2 Kings 17:1
IN THE TWELFTH YEAR - Compare 2 Kings 15:30 note. The history of the kingdom of Israel is in this chapter brought to a close.... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THE TWELFTH YEAR - Compare 2 Kings 15:30 note. The history of the kingdom of Israel is in this chapter brought to a close.... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
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 T... [ Continue Reading ]
So, king of Egypt, is generally identified with Shebek (730 B.C.), the Sabaco of Herodotus. Hoshea’s application to him was a return to a policy which had been successful in the reign of Jeroboam I (1 Kings 12:20 note), but had not been resorted to by any other Israelite monarch. Egypt had for many... [ Continue Reading ]
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 y... [ Continue Reading ]
THE KING OF ASSYRIA TOOK SAMARIA - i. e., from the Assyrian inscriptions, not Shalmaneser but Sargon, who claims to have captured the city in the first year of his reign (721 B.C.). At first Sargon carried off from Samaria no more than 27,280 prisoners and was so far from depopulating the country th... [ Continue Reading ]
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.... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Exodus 20:2. The writer subdivides the idolatries of the Israelites into two classes, pagan and native - those which they adopted from the nations whom t... [ Continue Reading ]
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 o... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Hosea 2:13; Hosea 4:13; Isaiah 65:3.... [ Continue Reading ]
God raised up a succession of prophets and seers, who repeated and enforced the warnings of the Law, and breathed into the old words a new life. Among this succession were, in Israel, Ahijah the Shilonite 1 Kings 14:2, Jehu the son of Hanani 1 Kings 16:1, Elijah, Micaiah the son of Imlah 1 Kings 22:... [ Continue Reading ]
To “harden” or “stiffen the neck” is a common Hebrew expression significative of unbending obstinacy and determined self-will. See the marginal references.... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
In 2 Kings 17:10 there is a reference to the old high-place worship, which was professedly a worship of Yahweh, but with unauthorized rites and emblems; here the reference is to Ahab’s setting up a grove to Baal in the city of Samaria (marginal reference). AND WORSHIPPED ALL THE HOST OF HEAVEN - Ast... [ Continue Reading ]
Compare 2 Kings 16:3 note, and see Leviticus 20:2 note.... [ Continue Reading ]
This verse and the next are parenthetical. Here again, as in 2 Kings 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, tha... [ Continue Reading ]
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 2 Kings 15:19, 2Ki 15:29; 1 Chronicles 5:26; against Juda... [ Continue Reading ]
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 2 Chronicles 11:13, the calling in of Shishak, and the permanent assumption of a hostile attitude toward the... [ Continue Reading ]
AS HE HAD SAID BY ALL HIS SERVANTS THE PROPHETS - The writer refers not only to the extant prophecies of Moses (Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 4:26; Deuteronomy 28:36, etc.), Ahijah the Shilohite (marginal reference), Hosea Hosea 9:3, Hosea 9:17, and Amos Amos 7:17, but also to the entire series of wa... [ Continue Reading ]
Sargon is probably the king of Assyria intended, not (as generally supposed) either Shalmaneser or Esar-haddon. The ruins of Cutha have been discovered about 15 miles northeast of Babylon, at a place which is called Ibrahim, because it is the traditional site of a contest between Abraham and Nimrod... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:44; and these... [ Continue Reading ]
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 worsh... [ Continue Reading ]
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.... [ Continue Reading ]
The “Samaritans” here are the Israelites. The temples built by them at the high places 1 Kings 12:31; 1 Kings 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.... [ Continue Reading ]
Succoth-benoth probably represents a Babylonian goddess called Zir-banit, the wife of Merodach. She and her husband were, next to Bel and Beltis, the favorite divinities of the Babylonians. Nergal, etymologically “the great man,” or “the great hero,” was the Babylonian god of war and hunting. His n... [ Continue Reading ]
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 purp... [ Continue Reading ]
OF THE LOWEST OF THEM - Rather, “from all ranks.” See marginal reference note.... [ Continue Reading ]
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.... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY FEAR NOT THE LORD - The new-comers in one sense feared Yahweh 2Ki 17:33, 2 Kings 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 2 Kings 17:28. But in another sense they did not f... [ Continue Reading ]
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.... [ Continue Reading ]
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 fund... [ Continue Reading ]