2 Kings 17:7-23

B. EXPLANATION OF THE CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL 17:7-23

TRANSLATION

(7) And it came to pass because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God who brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; but they feared other gods. (8) And they walked In the statutes of the nations which the LORD had driven out from before the children of Israel, and (hi the customs of) the kings of Israel which they had introduced. (9) And the children of Israel did secretly the things which were not right against the LORD then- God, and built for themselves high places in all their cities from the tower of the watchmen unto the fortified city. (10) And they set up for themselves pillars and Asherim upon every high hill and under every green tree. (11) And they burned incense there in all the high places like the nations which the LORD had carried away from before them; and did evil things to provoke the LORD. (12) And they served idols which the LORD had said to them, Do not do this evil thing. (13) Yet the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah by the hand of all His prophets and all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes and all the instruction which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent unto you by the hand of My servants the prophets. (14) Yet they did not hearken, but hardened their necks like the neck of their fathers who did not believe in the LORD then- God. (15) And they rejected His statutes and His covenant which He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them; and they followed after vanity and became vain, and acted like the nations which were round about them concerning which the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. (16) And they forsook all the commands of the LORD their God, and made for themselves molten images, two calves, and they made an Asherah, and they worshiped all the host of the heavens, and served Baal. (17) And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and practiced divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD to provoke Him. (18) And the LORD became exceedingly angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; not one was left except the tribe of Judah alone. (19) Also Judah did not keep the commands of the LORD their God, and walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. (20) And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and gave them into the hand of spoilers until He had cast them from before Him. (21) When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them to commit a great sin. (22) And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not turn from it. (23) Until the LORD removed Israel from His sight as He had spoken by the hand of all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away captive from off their land to Assyria until this day.

COMMENTS

In 2 Kings 17:7-23 the writer ceases to be mere historian and becomes a prophetic teacher, interpreting for future generations the calamitous fall of the Northern Kingdom. 2 Kings 17:7-12 contain a general statement of Israel's wickedness. After God had delivered his people from the oppression in Egypt they had taken up the worship of other gods (2 Kings 17:7). They followed the statutes of the heathen, i.e., their customs and religious observances, even though it was these very statutes which caused the Holy God to order the Canaanite nations driven from that land. The kings of the Northern Kingdom had also been a negative influence upon the people as a whole, introducing into the nation the apostate calf worship as a substitute for the pure worship which the Lord had ordained to be conducted in Jerusalem (2 Kings 17:8).

In secret, i.e., private, the Israelites participated in all kinds of rites which were not pleasing to the Lord. High places were built throughout the land in open violation of the divine command that there be one Temple and one altar. The proverbial expression, from the tower of the watchman to the fortified city (2 Kings 17:9), means from the smallest and most solitary place to the largest and most populous. Stone pillars such as used in heathen symbolism were set up along with Asherim (not groves as in KJV), the wooden poles emblematic of the female deity Asherah (2 Kings 17:10). The worship in the high places followed the pattern of Canaanite worship with the offering of incense (2 Kings 17:11). By these actions the men of Israel were indicating their allegiance to the idols. The word for idols in 2 Kings 17:12 is a term of derision rarely used except by Ezekiel. The basic meaning of gillulim seems to be something like things of dung or odorous ones.

In spite of the blatant apostasy of Israel, God graciously continued to plead with them and warn them through His spokesmen. Prophets and seers are terms used interchangeably in the Old Testament (cf. 1 Samuel 9:9). One thinks of the ministries of Ahijah the Shilonite (1 Kings 14:2); Jehu the son of Hanani who prophesied concerning Baasha (1 Kings 16:1); Elijah and Micaiah who were active during the reign of Ahab; Elisha who bore testimony during the first half of the Jehu dynasty; Jonah and Amos who ministered during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II; and Hosea who labored the last half-century of Israel's history. In Judah one thinks of Shemaiah who was contemporary with the first king of the Divided Monarchy; of Micah and Isaiah who labored in the eighth century; and of a whole host of lesser known prophets mentioned by the Chronicler.[595] All of these men of God pleaded urgently with the inhabitants of the land to heed the divinely revealed Law of Moses (2 Kings 17:13). But in spite of these efforts the people continued to harden their necks, i.e., to be obstinate, just as their stiff-necked fathers who failed God so often in the period of the wilderness wanderings (2 Kings 17:14). Rejecting the statutes of God, the people of Israel had in effect rejected the covenant with God into which they had entered at Mt. Sinai (cf. Exodus 19:5-8). His testimoniesthose commandments which witness of Him and reveal His naturethey also rejected. The people chose to follow vanity, the empty, futile, impotent pagan gods, and as a result they themselves became vain, i.e., impotent. Whereas God had commanded and expected His people to be separate and distinct from all nations, they chose instead to follow the way of the heathen (2 Kings 17:15).

[595] E.g., Iddo (2 Chronicles 13:22); Azariah (2 Chronicles 15:1); Hanani (2 Chronicles 16:7); Jehu (2 Chronicles 19:2); Jahaziel (2 Chronicles 20:14); Eliezer (2 Chronicles 20:37); Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:20).

The inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom forsook the commands of the Lord and made for themselves molten images, viz., the two calves. How devoted they were to these symbols of their apostate worship! Every king of Israel had maintained the calf cult, and Bethel had become known as the king's chapel (Amos 7:13). In the days of Ahab, Phoenician deities were introduced alongside the apostate calf worship, and for a time both Baal and his consort Asherah had companies of prophets in Samaria. At some stage, astral deities had been introduced into Israelthe host of heavenworship of the various planets. Such worship must have been imported from Mesopotamia (2 Kings 17:16). With the pagan deities came the pagan practiceschild immolation (see 2 Kings 16:3), and various magical practices (see 2 Kings 9:22). They had sold themselves to do evil with the deliberate intention, it would seem, of provoking the Lord (2 Kings 17:17). When their cup of iniquity was full, God's wrath, long restrained, descended upon them. God removed them out of His sight. They were cast off, removed from their land, and declared no longer to be the people of God (Hosea 1:9). Judah alone was left to become God's peculiar people (2 Kings 17:18).

By God's grace the Southern Kingdom was preserved for a few short years after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom. But Judah rejected the commandments of the Lord for the statutes of Israel, i.e., the Baal worship and all the vile practices connected with it (2 Kings 17:19). The only sin of Israel not attested in Judah is that of the calf worship. Since God is no respecter of persons, He rejected all the seed of IsraelJudah as well as Israeland afflicted them by the hand of foreign oppressorsthe Arameans, the Assyrians and finally the Chaldeans. The spoilers would include in addition to the powers just mentioned, the neighboring nations which took advantage of the weakness of Israel and Judah and attacked and plundered them. This divine program of harassment and humiliation lasted until Judah as well as Israel had been removed from God's land and God's favor (2 Kings 17:20).

The rejection and punishment of all the seed of Israel took place in two great stages. God had torn the ten Northern tribes away from the house of David in the schism of 931 B.C. Those tribes had made Jeroboam the son of Nebat their king. The political separation alone might not have had any ill result. But under the leadership of Jeroboam the Northern Kingdom fell into religious apostasy. The calf worship introduced by this king had the effect of driving the people of the Northern tribes away from strict obedience to the Lord (2 Kings 17:21). Throughout the history of the Northern Kingdom, the people continued to walk in the sins of Jeroboam which, in addition to the golden calves, also included the appointment of priests who were not of the seed of Aaron (1 Kings 13:33). Even in the reform movement of Jehu in 841 B.C. no effort was made to correct this basic apostasy (2 Kings 17:22). Warnings of punishment and deportation had been given by all the prophets of God by Moses (Deuteronomy 4:26-27), Ahijah (1 Kings 14:15-16), Amos (2 Kings 7:17), Hosea (2 Kings 9:3; 2 Kings 9:7), and others. The inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom experienced the fate of which they had been warned. They were carried away in large numbers to the far reaches of the Assyrian empire where they were still residing at the time the Book of Kings was compiled (2 Kings 17:23).[596]

[596] A great deal of speculation has arisen about the fate of these Northern tribes. Many of these people returned with Zerubbabel to Palestine in 538 B.C. and others with Ezra in 458 B.C. (See Ezra 2:70; Ezra 3:1; Ezra 6:16-17; Ezra 7:13; Ezra 8:35; 1 Chronicles 9:2-3; Zechariah 8:13). Those who remained in the lands of the captivity either united with the Jewish colonies which were later established there, or else they simply adopted fully the practices of the heathen, intermarried with them, and disappeared as a distinct group.