2 Kings 17:34

(34-41) THE RELIGIOUS STATE OF THE MIXED POPULATION OF SAMARIA IN THE TIME OF THE EDITOR.

(34) They do after the former manners. — They still keep up the religious customs of the first colonists.

They fear not the Lord. — They fear Him not in the sense of a right fear; they do not honour Him in the way He has prescribed in the Torah. The LXX. omits both nots in this verse.

After their statutes, or after their ordinances. — The writer here thinks of the remnant of the Ten Tribes who amalgamated with the new settlers (2 Kings 23:19; 2 Chronicles 34:6; 2 Chronicles 34:9; 2 Chronicles 34:33; John 4:12).

Ordinances. — Heb., ordinance, or judgment.

Or after the law and commandment. — This pair of terms is exegetical of the preceding pair. Probably, however, the original reading was, “after the statutes, and after the ordinances,” as in 2 Kings 17:37, where the same four terms recur. Then the sense will simply be, that the Samaritans contemporary with the writer do not worship Jehovah according to the Torah.