations whom the LORD took away before them, and did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger; 12 📚for they served idols, about which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this thing”. 13 📚Though the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah, through all the prophets and through all the seers 📖, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets”.
14 📚However, they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like the necks of their fathers who did not believe in the LORD their God. 15 📚And they rejected his statutes and his covenant 📖 that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them. And they followed vanity and became vain 📖, and went after the nations that were around 📖 them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them not to do like them.
16 📚And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made cast metal images for themselves, two calves, and made a grove 📖, and worshipped all the starry host 📖 of heaven, and served Baal 📖. 17 📚And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire 📖, and used divination and sorcery, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
18 📚Therefore the LORD was very angry 📖 with Israel, and removed them out of his sight 📖. None was left except the tribe of Judah 📖 alone. 19 📚Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs of Israel which they made.
17:19 2 Kings 16:3; 1 Kings 14:22-23. The fall of the northern kingdom of Israel should have been a warning to Judah. But they did not learn from that and became even worse than Israel (Jer 3:6-11; Ezek 16:51-52). Eventually they went the same way of punishment and captivity. Do we learn from Bible history? See Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:1-12. We would make a big mistake if we thought we were, by nature, better than those sinful, stubborn and rebellious people of Israel and Judah. See Rom 3:9. Verses 7-17 reveal what the heart of man is like. In words of the New Testament the people whose actions are described here walked “after the flesh”, followed their sinful natures (Gal 5:16-21). Now, as then, the only way to a life of victory over the sinful nature is knowing God, loving God, and walking in the power of God’s Spirit (Rom 8:3-4; Gal 5:16).⚜
20 📚And the LORD rejected all the offspring of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
21 📚For he tore Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the LORD, and caused them to commit a great sin. 22 📚For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did. They did not depart from them, 23 📚until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was taken away out of their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day.
17:23 Verse 13; 1 Kings 14:14-16; Hos 10:1-7; 11:5; Amos 5:27. This is the origin of the Samaritans who appear in the New Testament (Luke 9:52; 10:33; John 4:9, 39; Acts 8:5-9).⚜
Foreigners settle in Israel
24 📚And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Ava and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the children of Israel. And they possessed Samaria, and lived in its cities.
17:24 This is the origin of the Samaritans who appear in the New Testament (Luke 9:52; 10:33; John 4:9, 39; Acts 8:5-9).⚜
25 📚And it so happened, when they began to live there, that they did not fear the LORD, so the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
17:25 The land belonged to Jehovah God and He had given it to His people Israel. These foreign idolaters had no right to live there. When they did not even so much as acknowledge Jehovah, they paid the penalty for it.⚜
26 📚Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations which you have removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, do not know the ways of the God of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and, lo and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the ways of the God of the land”.
27 📚Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Take there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let him go and live there, and let him teach them the ways of the God of the land”. 28 📚Then one of the priests whom they had taken away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel 📖, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.
29 📚However each nation made gods of their own, and put them in the shrines of the high places 📖 which the Samaritans had made, each nation in the cities where they lived. 30 📚And the men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, 31 📚and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 📚So they feared the LORD, but made priests of the high places for themselves from the lowest of them, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. 33 📚They feared the Lord, yet served their own gods, in accordance with the custom of the nations whom they took away from there.
17:32-33 Verse 41. It seems they believed that all gods and all religions were good. They did not want to ignore Jehovah – they had found that to be dangerous (v 25). But they did not want to worship Him exclusively, and in their blindness did not see the necessity of doing so. Compare 1 Kings 18:21; Matt 6:24. The true God does not accept the worship of those who try to worship other gods with Him (v 35-39). See Ex 20:1-6; Jer 7:1-11; 2 Cor 6:14-18. But men are very slow to understand this truth. The very dangerous lie of syncretism is widely accepted by men in every era, including ours.⚜
34 📚To this day they practice the former customs. They do not fear the LORD, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandments which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel, 35 📚with whom the LORD made a covenant, and charged them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them. 36 📚But you shall fear the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, and him you shall worship, and to him you shall sacrifice. 37 📚And you shall be careful to do the statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment which he wrote for you, forever. And you shall not fear other gods. 38 📚And you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you, nor shall you fear other gods. 39 📚But you shall fear the LORD your God. Then he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies”.
40 📚However they did not listen, but did according to their former custom. 41 📚So these nations feared the LORD, and served their carved images, together with their children and their children’s children. As their fathers did, so they have done to this day.