2 Kings 17:6-23 English Standard Version The Fall of Israel 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. Exile Because of Idolatry 7 And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD 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 8 and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. 9 And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. 10 They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, 11 and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger, 12 and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this.” 13 Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” 14 But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. 15 They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. 16 And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. 17 And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings[a] and used divination and omens 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 but the tribe of Judah only. 19 Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. 20 And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight. 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 commit great sin. 22 The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, 23 until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day. We saw last time that Hoshea was not the salvation of Israel, but instead he ironically would lead the nation of Israel into exile. Hoshea was imprisoned by the king of Assyria and the capital city of Samaria was besieged. Eventually, in the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and carried the Israelites away to Assyria. Specifically, the Israelites were taken to Halah, on the Harbor, the Gozan River, and the city of the Medes. So it was that the ten tribes of Israel were dispersed from one another and mixed together with people from other nations to try to make them lose their cultural identity.
The text explains why this was allowed to happen, for they were certainly experiencing the curses of the Law and the very things that the LORD promised in the book of Deuteronomy that would happen when they brook covenant with Him. What brought this about? Well, it should be obvious from the books of 1 Kings and 2 Kings, but the northern kingdom of Israel has been guilty of idolatry ever since King Jeroboam founded it. They chose to worship the golden calves that he made for them and called them by the name of the LORD, just like Aaron did for the people when they were coming out of Egypt. They tried to be just like all the other nations around them (the main reason the people wanted a king in the book of 1 Samuel if we go back and look at that. They wanted to rebel against having the LORD as their king and wanted to be just like all the Gentile nations around them). They then took all the wicked customs and practices of those that continued to live among them that they were to drive out of the Land, but they failed to drive out, and they invited others into the Land to live among them that had no business having a portion in the LORD's inheritance. They gave their daughters in marriage to these pagan men and and took their daughters in marriage for their sons so that their children and grandchildren were taught to worship Baal, Asheroth, Molech and many other pagan gods, and they built themselves high places to worship these gods and have all their pagan rituals, including engaging in all kinds of sexual sin. They built altars to these gods and goddesses and made sacrifices to them in opposition to the explicit commands that the LORD had given them to have no other gods (or goddesses) besides Him and to not even make for themselves any idols. The LORD's anger was provoked and He warned both Israel (the northern kingdom) and Judah (the southern kingdom) by way of the Law and the Prophets, but they did not listen. Instead, Israel became even more rebellious both continuing in the sins of Jeroboam and the other kings before them, but also engaging in new kinds of evil and wickedness. They despised the LORD's statutes and put His servants, the prophets, to death because they did not want to hear the message that they brought from the LORD. They sought to make their own false priesthood and hire their own false prophets that would tell the king exactly what he wanted to hear and would bless all the evil that he and the nation wanted to do so that they worshiped themselves instead of the LORD. How bad did it get? They actually started to offer their own children as whole burnt offerings to Molech (are we that different today as a nation allowing preborn children to be offered as sacrifices by way of abortion? Don't believe it's the same thing? Just ask the Satanist priests and the covens that hold pagan ceremonies in the abortion clinics and do all kinds of treat the aborted baby worse than an animal sacrifice would be treated). So, the LORD was very angry with His people and He saw that none were left but the tribe of Judah alone for even the tribes of Levi and Benjamin had been corrupted. Yet it was not long before this wickedness and idolatry made its way into the house of Judah by way of the kings of Judah intermarrying with the female descendants of the kings of Israel. Soon Judah too was engaged in all these pagan practices, worshiped all these idols, and was involved in all the same pagan practices, not only in the high places, but also they turned the very Temple of the LORD into a place of worship for these demon gods. The LORD tried to warn both Israel and Judah by allowing them to lose in battle, by sending drought and famine, and by withdrawing His blessings that He promised in the Law for obedience. However, He preserved His people and they did not listen to His correction. They believed that no matter what they did, the LORD would only go so far to punish them because they were His people and they would always be able to cry out to Him. Now He is going to send them away out of the Land, and it will become obvious ot them that they are being judged. Only this time of exile will convince the people of the northern kingdom of Israel to stop worshiping the golden calves that Jeroboam made and that they need to worship the LORD in the way and manner that he prescribed. This exile of Israel is also going to serve as a warning to the people of Judah, for judgment is on their doorstep as well, for they had a later start, but are racing towards the same end as their brothers to the north. If only they would have seen what happened to Israel and repented and stopped their wickedness and idolatry, but men love the darkness because their hearts are evil as John tells us in his gospel and his epistles. So we'll see that Israel is judged and we'll hope for better from the tribe from which the Messiah has been promised (Judah). Maybe in some way the LORD will preserve them, but I think most of us know how that works--it will be a while longer (throughout the rest of the book of 2 Kings), but the southern kingdom of Judah will be exiled to Babylon in the not-so-distant future. First though, the LORD is going to use the captivity of His people in Assyria to accomplish some great things (read the book of Esther which happens during this captivity). It will be these people, the Medes, that will be used to conquer the Babylonians during the book of Daniel, and it will also be these people that the LORD will use to restore the nation of Israel back to their homeland and that event will play a huge role in biblical prophecy, starting a prophetic clock that should have told the Israelites exactly when to expect the Messiah to appear and be "cut off" (crucified). Don't think for a minute that just because the LORD is judging His people that His plans for the gospel have been thwarted. No, He uses these events to help move the gospel forward, and we'll even see in the New Testament that He'll send Gentiles that know of His coming from the Babylonian exile to come and be some of the first to worship him as the one who was born King of the Jews. No, God's plans have certainly not been thwarted, but it would have gone much easier for Israel (and us like them) if they would have obeyed as they had been commanded. We should learn from them that we are never to abuse the grace of God and take his mercy for granted. We should not try to become like the world around us and we definitely should not engage in idolatry (even if we don't make idols of wood, gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and all other kinds of materials, we still fashion gods of our own imagination made in our image and our own likeness as well as worshiping the creature rather than the Creator). Judgment can and will come on the "house of God" (and will actually start there) to correct us and to purify us, but it is so much better for us when we worship the LORD our God and serve Him only and prove to the world that we love Him by obeying His commandments. His Law should be written on our hearts and His nature that is revealed in His Law should be the nature of us as His covenant people. Let us not fall into the same sin as the nation of Israel (and eventually the nation of Judah) did. Comments are closed.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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