Morning Bible Study 2 Kings 17:1-21 20141008 2Ki 17:1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, for nine years. 2Ki 17:2 And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, but not as the kings of Israel that had been before him. 2Ki 17:3 Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his servant, and tendered him presents. 2Ki 17:4 But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and sent up no present to the king of Assyria as he had done from year to year. And the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. 2Ki 17:5 And the king of Assyria overran the whole land, and went up against Samaria, and besieged it three years. 2Ki 17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. 2Ki 17:7 And so it was, because the children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods; 2Ki 17:8 and they walked in the statutes of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. 2Ki 17:9 And the children of Israel did secretly against Jehovah their God things that were not right; and they built them high places in all their cities, from the watchmens tower to the fortified city. 2Ki 17:10 And they set them up columns and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree; 2Ki 17:11 and there they burned incense on all the high places, as did the nations that Jehovah had carried away from before them, and they wrought wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger; 2Ki 17:12 and they served idols, as to which Jehovah had said to them, Ye shall not do this thing. 2Ki 17:13 And Jehovah testified against Israel and against Judah, by all the prophets, all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through my servants the prophets. 2Ki 17:14 But they would not hear, and hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God. 2Ki 17:15 And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant which he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified unto them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them. 2Ki 17:16 And they forsook all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and made them molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of the heavens, and served Baal; 2Ki 17:17 and they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger. 2Ki 17:18 Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there remained but the tribe of Judah only. 2Ki 17:19 Also Judah kept not the commandments of Jehovah their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they had made. 2Ki 17:20 And Jehovah rejected all the seed of Israel; and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. 2Ki 17:21 For Israel had rent the kingdom from the house of David; and they had made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam violently turned Israel from following Jehovah, and made them sin a great sin. A literal translation of the Old Testament (1890) and the New Testament (1884) By John Nelson Darby (1800-82 My Commentary This chapter should be a huge warning to us. Are we walking with the Lord, are we obeying His commands or are we following other Gods and our own selfish ambition? I would say right now as a nation we are not walking with God, we are walking with Satan, I fear for our nation as we can not continue to thumb our noses at God and expect God not to judge us. God has shown time and again that He has an incredible long fuse but when pushed to far, His wrath will be poured out on the people that are not following Him. So I deplore you to turn from your false Gods and serve the Lord only. Amen The Preachers Commentary Copyright © 1982-1992 by Word, Inc. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, except for brief quotations in reviews, without written permission from the publisher. 2 Kings 17:1-4 Hoshea Reigns in Israel Here we finally come to Hoshea, the last king in the long list of those who ruled over the Northern Kingdom from the time of its separation from Judah after the death of Solomon. Hoshea took over the crown by force, killing his predecessor Pekah in a coup that apparently was sponsored by Tiglath-Pileser III, who claims credit for putting Hoshea on the throne of Israel. Hoshea means Yahweh saves. It is similar to the names Hosea, Joshua, and even Jesus. Ironically, while he was not without failures, this final king of Israel was a significant improvement over the pitiful list of pseudo-kings who immediately preceded him. Verse 2Ki_17:2 says, he did evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel who were before him. We are not told in what ways he was better than the others. Some have suggested that he may have allowed the people of Israel to go to Jerusalem to worship. But in spite of his commendable qualities, it was during his reign that the full judgment of destruction burst upon the sinful nation. Shalmaneser, the son of Tiglath-Pileser III, was now the king of Assyria, ruling from 725 B.C. to 722 B.C. He continued the assault on Israel that his father had begun (2Ki_15:19), and when he learned that Hoshea had conspired against him by attempting to form an alliance with Egypt, Shalmaneser stepped up the intensity of the assault (2Ki_17:4). So, king of Egypt is sometimes identified with Shabaka (whose name means wild cat), the Ethiopian ruler who founded the twenty-fifth Egyptian dynasty. Others consider him to be the king named Sibi whom Sargon defeated at Raphia in 720 B.C. Jones makes a third guess. He points out that there was no Egyptian ruler with that exact name, but there was an Egyptian city named So. It was the capital of the delta region. Therefore, Jones interprets the text to say that Hoshea appealed to an Egyptian king, whom he does not name, who was in the city of So. The ruler in So at that time, according to Jones, was Tefnakhte, who reigned 726-716 B.C. Shalmaneser attacked Samaria, captured King Hoshea, and put him in chains as prisoner (2Ki_17:4). The details of this three-year siege of Samaria are given in the next section. Sometime during the battle for Samaria, King Shalmaneser died, and his brother Sargon II completed the assault and conquered the capital in the ninth year of Hosheas reign (2Ki_17:6). 2 Kings 17:5-23 Assyria Carries Israel into Captivity You might say that, up to this point in the book, the history of the northern kingdom has been similar to the whereases that appear before the therefores in a legal document. Everything the inspired writer has written so far has been leading up to these next verses, which tell the climactic conclusion of Gods judgment. The ultimate purpose of 1 and 2 Kings is to show that disobeying Gods law inevitably brings punishment. Whereas the people sinned, there fore they have become slaves to Assyria. Thats the theme of the entire story. The actual captivity is described in two brief verses (2Ki_17:5-6). We know from other sources that the three-year siege ended in 722 B.C. The fact that it took Assyria that long to break Samarias resistance is a testimony to the good wall Omri and Ahab had built around the capital city. Samaria also had an inner wall laid on rock-hewn foundation trenches around the palace and citadel itself. Shalmaneser died in 722 B.C., just before Samaria fell, so his brother and successor, Sargon II, completed the captivity of the people. Sargon claims in his annals that he confiscated fifty chariots, carried away 27,290 captives, and allowed the rest of the people to keep their property in Samaria. Then he imported foreigners to live there with the remnant of Israel, ruled by a governor whom he appointed. Not much is known about the Assyrian cities to which the captives were taken (2Ki_17:6). Verse 2Ki_17:7 marks the beginning of a theological explanation of why Israel fell. It sounds like an obituary of the northern kingdom—not a eulogy, but a dirge. What a sad list of failures! Their sin can be traced all the way back to the Exodus, to the gracious and miraculous act of God in delivering them from Egyptian bondage (2Ki_17:7). They should have remembered His goodness and served the Lord faithfully, but they didnt. So Israels first failure on the historians list is: 1. spiritual forgetfulness and ingratitude. The remainder of this embarrassing catalog of sins is as follows: 2. They feared other gods (2Ki_17:7). 3. They adopted the customs of the pagan Canaanites (2Ki_17:8). 4. They tried to keep their wrongdoings secret (2Ki_17:9). 5. They covered the land with high places (2Ki_17:9). From watch-tower to fortified city was a familiar figure of speech used to denote everywhere—that is, hamlet to metroplex. 6. They set up idolatrous pillars and wooden images everywhere (2Ki_17:10). On every high hill and under every green tree is another idiomatic expression meaning everywhere. 7. They burned incense on the high places (2Ki_17:11). 8. They served idols (2Ki_17:12). 9. They would not listen to the warnings of the prophets whom the Lord sent to them (2Ki_17:13-14). 10. They became stiff-necked and rebellious (2Ki_17:14). 11. They rejected Gods statutes, His covenant, and His testimonies (2Ki_17:15). 12. They followed idols, and thereby became idolatrous, adopting the empty customs of pagan nations (2Ki_17:15). 13. They disobeyed all the commandments of the Lord their God (2Ki_17:16). 14. They made molded images of two calves (2Ki_17:16). 15. They made a wooden image (Asherah) and worshiped the host of heaven—that is, the sun, moon, and stars (2Ki_17:16). 16. They served Baal (2Ki_17:16). 17. They burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Molech (2Ki_17:17). 18. They practiced witchcraft and soothsaying (2Ki_17:17). 19. They sold themselves to do evil (2Ki_17:17). 20. They provoked God to anger (2Ki_17:17). What a list! Now for the therefore. Since Israel had sinned so grievously, therefore they will be destroyed (2Ki_17:18). The ten tribes of the North disappeared after this, never to be heard from again. These ten lost tribes of Israel have been a mystery through the years. People have tried to find them in the Jewish communities of southern Arabia, in various tribes in India, in China, in Turkey, in Cashmir, in Afghanistan, in the American Indians; but not a trace remains. Verse 2Ki_17:23 says, the LORD removed Israel out of His sight. Only Judah remained, and in verse 2Ki_17:19 the writer inserts a parenthetical reminder that within 160 years, Judah also would follow in the same tragic pattern. Unlike technical secular historians, the purpose of the Old Testament historians was not to catalogue various events in chronological order, nor to analyze the various movements in history, but to declare Gods righteous dealings with His people. Therefore, great events like the fall of a kingdom were of little significance to them unless they revealed the righteous purpose of God. The main thing about this passage then is not the details of the siege, nor the names of the Assyrian kings, nor the military strategies, nor the political maneuvering—items which secular historians would have emphasized. The main thing for the biblical historian is the long list of the reasons for Gods judgment on Israel. Here, the important message is the postmortem inquiry into the spiritual diseases that killed the kingdom, because that message be comes a warning for nations of all ages. In this passage are warnings against the danger of ingratitude, the danger of stiff-necked resistance to the word of God, the danger of yielding to the unhealthy influences of godless people around us, the folly of secret transgressions, the impotence of cheap, convenient religion, the danger of pride, the peril of provoking God to anger, the hazards of idolatry (which is still practiced in many diverse forms today), the warning of inevitable judgment. But one of the most vivid lessons in this passage is in verse 2Ki_17:15. The New King James Version translates the phrase, They followed idols, became idolaters. The original is more accurate at this point: They worshiped emptiness and became empty. The word here is hebel meaning air, delusion, or vanity. The idea is that they became like the gods they worshiped. They bowed down to nothingness and became nothing. In my opinion, some of the worst of the abominations of modern technology are those ubiquitous electric hand dryers you find in public washrooms. Most people really despise them. I sympathize with the message some disgruntled user had scratched on one I saw recently. The frustrated customer had added another step to that list of useless instructions you always find on the front of the dryer: (1) Shake excess water from hands. (2) Push button. (3) Briskly rub wet hands together under the flow of air. He had scratched in (4) Then wipe your hands on your shirt. I agree! On a visit to Auburn University in Alabama a few years ago, I stepped into a rest room in the administration building that had a wall full of those electric dryers and discovered that someone had added another appropriate message to one of the machines: Push this button and hear a message from our beloved president. Nothing but hot air! The writer of Kings describes the religion of idolatry with the same vivid phrase. It is hebel—nothing but hot air. And the tragedy was that the followers of that empty religion had become empty themselves: their lives lacked substance, their personalities became trivial, their characters lacked depth. As one man described his friend, Down deep, hes shallow! Trivial Pursuit is not just the name of a popular American game, it is the sad but accurate description of the lives of many people today. Their lives are trivial. They go through the motions of routine daily schedules without anything to excite them, to challenge their best, to ennoble their existence. They have put first in their lives those things that have no eternal value, and as a result, they have become as empty as their gods. Someday, they will conclude, as the author of Ecclesiastes did, of vanities … All is vanity (Ecc_12:8).
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 12:59:15 +0000
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