In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel for nine years.
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In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel for nine years.
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In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.
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In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel, and reigned nine years.
Cross-references (1)
Passages linked to 2 Kings 17:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Kings 15:30 Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, attacked him, killed him, and reigned in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 2Ki 17:1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king…
2Ki 17:1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.
Ver. 1. Began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign.] Heb., He reigned, sc., as an absolute king, and no longer a vassal or tributary to the king of Assyria as before. {a}
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Over Israel nine years,] viz., Four in the days of Ahaz, and five of Hezekiah.
{a} Vatab.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Quest. How can this be true, seeing it is…
Quest. How can this be true, seeing it is said that he reigned, or began to reign, in Israel in the twentieth year of Jotham, 2Ki 15:30, which was the fourth year of Ahaz, as was there noted? Answ. He usurped the kingdom in Ahaz’s fourth year; but either was not owned as king by the generality of the people, or was not accepted and established in his kingdom by the Assyrian, till Ahaz’s twelfth year; or in his eight first years he was only a tributary prince, and the king of Assyria’s viceroy; and after that time he set up for himself, which drew the Assyrian upon him. Nine years, to wit, after his confirmation and peaceable possession of his kingdom; for in all he reigned seventeen or eighteen years, to wit, twelve with Ahaz, who reigned sixteen years, and six with Hezekiah, 2Ki 18:10.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We have here the reign and ruin of Hoshea,…
We have here the reign and ruin of Hoshea, the last of the kings of Israel, concerning whom observe,
I. That, though he forced his way to the crown by treason and murder (as we read Kg2 15:30), yet he gained not the possession of it till seven or eight years after; for it was in the fourth year of Ahaz that he slew Pekah, but did not himself begin to reign till the twelfth year of Ahaz, Kg2 17:1. Whether by the king of Assyria, or by the king of Judah, or by some of his own people, does not appear, but it seems so long he was kept out of the throne he aimed at. Justly were his bad practices thus chastised, and the word of the prophet was thus fulfilled (Hos 10:3), Now they shall say We have no king, because we feared not the Lord.
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II. That, though he was bad, yet not so bad as the kings of Israel had been before him (Kg2 17:2), not so devoted to the calves as they had been. One of them (that at Dan), the Jews say, had been, before this, carried away by the king of Assyria in the expedition recorded Kg2 15:29, (to which perhaps the prophet refers, Hos 8:5, Thy calf, O Samaria! has cast thee off), which made him put the less confidence in the other. And some say that this Hoshea took off the embargo which the former kings had put their subjects under, forbidding them to go up to Jerusalem to worship, which he permitted those to do that had a mind to it. But what shall we think of this dispensation of providence, that the destruction of the kingdom of Israel should come in the reign of one of the best of its kings? Thy judgments, O God! are a great deep. God would hereby show that in bringing this ruin upon them he designed to punish, 1. Not only the sins of that generation, but of the foregoing ages, and to reckon for the iniquities of their fathers, who had been long in filing the measure and treasuring up wrath against this day of wrath. 2. Not only the sins of their kings, but the sins of the people. If Hoshea was not so bad as the former kings, yet the people were as bad as those that went before them, and it was an aggravation of their badness, and brought ruin the sooner, that their king did not set them so bad an example as the former kings had done, nor hinder them from reforming; he gave them leave to do better, but they did as bad as ever, which laid the blame of their sin and ruin wholly upon themselves.
III. That the destruction came gradually. They were for some time made tributaries before they were made captives to the king of Assyria (Kg2 17:3), and, if that less judgment had prevailed to humble and reform them, the greater would have been prevented.
IV. That they brought it upon themselves by the indirect course they took to shake off the yoke of the king of Assyria, Kg2 17:4. Had the king and people of Israel applied to God, made their peace with him and their prayers to him, they might have recovered their liberty, ease, and honour; but they withheld their tribute, and trusted to the king of Egypt to assist them in their revolt, which, if it had taken effect, would have been but to change their oppressors. But Egypt became to them the staff of a broken reed. This provoked the king of Assyria to proceed against them with the more severity. Men get nothing by struggling with the net, but entangle themselves the more.
V. That it was an utter destruction that came upon them. 1. The king of Israel was made a prisoner; he was shut up and bound, being, it is probable, taken by surprise, before Samaria was besieged. 2. The land of Israel was made a prey. The army of the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, made themselves master of it (Kg2 17:5), and treated the people as traitors to be punished with the sword of justice rather than as fair enemies. 3. The royal city of Israel was besieged, and at length taken. Three years it held out after the country was conquered, and no doubt a great deal of misery was endured at that time which is not particularly recorded; but the brevity of the story, and the passing of this matter over lightly, methinks, intimate that they were abandoned of God and he did not now regard the affliction of Israel, as sometimes as he had done. 4. The people of Israel were carried captives into Assyria, Kg2 17:6. The generality of the people, those that were of any note, were forced away into the conqueror's country, to be slaves and beggars there. (1.) Thus he was pleased to exercise a dominion over them, and to show that they were entirely at his disposal. (2.) By depriving them of their possessions and estates, real and personal, and exposing them to all the hardships and reproaches of a removal to a strange country, under the power of an imperious army, he chastised them for their rebellion and their endeavour to shake off his yoke. (3.) Thus he effectually prevented all such attempts for the future and secured their country to himself. (4.) Thus he got the benefit of their service in his own country, as Pharaoh did that of their fathers; and so this unworthy people were lost as they were found, and ended as they began, in servitude and under oppression. (5.) Thus he made room for those of his own country that had little, and little to do, at home, to settle in a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey. In all these several ways he served himself by this captivity of the ten tribes. We are here told in what places of his kingdom he disposed of them - in Halah and Habor, in places, we may suppose, far distant from each other, lest they should keep up a correspondence, incorporate again, and become formidable. There, we have reason to think, after some time they were so mingled with the nations that they were lost, and the name of Israel was no more in remembrance. Those that forgot God were themselves forgotten; those that studied to be like the nations were buried among them; and those that would not serve God in their own land were made to serve their enemies in a strange land. It is probable that they were the men of honour and estates who were carried captive, and that many of the meaner sort of people were left behind, many of every tribe, who either went over to Judah or became subject to the Assyrian colonies, and their posterity were Galileans or Samaritans. But thus ended Israel as a nation; now they became Lo-ammi - not a people, and Lo-ruhamah - unpitied. Now Canaan spued them out. When we read of their entry under Hoshea the son of Nun who would have thought that such as this should be their exit under Hoshea the son of Elah? Thus Rome's glory in Augustus sunk, many ages after, in Augustulus. Providence so ordered the eclipsing of the honour of the ten tribes that the honour of Judah (the royal tribe) and Levi (the holy tribe), which yet remained, might shine the brighter. Yet we find a number sealed of every one of the twelve tribes (Rev. 7) except Dan. James writes to the twelve tribes scattered abroad (Jam 1:1) and Paul speaks of the twelve tribes which instantly served God day and night (Act 26:7); so that though we never read of those that were carried captive, nor have any reason to credit the conjecture of some (that they yet remain a distinct body in some remote corner of the world), yet a remnant of them did escape, to keep up the name of Israel, till it came to be worn by the gospel church, the spiritual Israel, in which it will ever remain, Gal 6:16.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah…
In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. In this account there is some difficulty, since it was in the twentieth of Jotham, that is, the fourth of Ahaz, that Hosea conspired against Pekah king of Israel, and slew him, when it might be reasonably thought he began his reign: now either there was an interregnum until the twelfth of Ahaz, or Hoshea however was not generally received and acknowledged as king till then, as others think; he being a tributary to the king of Assyria, and a kind of viceroy, is not said to reign until he rebelled against him; after which he reigned nine years, four in the times of Ahaz, and five in the reign of Hezekiah, Kg2 18:9, in this way the author of the Jewish chronology goes (r), in which he is followed by other Jewish writers; and this bids as fair as any to remove the difficulty, unless these nine years refer to the time of his reign before the twelfth of Ahaz; and the sense be, that in the twelfth of Ahaz he had reigned nine year's; but it is said he "began" to reign then.
(r) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 22.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The reign of Hoshea, ver. 1, 2. The king…
The reign of Hoshea, ver. 1, 2. The king of Assyria imprisons him, and carries Israel captive, ver. 3-6. The cause of this captivity, ver. 7-23. The strange nations transplanted into Canaan are plagued with lions, ver. 24-26. An Israelitish priest is sent to them, ver. 27-28. The mongrel religion which followed, ver. 29-41.
To reign - He usurped the kingdom in Ahaz's fourth year; but either was not owned as king, by the generality of the people; or was not accepted and established in his kingdom, 'till Ahaz's twelfth year. Nine - After his confirmation and peaceable possession of his kingdom: for in all, he reigned seventeen, or eighteen years; twelve with Ahaz, who reigned sixteen years, and six with Hezekiah.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Hoshea's wicked reign, 1, 2.
CHAPTER XVII
Hoshea's wicked reign, 1, 2.
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Shalmaneser comes up against him, makes him tributary, and
then casts him into prison, 3, 4.
He besieges Samaria three years; and at last takes it, and
carries Israel captive into Assyria, and places them in
different cities of the Assyrians and Medes, 5, 6.
The reason why Israel was thus afflicted; their idolatry,
obstinacy, divination, c., 7-18.
Judah copies the misconduct of Israel, 19.
The Lord rejects all the seed of Israel, 20-23.
The king of Assyria brings different nations and places them
in Samaria, and the cities from which the Israelites had been
led away into captivity, 24.
Many of these strange people are destroyed by lions, 25.
The king of Assyria sends back some of the Israelitish priests
to teach these nations the worship of Jehovah which worship
they incorporate with their own idolatry, 26-33.
The state of the Israelites, and strange nations in the land of
Israel, 34-41.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVII
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 2Ki 17:1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz, began…
2Ki 17:1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz, began Hoshea to reign — He usurped the kingdom in Ahaz’s fourth year; but either was not owned as king by the generality of the people, or was not accepted and established in his kingdom till Ahaz’s twelfth year. Nine years — After his confirmation and peaceable possession of his kingdom; for in all he reigned seventeen or eighteen years; twelve with Ahaz, who reigned sixteen years, and six with Hezekiah.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain In the twelfth year - Compare 2Ki 15:30 note.…
In the twelfth year - Compare 2Ki 15:30 note. The history of the kingdom of Israel is in this chapter brought to a close.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Twelfth. Houbigant would substitute 14th, to make the dates…
Twelfth. Houbigant would substitute 14th, to make the dates agree, p. 113. See chap. xv. 30. (Haydock) --- Till this time, Osee had been tributary to the Assyrian monarch. (Grotius) --- Hebrew may be, "in the 12th year....Osee....had reigned....nine years; which his true. (Calmet) --- He reigned so long afterwards, ver. 6. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain C.—The Fall of the Kingdom of Israel, under Hoshea
C.—The Fall of the Kingdom of Israel, under Hoshea
2Ki_17:1-41
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1In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began [omit began] Hoshea the son of Elah [became king] to reign [omit to reign] in Samaria over Israel nine years. 2And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. 3Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents 4[tribute] And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. 5Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. 6In the ninth year1 of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in [on the] Habor [,] by the river of [omit of] Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes [Media].
7For so it was, that [so it came to pass that when] the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, 8And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and [in those] of the kings of Israel, which [statutes] they [i.e., the kings] had made. [:—] 9And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 10And they set them up images and groves [statues] in [on] every high hill, and under every green tree: 11And there they burnt incense in [on] all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away [removed] before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger: 12For they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. 13Yet the Lord testified2 against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets,3 and by [and by] all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. 14Notwithstanding, they would not hear [And they heard not], but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God. 15And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them. 16And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove [an Astartestatue] and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divinations and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, 18to provoke him to anger. [:—] Therefore [It came to pass, I say (2Ki_17:7), that then] the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. [(] 19Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel 20which they made. [)] And [then] the Lord 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. 21For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave [seduced]4 Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin. 22For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them:5 23Until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
24And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, 25and dwelt in the cities thereof. And so it was [it came to pass] at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the Lord: therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of [slaughtered amongst] them. 26Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land. 27Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. 28Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Beth-el, and taught them how they should fear6 the Lord. 29Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. 30And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, 31And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them [from the common people] priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the 33houses of the high places. They [i.e., these immigrants] feared the Lord, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom [whence] they [were] carried away from thence [omit from thence].
34Unto this day they [i.e., the remnant of the Israelites] do after the former manners: they fear not the Lord, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel; 35With whom the Lord had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow 36yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: But [only] the Lord, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice. 37And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods. 38And the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not 39forget; neither shall ye fear other gods. [;] But [only] the Lord your God ye 40shall fear; and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. Howbeit [and] they did not hearken, but they did after their former manners.
41So these nations [i.e., all the mixed inhabitants of the northern kingdom] feared the Lord, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.
The Chronology of the Period from the Reign of Jehu until the fall of the Kingdom of Israel
[Compare the Appendix on the Chronology]
This period, as well as that from Ahab to Jehu, presents chronological difficulties. Their solution can be successfully accomplished only by starting from the surest possible data, and bringing together and comparing all the separate chronological statements. For the starting-point we have the year 884 in which Jehu, in Israel, and Athaliah, in Judah, came to the throne; the date of the close of the period is also firmly established. The kingdom of Israel came to an end, according to the great majority of the chronologers, in the year 721 b.c. However much they may differ about the limits of the several reigns, they generally agree in this. So Petavius, Usher, Scaliger, Seyffarth, Winer, Tiele, Keil. See Herzog’s Encyc. XVIII. s. 459, where Rösch has collected into a table the results of the investigations of twelve chronologers. [Rawlinson may be added to the number of those who advocate the date 721. On the other hand are Des Vignoles, 718; Bengel, 722; Ewald, 719; Thenius, 722; Bunsen, 709; Niebuhr. 719; and Lepsius still later, 693. It cannot be regarded as a satisfactory scientific procedure to thus borrow the results of a certain number of scholars. There is no such consensus of opinion as would enable us to simply proceed from these dates as results of science which are no longer questioned. In the absence of such a consensus it is mere building upon the sand to make them the foundation of a calculation which makes claim to reliability. It is to gain the appearance of certainty where there is no certainty. In the Appendix on the Chronology will be found a brief criticism of these chronological data and an estimate of their value.—W. G. S.] Bengel and Thenius adopt the date 722, but the difference is not important. They agree with the others in placing Hezekiah’s accession in the year 727, and Samaria fell (2Ki_18:10) during his sixth year, that is, in the year 721. Ewald adopts the year 719 instead of 721. The cause of this difference is that he reckons the years of some of the reigns as complete years, which, as we shall see, is inadmissible. Bunsen differs very widely from the rest. He fixes this date as 709, but his entire calculation is founded upon data of the Assyrian chronology which are, as yet, in the highest degree uncertain, and which have not been yet regarded by anybody as correct. [See the Appendix on the Chronology, §§ 3 and 6.] They cannot, therefore, avail to shake our confidence in the two dates 884 and 721. This period accordingly covers 163 years, and, as the numbers given for the various reigns do not always apply to complete years, but sometimes to fragments of years (see Pt. II., p. 86), inasmuch as the year in which one died and another succeeded may be counted twice over, these 163 years give us the only reliable basis for estimating the length of the separate reigns. If then we calculate, commencing from the year 884, we reach the following results:—
a) For the kings of Judah. Athaliah reigned from 884 on for six years. In the seventh, that is in 877, Joash became king (2Ki_11:3; 2Ki_12:2). Since, however, he became king in the seventh year of Jehu, the forty years of his reign were not complete years, so that the accession of his successor falls in 838.—Amaziah reigned 29 years (2Ki_14:2), that is to 809, or, if the years were not all complete, until 810, or possibly 811.—Uzziah (Azariah) reigned 52 years (2Ki_15:2), that is, until 759 or 758, for all the years of his reign can hardly have been complete twelve-months.—Jotham reigned 16 years (2Ki_15:33), that is, until 743.—Ahaz reigned 16 years (2Ki_16:2), that is, until 727, in which year Hezekiah came to the throne. In the latter’s sixth year (2Ki_18:10) Samaria fell; that is, in 721. If we add together the numbers representing the durations of these reigns we get 165 years, whereas the time from 884 to 721 is only 163 years. This difference is only apparent. It proceeds from the fact that fragments of years at the beginning or end of reigns are counted as years.
b) For the kings of Israel. Jehu reigned from 884 on for 28 years (2Ki_10:3; 2Ki_10:6), that is, until 856.—Jehoahaz reigned 17 years (2Ki_13:1), that is, till 840 or 839.—Jehoash ruled 16 years (2Ki_13:10), that is, until 823.—Jeroboam II. reigned, according to 2Ki_14:23 only 41 years. But, as he is said in the same verse to have become king in the fifteenth year of Amaziah of Judah, and as this statement is consistent with 2Ki_14:1; 2Ki_14:17, he must have been king, as is shown above (chap. 14, Exeg. on 2Ki_17:23), for 51 or 52 years, unless we are willing to assume that there was an interval of anarchy for 10 or 11 years. At any rate, his son Zachariah did not come to the throne before the year 773. He only ruled six months and his successor Shallum, in the following year, 772, only one month (2Ki_15:8; 2Ki_15:13). Menahem reigned from 772 on for 10 years (2Ki_15:17), that is until 762.—Pekahiah reigned two years (2Ki_15:23), that is, until 760.—Pekah ruled only 20 years according to 2Ki_15:27; but according to 2Ki_17:32 he ascended the throne two years before Jotham of Judah, survived him (he lived 16 years, 2Ki_17:33), and waged war with Ahaz, his successor. It was not until the twelfth year of the last-named king that Hoshea became king. Now 2+16+12=30; therefore, either Pekah reigned 30 years and not 20, or there was no king in Israel for a space of 10 years (see notes on 2Ki_15:27). [See the Supp. Note after the Exeg. section on the fifteenth chapter.] This much is certain, that Hoshea became king 30 years after 760, when Pekah ascended the throne, that is, in 730. He reigned 9 years, that is, until 721.—The sum of all the reigns mentioned is 164 instead of 163 years, and this slight difference is accounted for as before in the case of the kings of Judah.
c) The synchronistic data between the reigns in the two kingdoms. Athaliah in Judah and Jehu in Israel began to reign in the same year 884. Joash, Athaliah’s successor, became king in the seventh year of Jehu (2Ki_12:2), or, since the latter became king in 884, in 877.—Amaziah became king in the second year of Jehoash (2Ki_14:1), or, since Jehoash ascended the throne in 840 or 839, in the year 838.—Uzziah became king, according to 2Ki_15:1, in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam II, but this statement rests, as was shown in the comment on that passage, and as is generally admitted, upon an error of the copyist. We must read, according to 2Ki_14:17, in the fifteenth year, but this was not a full year, so that Josephus says: “In the fourteenth year of Jeroboam.” Since now the latter became king in 823, Uzziah ascended the throne in 809.—Jotham became king in the second year of Pekah, 2Ki_15:32, or, as the latter became king in 760, in 759.—Ahaz became king in the seventeenth year of Pekah (2Ki_16:1), or, as the latter began to reign in 760, in 743.—Hezekiah finally became king in the third year of Hoshea (2Ki_18:1), or, as he ascended the throne in 730, in 727.—In Israel, the successor of Jehu, Jehoahaz, began to reign, according to the correct reading in 2Ki_13:1 (see Exeg. note thereon), in the twenty-first year of Joash, king of Judah, or, as he became king in 877, in 856.—Joash became king in the thirty-seventh year of Jehoash of Judah (2Ki_13:10), or, as the latter ruled from 877, in 840 or 839.—Jeroboam II. became king in the fifteenth year of Amaziah (2Ki_14:23), or, as the latter began to reign in 838, in 823.—The accession of the five following kings: Zachariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah is defined (2Ki_15:8; 2Ki_15:13; 2Ki_15:17; 2Ki_15:23; 2Ki_15:27) in terms of the years of Uzziah’s reign. Since, however, the year of the accession of this king is less certain than that of almost any other (Bengel and Thenius put it in 811, Usher and Keil in 810, Petavius and Winer in 809, Ewald and Niebuhr in 808), it is uncertain what year was his thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fiftieth and fifty-second. But this does not render the chronology radically uncertain. The year of accession of these kings can be very satisfactorily ascertained from other data (see above, under b). Moreover, the statements in terms of the years of Uzziah’s reign are not perfectly accurate, as we see from 2Ki_15:13; 2Ki_15:23. For, if Menahem became king in the thirty-ninth of Uzziah and reigned 10 years, Pekahiah must have followed in the forty-ninth, and not, as 2Ki_17:23 states, in the fiftieth of Uzziah. On the other hand, it is certain that Menahem and Pekahiah together reigned for 12 years, viz., from 722 to 760. The year in which Zachariah began to reign (according to 2Ki_17:8 the thirty-eighth of Uzziah) may, therefore, have been the year 773; but it is also possible, inasmuch as he and Shallum did not both together reign for a year, that all these kings, Zachariah, Shallum, and Menahem, came to the throne in the same year, 772, and therefore, since the synchronistic data and the chronological data do not coincide, that the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth of Uzziah both fell in the year 772.—Hoshea, finally, became king in the twelfth year of Ahaz (2Ki_17:1), or, since he became king in 743, and this was the very beginning of his twelfth year, in 730.
d) From this review it follows that the chronological data in no less than fifteen places, however much they may traverse and interlace one another, nevertheless agree, for the difference of a single year which appears here and there is fully accounted for by the peculiarity of the Jewish mode of reckoning, and it cannot be regarded here, any more than in the former period, as a contradiction. [In making this comment on the chronology, Bähr must take it for granted that the reader has fresh in his mind those changes in the text which have been found necessary, and those assumptions which have been made in order to complete the construction of the chronology. With this modification the above may be allowed to pass as a just comment on what has gone before. Otherwise it would convey a very incorrect impression of the reliability of this chronology.—W. G. S.]
Now, on the other hand, there remains one datum which is utterly irreconcilable with these which have been considered. According to 2Ki_15:30 Hoshea became king in the twentieth year of Jotham, son of Uzziah. This stands in contradiction to three other statements which are consistent with each other. According to 2Ki_15:33 Jotham did not reign for 20 but only for 16 years, as is also stated in 2Ch_27:1. According to 2Ki_17:1, Hoshea did not become king until the twelfth year of Ahaz the successor of Jotham. According to 2Ki_16:1, Ahaz commenced to reign in the seventeenth year of Pekah, and as Ahaz waged war with Pekah (2Ki_16:5), it is impossible that Pekah’s successor, Hoshea, should have begun to reign during the reign of the predecessor of Ahaz, Jotham. All sorts of attempts have been made to solve this flat contradiction (see Winer, R.-W.-B. 1, s. 614). We take notice here only of the two most common ones. The first is to this effect: Jotham was coregent with his father Uzziah for four years, during his sickness (2Ki_15:5). If these four years are added to the sixteen of his reign, he was king for 20 years, and Hoshea became king in his twentieth. This attempt at a solution is disposed of, not to speak of other objections, by the statement in 2Ki_17:1, that Hoshea did not become king until the twelfth year of Jotham’s successor, Ahaz. The second attempt at a solution, the one which was adopted by Usher, and which has been lately designated by Keil as the only successful one, assumes that, in 2Ki_15:30; 2Ki_15:4 years of the reign of Ahaz are reckoned in the reign of Jotham, “because the history of Jotham’s reign is not narrated until we come to 2Ki_17:32 sq.” But the years of the reign of a king cannot possibly be reckoned on after his death, least of all when, as here, his successor followed immediately; moreover, as above stated, Hoshea did not become king in the fourth of Ahaz (or, if so reckoned, the twentieth of Jotham) but in the twelfth of Ahaz. All attempts at a reconciliation are here vain. Hitzig and Thenius have attempted to escape the difficulty by text-conjectures, but these are so complicated that they do not fall, in point of improbability, at all behind the artificial attempts at reconciliation. When we examine the final words of 2Ki_15:30 : “In the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah,” they strike us as strange and unusual. In other cases we do not find the date of a king’s accession given in terms of the corresponding reign in the sister-kingdom until we come to the place where the history of the new reign begins (see the proof-passages quoted above, Pt. II., p. 89). Such is the case here also with reference to Hoshea, 2Ki_17:1. The author, who, in the usual place, viz., where the history of Jotham’s reign begins, 2Ki_15:33, states the duration of that reign at 16 years, in agreement with 2Ch_27:1, cannot possibly have spoken, a few lines before, in 2Ki_17:30, of the twentieth year of Jotham. If he had, he must have been more forgetful than the most thoughtless copyist. In fact these words are, in this place, not only superfluous, because the statement of the year in which Hoshea became king is given farther on in its proper place (2Ki_17:1), but they are even a cause of confusion. If they should be adopted as correct, it would be necessary to change a whole series of data to correspond with them. All this renders it very probable that the words are a false and late addition, in regard to which the case stands as it does with 2Ki_1:17 (see Pt. II., pp. 87–8). Another circumstance which goes to prove this is that Jotham’s father is called, in 2Ki_17:1; 2Ki_17:6-8; 2Ki_17:13; 2Ki_17:17; 2Ki_17:23; 2Ki_17:27, Azariah; here all at once he is called Uzziah. Keil unjustly characterizes the erasure of this clause as “violent,” for we are compelled to it, since fifteen other passages, all of which are consistent with one another, are in irreconcilable conflict with this one, so that it introduces contradiction and confusion into the entire chronology of the period. The question is simply whether we will correct all the other data to bring them into consistency with this one, or whether we will sacrifice it. If it is not “violent” to change the number “27,” in 2Ki_15:1, into 15, as Keil does, then it is not violent to regard the number 20, in 2Ki_15:30, as incorrect.
e) In this period, as well as in the former one, some have thought it necessary to assume joint-reigns and interregna, that is, times of anarchy in which there was no king. So it is supposed that the two Israelitish kings Jehoahaz and Jehoash reigned together for 2 or 3 years, and the Jewish kings Jotham and Ahaz for 4 years. We have spoken above (Pt. II, p. 88) about the theory of joint-reigns in general, but besides this, the first of these cases is disposed of when we have discovered the correct reading in 2Ki_13:1; 2Ki_13:10 (see Exeg. notes thereon); and the second, when we have removed the false addition 2Ki_15:30, upon which alone it rests. The assumed interregna have much more probability in their favor. Formerly it was often assumed that there was an interregnum of 11 years between Amaziah and Uzziah in Judah, but this is now almost entirely abandoned, and rightly. On the other hand, two others are still assumed in the history of Israel by almost all scholars, the first of 11 years, between Jeroboam 2. and Zachariah; the second of 9 or 10 years, between Pekah and Hoshea, to which reference was made above under b). But the biblical text does not hint at any such interregna, though they must have been of great importance for the history of the kingdom. On the contrary, it always assumes that each king was followed immediately upon his death by his successor. The author makes especial mention of the fact about Edom that “there was no king in Edom” (1Ki_22:48), and he mentions a king who reigned but 7 days (1Ki_16:15), and another who reigned but a month (2Ki_15:13). Certainly he would not have passed in silence over the fact that Israel, at two different times, for periods of 9 or 11 years, was without a king. It is true, as Keil says, that “A period of anarchy in a time of the utmost confusion and distraction would not be anything astonishing,” but it certainly would be astonishing that the text should be silent about such an important historical event. There are no historical statements whatsoever in the text which have led to the hypothesis of interregna. This hypothesis is the result solely of the desire to reconcile certain chronological data. We cannot, however, be induced to manufacture history to account for certain discrepancies in figures, discrepancies which can arise so easily from simple errors either of a copyist or of others. Josephus is as silent about any periods in which there were no kings as the Bible is. Ewald calls the hypothesis that there were such periods “erroneous in every respect. It contradicts the tenor of the text directly, and produces an utterly incorrect conception of the history.” Bunsen also rejects the hypothesis decidedly. Wolff, in the work quoted above (Pt. II., p. 89) says: “We must, therefore, have done entirely with this notion of interregna as an escape from difficulties. It invents arbitrarily blank and empty periods and inserts them in the history.” When, however, Wolff changes most of the chronological data of the text,—when he gives Jehoahaz 14 instead of 17 years, and Jehoash 19 instead of 16, when he makes Amaziah succeed in the fourth instead of the second year of Jehoash, Zachariah in the twenty-sixth instead of in the thirty-eighth year of Uzziah, Pekahiah in the thirty-eighth instead of in the fiftieth year of Uzziah, Pekah in the forty-first instead of in the fifty-second of Uzziah, and asserts that the two Israelitish kings Jehoash and Jeroboam II. ruled over Judah, the former for 4 years and the latter for 27 years, that is all as void of foundation and as arbitrary as is the “interregnum-hypothesis” which he rejects.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Ki_17:2. And he did that which was evil * * * but not as the kings of Israel, i.e., not to the same degree as his predecessors. As the formula: “He did that which was evil, &c.,” always refers to the attitude towards Jehovah and the Jehovah-cultus, so the restriction: “But not,” &c., must be understood as applying to the same, just as in 2Ki_3:2. We are not told wherein Hoshea differed from his predecessors in this respect. It is not at all probable that he desisted from the calf-worship (Thenius). If he had done so he would have broken down the wall of separation between the two kingdoms, and the text would certainly have contained some mention of it. The old commentators for the most part follow the statement of the rabbis in the book, Seder Olam, chap. 22, according to which Hoshea did not replace the golden calf-image at Bethel (Hos_10:6), which had been carried away by the Assyrians, and made no opposition to his subjects’ accepting Hezekiah’s invitation to the passover-festival at Jerusalem (2Ch_30:6-11). But, according to the account in Chronicles, this invitation was laughed at and scorned; only “a few” accepted it, which shows that Jeroboam’s cultus was still maintained under Hoshea. Moreover, Hezekiah’s passover certainly did not take place before the three-year siege of Samaria, but rather after it. Perhaps Hoshea’s better behavior was limited to this, that he was an opponent of the idolatry which had found entrance under his immediate predecessors.
2Ki_17:3. Against him came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. This king must have ruled between Tiglath Pileser (2Ki_25:29) and Sennacherib (2Ki_18:13) in Assyria. It has hitherto been believed that Sargon, who is mentioned in Isa_20:1, ruled for a short time between these two, but, “through the deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions it is placed beyond a doubt that the king of Assyria who is called in the biblical annals Shalmaneser or Shalman [Hos_10:14], really bore the name of Sargana, so that he is identical with Sargon, who was the father and immediate predecessor of Sennacherib” (Wolff, in the above quoted work, s. 672. cf. Brandis, Ueber den historischen Gewinn aus der Entzifferung der assyrischen Inschriften, ss. 48 and 53). [Later discoveries show that this statement is incorrect. Sargon and Shalmaneser are different persons, and not even of the same dynasty. See the Supp. Note at the end of this section, in which this whole subject is treated.] Among the countries mentioned in the inscriptions as having been conquered by Sargana is “Samirina” (Samaria). (See notes on 2Ki_18:13 below.) Hoshea does not seem to have provoked Shalmaneser’s first expedition against him (2Ki_17:3). It appears to have been an expedition of conquest on the part of the growing and spreading Assyrian power, yet it is also possible that Tiglath Pileser had imposed a tribute upon Pekah which Hoshea refused to continue to pay, and that the expedition was intended to compel him to do so. When he, however, at a later time, again refused the tribute (2Ki_17:4), and had recourse to Egypt for help to resist, the king of Assyria came a second time and took away from him his country and his people. As Shalmaneser waged war with Tyre, but island Tyre resisted him for five years (Josephus; Antiq. 9, 14, 2), Ewald supposes, and very many of the latest authorities follow him, that the people of Samaria joyfully recognized in this a proof that the Assyrians were not invincible, and considered this a favorable opportunity to make an offensive and defensive alliance with Egypt; furthermore, that when Shalmaneser heard of this, he suddenly marched against Hoshea. It is impossible, however, to determine certainly whether the war against Island-Tyre took place before or after the fall of Samaria. Knobel in fact, in his comment on Isa_20:1, assumes that it took place after that event. Thenius unnecessarily desires to change קֶשֶׁר, conspiracy, to שֶׁקֶר, falsehood, deceit. We have to understand by “conspiracy” nothing more than a secret agreement. The name of the Egyptian king סוא is to be punctuated סֵוֶא, Seveh. In Manetho he is called Ζευεχὸς. He is doubtless “one of the two kings named Shebek of the twenty-fifth dynasty, belonging to the Ethiopic race” (Keil). Hoshea turned to him because Egypt was at that time the only great power which seemed at all able to cope with Assyria. It seems, however, that Seveh did not enter into the alliance, or, if he did, that he did not carry it out when the Assyrian attack was made. On the words: The king of Assyria shut him up, &c., Vatablus remarks: Hoc dicitur per anticipationem; postea narratur, quomodo factum. The final consequences which Hoshea’s attempted revolt had for his own person are stated forthwith, and then in 2Ki_17:5-6 the particular description of the course of events in regard to the country and the people is given (Thenius). It is not, therefore, correct that “Shalmaneser ordered him to appear and give an account of his conduct” before the siege of Samaria, “and then, when he came in obedience to this command, made him prisoner” (Ewald, Schlier). The text does not say this; on the contrary, the words in 2Ki_17:6 and in 2Ki_18:10 : “In the ninth year of Hoshea,” assume that Hoshea was king when the city was taken. Moreover, it is very improbable that Hoshea, who had sought for, and was expecting, aid from Egypt, would have forthwith obeyed the summons of the king of Assyria, from which he could not anticipate any pleasant consequences, and that, after the king of Samaria had been made captive, that city should have resisted for three years. On the contrary, the captive king was taken in chains to Assyria after the city had been taken, and there he was put in prison, while his people were led into exile in distant regions. “Plate 100 in Botta’s Monum. de Ninev. represents a king standing upon a war chariot, before whom a chained captive with apparently. Hebrew features is being led. Plate 106 represents two figures with the same cast of countenance and appropriate costume, one of whom is presenting the model of a fortified city” (Thenius). עצר is used here as in Jer_33:1; Jer_36:5—The three years of the siege were not thirty-six months, for, according to 2Ki_18:9 sq. it began in the seventh of Hoshea, and the city was taken in his ninth. Accordingly it can hardly have lasted for two years and a half. [The later discoveries have so changed the face of our knowledge of all this contemporaneous history that the above must all be modified by what is stated in the Supp. Note below.]
2Ki_17:6. And carried Israel away into Assyria, i.e., into the kingdom of Assyria, which then included Mesopotamia, Media, Elam, and Babylon (Winer, R.-W.-B. I. s. 102). It is, therefore, a general designation of place which is followed by the names of the particular localities in this kingdom. The two first names, in Halah and on the Habor, belong together, as well as the two latter, On the river Gozan and in the cities of Media, as is evident from 1Ch_5:26 : “And brought them unto Halah, and [to the] Habor, and [to] Hara [i.e., Media] and to the river Gozan.” This verse also shows that נְהַר גּוֹזָן is not, as has often been supposed, in apposition to בְּחַבוֹר: “To the Habor, the river of Gozan,” so that Habor would be the name of this river. There is nothing else with which the name Halah can be identified but the district in the north of Assyria bordering upon Armenia, which Strabo (2Ki_11:8; 2Ki_11:4 and 2Ki_16:1; 2Ki_16:1) calls Καλαχανή, and Ptolemy (2Ki_6:1) Καλακινή. [Lenormant takes it to mean Calah, the capital of Assyria at this time.] Habor is not כְּבָר (Eze_1:1; Eze_1:3) in upper Mesopotamia, the large river which flows into the Euphrates, but, because the name Halah precedes, it must be “the smaller river of this name which flows westward and empties into the Tigris to the north of Nineveh” (Ewald). Here, in northern Assyria, there is a river, “which is called Khabur Chasaniœ to distinguish it from the river Chaboras or Chebar in Mesopotamia. It still bears its ancient name” (Keil). The Jewish tradition also favors this. This designates northern Assyria, and, in fact, the mountainous region, the district on the border between Assyria and Media, on the side towards Armenia, as the place of exile of the ten tribes (cf. Wickelhaus; Das Exil der zehn Stämme Israels, in the Deutsch-morgenländ. Zeitschrift; V. s. 474). The river Gozan is “the Kisel-osen, which rises in the northern part of the Zagros range and flows into the Caspian Sea” (Fürst, Dictionary s. v.). It refers, therefore, not to the district of Mesopotamia which Ptolemy calls (2Ki_5:18) Γαυζανῖτις, but to the city of Media which he mentions (2Ki_6:2) as Γαυζανία. This we see also from the passage in Chronicles quoted above, where “the river Gozan” is mentioned after Harah, Media. “If this river, which bounds Media, is the one meant, we can understand why the ‘and’ is, in this connection, omitted before it. The two first names and the two latter names then belong more closely in pairs” (Ewald). Thenius desires to change נְהַר into נַהֲרֵי, and עָרֵי into הָרֵי, because the Sept. here read: ἐν ’Eλαὲ καὶ ἑν ’Αβὼρ ποταμοῖς Γωζὰν καὶ ἐν ὁρίοις Μήδων, so that Halah also would have to be taken as the name of a river, that is, of the one anciently called Mygdonius and afterwards Saokaras. But the Sept. have, in the similar verse, 2Ki_18:11, the singular ποταμῷ. The plural ποταμοῖς is, therefore, evidently a mistake. This disposes of the rash supposition that Halah is the Saokaras. The proposed reading הָרֵי is, to say the least, unnecessary.
2Ki_17:7. And it came to pass when the children of Israel, &c. The frequently recurring ויהי יכ means always: “And it came to pass when (Gen_6:1; Gen_26:8; Gen_27:1; Exo_1:21; Jdg_6:7, &c.). It is not correct, therefore, to translate as Bunsen, De Wette, and others do: “And it came to pass, because.” 2Ki_17:7 does not carry on the narrative as it is taken from the original authorities, but the writer himself here begins a review of the history and fate of Israel, which ends with 2Ki_17:23 and forms an independent section by itself. The conclusion to the opening sentence: “And it came to pass, when,” &c. follows in 2Ki_17:18 : “That then the Lord was very angry.” 2Ki_17:8-15 contain merely a development of what is said in 2Ki_17:7, inasmuch as they go on to specify how, and by what means, the children of Israel “sinned,” viz., partly by apostatizing from Jehovah and falling into idolatry (Exo_20:2-3), and partly by making for themselves molten calf-images to represent Jehovah (Exo_20:4). It is shown in the verses from 18 to 23 that these transgressions brought down judgments upon them, and what was the character of these judgments—The words in 2Ki_17:7 : Which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt * * * king of Egypt must not be taken as a parenthesis, as Luther takes them. They do not contain a mere incidental remark; rather the entire emphasis rests upon them, as is evident from Hos_12:10; Hos_13:4-6. The deliverance from Egypt was really the selection of Israel to be God’s peculiar and covenant people (Exo_19:4-6). It was not only the beginning, but also the symbol, of all divine grace towards Israel, the pledge of its divine guidance. It therefore stands at the head of the covenant, or organic law (Exo_20:2; Deu_5:6), and it is always cited as the chief and fundamental act of the divine favor (Lev_11:45; Jos_24:17; 1Ki_8:51; Psa_81:10; Jer_2:6, &c.). Therefore this author also makes that the standpoint for his review and criticism of the history. He means to say, thereby: although no people on earth had experienced such favor from Almighty God as Israel had, nevertheless it abandoned this God and adored other gods. 2Ki_17:8-12 state the manner in which this latter fault was committed. The worship of idols was the worship practised by the very people whom God expelled before the Israelites, and whose utter destruction he commanded, that is to say, of the nations of Western Asia (2Ki_17:8, cf. Deu_11:23; 1Ki_14:24; 1Ki_21:26; 2Ki_16:3; 2Ki_21:2). But the Israelites erected places of worship all over the country, after the fashion of the heathen, instead of worshipping the one true God in the one central sanctuary (2Ki_17:9-11). They also followed the example of the heathen in setting up idol images which they worshipped (2Ki_17:12)—חֻקּוֹת, 2Ki_17:8, means religious ordinances (see notes on 1Ki_2:3; 1Ki_3:3). Instead of holding faithfully to the ordinances which Jehovah had given, the kings of Israel gave to the people ordinances made by themselves, which were obeyed and observed by them. The result is given in 2Ki_17:9. The words וַיְחַפְּאוּ דְּבָרִים are translated by Keil, who follows Hengstenberg: “They covered Jehovah, their God, over with words which were not right, i.e., they sought, by arbitrary distortions of God’s word, to conceal the true character of Jehovah.” It is clear however, from דְּבָרִים in 2Ki_17:11, and, still more certainly, from הָדָּבָר, 2Ki_17:12, where it cannot possibly be understood otherwise than as thing; that that is its sense here, and not word. The fundamental Signification of הפא or חפה is to cover, cloak over, envelop (2Sa_15:30; Est_6:12; 2Ch_3:5; 2Ch_3:7; 2Ch_3:9). The literal rendering of these words would therefore be: “They covered Jehovah with things which were not right” (2Ki_7:9), i.e., They concealed him by them, so that he could no longer be seen and recognized, which is as much as to say that they practically denied and ignored him. Compare the formula כפר עליו to reconcile any one with Jehovah; primarily, to cover up his sins before Jehovah. The things by means of which, or with which, they denied Jehovah are mentioned forthwith, so that Luther correctly represents the sense when he puts nämlich before the following words. The translation of the Sept. is entirely incorrect: καὶ ἠμφιέσαντο λόγους ἀδίκους κατὰ κυρίου θεοῦ αὐτῶν. Thenius follows this, and explains thus: “They dressed up, decorated, and adorned things which were not right, against Jehovah; i.e., they made a parade of things which were not right against Him,” and he calls attention, in this connection, to “the parade and pomp of the external forms of idolatry.” It is equally incorrect to render the words as the Vulg. does: et offenderunt verbis non rectis dominum suum; or, as Gesenius does: perfide egerunt res in Jehovam; or, as De Wette does: “They wrought secretly things which were not right, against Jehovah.” “With words of covering עַל is never against, but always over, or upon (Exo_37:9; Exo_40:3; Eze_24:7)—[ The uncertainty attaching to the interpretation of these words is apparent from these diverse renderings of the various expositors. Bähr’s interpretation, which is closely akin to that of Keil and Hengstenberg, is fanciful and far-fetched. The idea of men covering God, that is, obscuring the sense of His presence, and of their responsibility to Him, by their sins, and thus practically denying Him, is, in a religious sense, most true and just; but it is very foreign to the simplicity of the conceptions which we find in the Old Testament, especially in the historical books. The meaning of חפא על is, to cover a material over an object, or, in the English idiom, to cover an object with a material. If the notion be not pushed farther than this, that they had put their evil lusts and deeds between themselves and God, and preferred these to Him, it offers a meaning which is satisfactory, and which agrees well with the latter half of the verse. I have, however, allowed the E. V., which agrees substantially with the rendering of Gesenius and De Wette, to remain unaltered—W. G. S.]
2Ki_17:9. From the tower of the watchmen, &c, i, e., from the lonely buildings erected as a protection for the flocks (2Ch_26:10) to the largest and most strongly fortified cities—On 2Ki_17:10 see 2Ki_16:4. On מַצֵּבוֹת see notes on 2Ki_3:2. On אֲשֵׁרִים see note on 1Ki_14:15. On the meaning of כעם see 1Ki_14:1-20; Hist. § 3.—In ver 12, the emphasis is on הַגִּלֻּלִים, which contains a subordinate contemptuous and abusive signification (see note on 1Ki_15:12). Israel sank so low that it worshipped lifeless idols, which it ought to have treated with contempt, and whose worship it ought to have disdained.
2Ki_17:13. The author now goes on in his review to the consideration of that which Jehovah had done in his faithfulness and truth, in contrast to the apostasy of the people, which has just been described. These dealings of God with His people had remained fruitless, or had produced exactly contrary results from those which were desired (2Ki_17:13-17). Not only in Israel, of which kingdom he has hitherto been speaking especially, but also in Judah, which, according to 2Ki_17:19, had behaved in a similar manner, had Jehovah borne witness to himself, not only by the law and testimony which had been given, but also by his prophets and seers. Quacunque ratione vel forma illis cernendam proponebat voluntatem suam (Piscator). The form of speech in 2Ki_17:14, to harden one’s neck, i.e., to be stiff-necked or obstinate, is borrowed from Deu_10:16. Cf. Exo_32:9. To disobedience and obstinacy (2Ki_17:14) they added formal rejection and contempt of the commands and of the testimonies of Jehovah (2Ki_17:15), and then followed complete decline into heathenism. This last is described by the words: They followed vanity and became vain. The same form of speech is used in Jer_2:5, and St. Paul makes use, in reference to the heathen, in Rom_1:21, of the same expression which the Sept. here use to render this: ἐματαιώθησαν. Heathenism deals with nothingness, vanity, that is, with what has no existence, so that it is folly and falsehood (Deu_32:21). As a proof that they have fallen into heathenism, that is, have become vain, a series of facts is detailed in 2Ki_17:16-17, from which this appears clearly. In the first place they made calf-images, then Ascheræ, then they adored the host of heaven (the stars or constellations), and finally they caused their children even to go through the fire (see note on 2Ki_16:3), and devoted themselves to soothsaying and augury. Besides all this, they sold themselves, that is, “they surrendered themselves into complete slavery to idolatrous practices” (Thenius). All the host of heaven is here mentioned between the worship of the Ascheræ and that of Moloch; that is, by the side of the Moon-goddess and the Sun-god, cf. Deu_17:3; Deu_4:19. Perhaps the planets are to be especially understood by it. As the author has here only that period in view which fell before the Assyrian influence commenced, we cannot understand him to refer to the Assyrio-Chaldean worship of the constellations, which is not met with among the Hebrews before the time of Manasseh (2Ki_21:3; 2Ki_23:5; 2Ki_23:11), but only to that which was common in Western Asia, such as we find especially among the Arabs (Winer, R.-W.-B., II. s. 528). Soothsaying and augury are mentioned with the same expressions in Num_23:23 and in Deu_18:10, by the side of the worship of Moloch. They seem to have been especially connected with this worship (Winer, l. c., s. 672).
[As has been abundantly shown in the translator’s notes on the two last chapters (see especially note on 2Ki_16:3), the Assyrian religion became known to the Israelites in the time of Ahaz and Pekah. The subdivisions of the deity (if they may be so called), which these heathen believed in, have been described in that note. But, by the side of each such subordinate or local god, we find a goddess, as the passive principle by the side of the active. These couplets had different names in different places (Bel and Belit at Babylon; Shed and Shedath among the Hittites (שַׁדַּי, Gen_17:1; Job_5:17; Rth_1:20, &c.); Hadad and Atargath at Damascus). The couplet which the Israelites adopted, Baal and Ashtaroth, is that of Sidon, showing whence this religious idea came to them. On the Baal-worship and the rites of Moloch see note on 2Ki_16:3. The astral idea in this heathen religion does not seem to have attracted the attention of the Israelites before the time of Pekah and Ahaz, although Ashtaroth always had a distinctly sidereal character among the Phœnicians. The whole religious conception which has been above described, and which prevailed in Western Asia, was carried out by the Chaldeans and Assyrians into an astral system of deities. When the hierarchy of divinities, or deified emanations and attributes, with their corresponding masculine and feminine forms, had been elaborated, they were identified with the luminaries visible in the heavens. The sun, moon, planets, constellations, and stars formed a corresponding hierarchy whose members were identified. Eight cabirim or planets were reckoned; one was supposed to be invisible because it was nearer to the ultimate and original source, the ALL. It is not difficult to perceive the step by which they passed from this to astrology, divination, and sorcery. If the heavenly bodies are gods, or represent gods, and if they are seen to be in motion, then it is natural to suppose that those motions correspond with and cause the mutations of earthly events and fortune. Since the time of Ahaz and Pekah these religious notions had been introduced into Israel and Judah and accepted there. It is to them that the text refers.—“W. G. S.]
2Ki_17:18. That then the Lord was very angry, &c. Here begins the real conclusion to 2Ki_17:7 [see the amended translation]. As we had, in 2Ki_17:8-17, the more complete development of 2Ki_17:7, so we have here, in 2Ki_17:19-23, that of 2Ki_17:18 Out of his sight, i.e. out of the Holy Land where Jehovah has His dwelling; out of the land of the covenant and the land of revelation. Cf. Eze_11:15 sq. On the tribe of Judah only, see 1Ki_11:13; 1Ki_11:31; 1Ki_11:36 (Exeg. notes).—In 2Ki_17:19 the old expositors thought they saw the statement of a still farther reason for the rejection of Israel by God, which consisted in this, that it had, by its apostasy, tainted Judah also (Hos_4:15), but the context shows that this notion is false. The verse is rather a parenthesis, as the Berleberg. Bibel observes. It contains an incidental remark which is brought out by the “only” in 2Ki_17:18. It means to say that “in truth Judah was also ripe for punishment” (Thenius). 2Ki_17:20 follows directly upon 2Ki_17:18 in the connection of thought. We must understand by all the seed of Israel, not the entire people. Israel and Judah (Keil), but only the ten tribes; for the rejection of Judah had not yet occurred. The inhabitants of certain districts had been taken into exile, during the reign of Pekah (2Ki_15:29). The inhabitants of the entire country were now, under Hoshea, taken away. Before that Jehovah had given them, for their chastisement and warning, into the hands of plunderers or “spoilers;” first into the hands of the Syrians (2Ki_10:32; 2Ki_13:3), and then into those of the Assyrians (2Ki_15:19; 2Ki_15:29)—כִּי in 2Ki_17:21, connects back, not only with 2Ki_17:18, but also with what has been said in 2Ki_17:18-20. Grotius says justly in regard to 2Ki_17:21 : ἐπάνοδος ad ostendendam malorum originem. Jeroboam’s calf-worship, which led to pure idolatry, was a consequence of the revolt from the house of David and the separation from Judah, so that these were the cause of all the misfortune. The Vulg. therefore renders, according to the sense: Ex eo jam tempore quo scissus est Israel a domo David. It cannot be correct to take Jehovah as the subject of קרע, as the old expositors did, and as Keil still does. This is a deduction from 1Ki_11:11; 1Ki_11:31, but the final cause of the apostasy and rejection of Israel is here given, and that cannot lie in Jehovah himself. The separation from the House of David took place indeed according to God’s decree; but it was only intended to serve as a humiliation to the House of David, and was not to last “forever” (1Ki_11:39). It took for granted, moreover, that Jeroboam would remain faithful to the covenant and to the Law of Jehovah (1Ki_11:38). But Jeroboam broke with these in order to make the separation permanent. The separation thereby became the germ of all calamity for Israel. The natural subject of קרע is יִשְׂרָאֵל (see 1Ki_12:16), and it is not necessary to read, as Thenius does, נִקְרַע, i.e. “Israel had torn itself away;” nor to supply, as De Wette does, אֶת־הַמַּמְלָכָה: “Israel had torn away the royal authority from the House of David,” for it is not the monarchy as such which is here in question, but the separation between Israel and Judah, that is, the disruption of the theocratic relation. The words mean simply: secessionem fecerant (Clericus).
2Ki_17:22 is not a mere repetition of 2Ki_17:21, but it means: Israel not only fell into this sin of Jeroboam, but it persevered in it in spite of all the divine warnings and chastisements
2Ki_17:23. As he had said by all His servants the prophets. Cf., for instance, Hos_1:6; Hos_9:16; Amo_3:11-12; Amo_5:27 : Isa_28:3. Unto this day, i.e. until the time at which the author was writing, which does not mean to affirm that the exile did not last any longer.
2Ki_17:24. And the king of Assyria brought. This king the old expositors supposed to be Esar-haddon (2Ki_19:37), because (Ezr_4:2) the Samaritans who desired to take part in the erection of the second temple, say to Zerubbabel: “We do sacrifice unto him [your God] since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assur, which brought us up hither.” Keil still maintains this, because he thinks that 2Ki_17:25 shows “that considerable time must have elapsed between the leading of the Israelites into exile and the introduction of new colonists into the depopulated country.” But this does not by any means follow from the words: It came to pass at the beginning of their dwelling there. The context forbids us to think of any other king, than the one above mentioned, Shalmaneser. Esarhaddon was not even his immediate successor, for [Sargon and] Sennacherib intervened. He did not come to the throne until 695 [681] B.C., that is, twenty-six years after the Israelites were led into exile by Shalmaneser in 721. Nothing is more improbable than that the latter should have left the country destitute of population, and that this state of things should have lasted for twenty-six years. The colonists who speak in Ezr_4:2 are [descendants of] later ones, whom Esarhaddon may have sent, for some reason unknown to us, to join those already there. Why does not the author mention by name the king who is spoken of in 2Ki_19:37, if that is the one he here meant? [This point also is treated in the Note below, at the end of Exeg. section.] Babel is here not the city, but the province, as in Psa_137:1. The position of Cuthah is entirely uncertain. Josephus says: τὸ Χουθαίων ἕθνος, οἳ πρότερον ἐνδοτέρω τῆς Περσίδος καὶ τῆς Μηδίας ἦσαν. According to Gesenius and Rosenmüller, Babylonian Irak must be thought of as lying somewhere in the region of Nahar Malka. Clericus considers the Cuthæans as identical with the Kossæans, in Susiana, in the northeast of what is now Khurdistan, and this opinion is the best founded (cf. Winer, if. R.-W.-B. I. s. 237). As the Samaritans are called by the rabbis simply כותיים, it seems probable that the Cuthæans composed the main body of the colonists. [Cuthah was close to Babylon,—a suburb of it. See the Supp. Note below.] The location of the city or district Ava is also uncertain. It has been sought in Persia, in Syria, and in Mesopotamia. Perhaps it is to be identified with the Ivah which is mentioned in 2Ki_18:34; 2Ki_19:13; Isa_37:13. [Ivah, however, is unknown. In 2Ki_17:31 it is said that “the Avites made Nibhaz,” a Chaldean god. Hence this place was unquestionably in Chaldea, near the others except Hamath. Whoever caused this migration had just conquered Chaldea, see the Supplementary Note below.] Hamath (1Ki_8:65; 2Ki_14:25), in the north of Palestine, on the Orontes, had then already fallen under Assyrian dominion. Sepharvaim is generally believed to be the Σιπφάρα mentioned by Ptolemy (2Ki_5:18; 2Ki_5:7), the southernmost city of Mesopotamia, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. However, as it is mentioned in Isa_36:19, together with Hamath and Arpad, Syrian localities, we might be rather led, with Vitringa and Ewald, to the supposition that it was a Syrian city. [It is undoubtedly Sippara, called by the Greeks Heliopolis. (Its divinity was Shamash, the sun, שֶׁמֶשׁ). The Chaldean legend of the flood says that Xisuthrus, warned by the gods of the approach of the flood, buried at Sippara tables on which were written an account of the origin of the world and of the ordinances of religion. His children dug them up after the flood, and they became authorities for the Chaldean religion (Lenormant). The primitive Chaldeans were Turanians; but if the word has a Semitic etymology it would seem to mean the Scripture-city (ספר).—W. G. S.] (On these different names, see Winer, R.-W.-B. s. v., [and the Dictionaries of the Bible]. This is the first time that שֹׁמְרוֹן is used of the entire kingdom. It is incorrect to infer, as Hengstenberg does, from the words: Instead of the children of Israel, that all the inhabitants, to the last man, were taken into exile, for, see 2Ch_34:9. [Samaria was now reduced from the tributary to the provincial position, as Damascus had been twelve years before.]
2Ki_17:25. And it came to pass at the beginning of their dwelling there, &c. The land became desolate in consequence of the exile of its inhabitants, especially as some time, no doubt, elapsed before the new colonists arrived and brought the land once more under cultivation. It is also probable that their number was not nearly as great as that of the exiles. So it came to pass that the lions, which had been in the country in small numbers before the exile, multiplied to such a degree as to be dangerous to the new inhabitants. Under the circumstances this was not purely a natural incident, but a divine dispensation. The author so considers it, having in mind Lev_26:22 (Exo_23:29; Deu_32:24; cf. Eze_14:15). The colonists saw in this an interposition of the god of the country, because they had not worshipped him. In order to escape from the plague they sent a request (2Ki_17:26) to the king who had located them in this country, that he would send some one to them who could teach them how to worship the local deity, so that he might release them from the calamity. [See, on the heathen conception of local deities, Pt. II. p. 57.] With a genuine heathen judgment they considered the external worship a means of appeasing the god of whom they knew nothing. The priest who was sent to them was, as 2Ki_17:27 expressly states, one of the exiles—that is to say, one of the priests of Jeroboam’s calf-worship. He took up his residence at Bethel, the chief seat of the calf-worship (1Ki_12:29), although the Assyrians had carried away the golden calf (Hos_10:5). Perhaps they erected there new images, not molten images, but less artistic and less expensive ones. The sending of this priest seems to be so particularly narrated, because it shows how it came that the country did not become entirely heathen.
2Ki_17:29. Every nation made gods of their own. The new inhabitants, who had been brought from very different countries, set up, in the houses on the high places, which the Samaritans had prepared as places of worship (see Exeg. on 1Ki_3:2-3), the images of their gods. Selden (De Diis Syr. ii. 7) understands סֻבּוֹת בְּנוֹת in the literal meaning of the words: “Daughter=huts,” and most of the expositors since his time have followed him in this interpretation. It is then understood to refer to the huts or tents in which the young women prostituted themselves in honor of Mylitta, i.e. Venus, a custom which Herodotus speaks of, i. 199. However, this is clearly against the context, for, whereas 2Ki_17:29 treats of the places of worship, 2Ki_17:30 gives the names of the gods whose images were set up in them. Succoth-Benoth is the first-mentioned amongst these. It is not, therefore, an appellative any more than the following names: Nergal, Asima, Nibhaz, and Tartak. The old versions all give it as a proper name. The Sept. have τὴν Σωκχὼθ Βανώθ or Βενίθ They therefore understood by it a female divinity. “סִכּוּת (Amo_5:26) was the name of a female divinity, בְּנוֹת and בֶּנִית appears only to contain a modification of it. Neither word is to be referred to a Hebrew etymology” (Fürst). We must not, therefore, understand it as referring to “little temples or shrines which were worshipped, together with the image which they contained” (Gesenius), but to the image of a particular divinity of which we know nothing further. The rabbis assert that it was a hen with her chickens, representing the constellation of the “Clucking Hen” [the Pleiades]. This is possible, but no further proofs of it can be produced. Movers’ interpretation of it, as female genitals, is entirely without foundation. The passage 2Ki_23:7, which is often referred to for the above-mentioned ordinary interpretation, has no pertinency here.
[For an exhaustive summary of the different interpretations of these words heretofore offered, see Herzog’s Encyc. XV. s. 253. The Babylonian goddess Bilit or Mylitta (see note on 2Ki_17:17) took two forms, just as Venus did in the classical mythology. The one, Taauth, was austere, the other, Nana or Zarpanit, was voluptuous. She had a temple at Babylon, where every woman was forced, once in her life-time, to surrender to a stranger as an act of worship to the goddess. At Cutha she was worshipped as Succoth-benoth, a name referring to these prostitutions. In the astral system she is Ishtar. In her “austere” form she is sanguinary and is the “Goddess of Battles—the Queen of Victories;” in her voluptuous form she presides over reproduction. Moreover two Ishtars are distinguished, each of which presides over two weeks of the month (hence called the “Goddess fifteen”). This accounts for the Phoenician plural form Ashtaroth. (Lenormant.)]
The names Nergal, Asima, Nibhaz, and Tartak have hitherto been explained very diversely upon etymological grounds, some of which are fictitious, and all of which are very uncertain. (See Gesenius’ Thesaurus; Winer’s R.-W.-B. s. v.) We therefore pass over these attempts at explanation. The rabbis ascribe to Nergal (probably Mars) the form of a cock, which certainly does occur frequently on the old Assyrian monuments; to Asima, the form of a goat; to Nibhaz, that of a dog; to Tartak, that of an ass. But these statements also rest upon very uncertain etymologies. The case is not much better with the names Adrammelech and Anammelech. We can only infer from the child-sacrifices which were offered to these idols so much as this, “that they were akin to Moloch” (Keil). The interpretations of Movers and Hitzig are very uncertain and doubtful.
[In an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, now in the British Museum, is read: “I consecrated the portico of the god Nergal and of the god Nibhaz, the gods of the temple Valpitlam at Cutha.” (See note on 2Ki_17:24) “The special god of this town was Nergal, and we learn from some mythological details given in the tablets of the library of Asshurbanipal, that he was worshipped there under the form of a lion” (Lenormant. I., 485.) His image is rare. He stands on the legs of a cock and has a sword in his hand. His epithets are: “the Great Hero, the King of Eight, the Master of Battles, Champion of the Gods” Hence he is identified with Mars.—Adrammelech=Adar-Malik, i.e. “Adar the king.” Adar (fire) was also called Samdan (the powerful). He was the Assyrian Hercules. Anammelech=Anu-Malik, i. e. “Anu,” or “Oannes, the king.” “Oannes, the ‘Lord of the Lower World, the Lord of Darkness,’ was represented on the monuments under the strange figure of a man with an eagle’s tail, and for his head-dress an enormous fish, whose open mouth rises above his head, while the body covers his shoulders” (Lenormant.)]
According to 2Ki_17:32, the worship of heathen gods and the worship of Jehovah, under the form of the calf, existed side by side. In regard to the priests “from the mass of the people” see note on 1Ki_12:31.
2Ki_17:33 repeats and brings together the contents of 2Ki_17:28-32.
2Ki_17:34. Unto this day they do after the former manners. Even at the time at which the author was writing they still followed the way of the first colonists, that is, those which are described in 2Ki_17:28-33. Some did not worship Jehovah, but served idols (2Ki_17:25; 2Ki_17:29); these were the heathen who had immigrated, who had brought their national divinities with them and still worshipped them; the others worshipped Jehovah indeed (2Ki_17:28-32), but not according to the ordinances which had been given them by Him; these were those of the Israelites who remained, and those who adopted the worship taught by the priests of Jeroboam’s calf-worship, who were sent back for the purpose (2Ki_17:27). The words in 2Ki_17:34 : After their statutes or after their ordinances, do not, therefore, stand “in contrast” with those which immediately follow, as Keil thinks, that is, with the words: After the law and commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, so that the meaning would be: “Until this day the Samaritans have retained their peculiar worship, which consists of idolatry and the worship of Jehovah through the calf-image, and do not worship according to the manner of the ten tribes, nor according to the Mosaic law.” The ו before כַּתּוֹרָה cannot have any other meaning than that which it has before the preceding and the following words. It does not, therefore, mean “still,” but “and” in the sense of “namely,” in which sense it so often occurs. The words “וכתורה וגו״ form an epexegesis to כהקתם וגו״,” as Thenius justly remarks cf. 1Ki_2:3)—The sentence: Whom he named Israel has the same sense here as in 1Ki_18:31—In reference to those who at the time of the author still persisted in illegal worship, or even in idolatry, he points expressly, in order to show the heinousness of their offence, in 2Ki_17:35-39, to what Jehovah had done amongst His people and for them, and how earnestly he had warned them against any breach of the covenant—On 2Ki_17:36 see note above on 2Ki_17:7. The breach of the covenant was the more base inasmuch as the Lord had miraculously removed all the hindrances, even the greatest ones, and had held faithful to His people. In 2Ki_17:37 particular stress is laid upon the fact that the Law was written, and not merely spoken. The existence of the written law is, therefore, assumed as undoubted—And they did not hearken (2Ki_17:40); i.e. “Those descendants of the ones to whom this warning and exhortation had been addressed, who had remained in the land” (Thenius). Their former manner, i. e. the worship introduced by Jeroboam. 2Ki_17:41 brings the author’s review of the history to a close with a reference to the posterity of the apostates who had, not desisted from the sins of their fathers. [There is great obscurity in the verses 33–41, probably because the writer has in mind different classes of the Samaritan population whom he does not distinguish or define. Thus the subject changes in 2Ki_17:33-34 without being specified in such a manner as the laws of grammar require. If we paragraph as is done in the amended translation, and identify the subjects as is there suggested, we reach a clear meaning.—The new population of the northern kingdom might be classified thus: (a) Sincere worshippers of Jehovah in the old theocratic sense. These were very few, if indeed there were any. (b) Worshippers of Jehovah under the form of the calf, i.e., adherents of the old worship of the northern tribes, (c) Israelites who adhered to the calf-worship, but had adopted also the idolatry of the heathen colonists, (d) Heathen colonists who had adopted the calf-worship.—Thus there were very few, possibly none, whom this theocratic author could approve. The third and fourth were the largest classes, and are the ones referred to in the text. Those under (c) “feared not the Lord,” i.e. in the religious sense. They knew him and should have been his servants, but were not, while they apostatized to idolatry. Those under (d) “feared the Lord,” not in the religious sense,—they never had been taught to fear God in that sense,—but they were afraid of Him, and paid Him deference, but served, i.e., gave their faith and worship to their heathen divinities—W. G. S.]
—
[Supplementary Note on the references to contemporaneous history in chap. 17. (See similar notes after chaps. 2Ki_15:16.) The great king Tiglath Pileser died in 727. In the same year Ahaz died and was succeeded by Hezekiah on the throne of Judah. Shalmaneser (IV. Rawlinson; VI. Lenormant), the next king of Assyria, seems to have been a less able ruler. “We have no records of him save some bronze weights in the British Museum. The dates, however, are furnished by the canon. Hoshea’s revolt against Pekah, as we saw at the end of the note on chap. 15, was a success for the policy of submission to Assyria. However, this entire history is nothing but a series of revolts against Assyria, and Hoshea, in his turn, soon renewed the attempt. In 725 the Ethiopians, who had for some time held dominion over Upper Egypt, invaded Lower Egypt under a king named Shebek (Sabacon, Shabaka). This name is really Shaba or Shava, with the Cushite article ka appended. It is therefore written in Hebrew סוא. The Massoretes punctuated this סוֹא. (See note on 2Ki_17:4 above.) This king succeeded in overrunning all of Egypt, and conquering it, although the native dynasty preserved its succession, being confined to the western half of the delta “in the marshes” (Herod. II. 137). The appearance of this great conqueror on the scene infused hope into the small nations of Western Asia that they might be able at least to change masters; that this new Egyptian power might form a counterpoise to the Assyrian; and that his rule might be found milder. Hoshea was seduced by this hope. He plotted a revolt, but Shalmaneser hastened to crush the attempt before union with Shebek might make it formidable. He captured Hoshea, conquered the province of Samaria, and in December, 724, laid siege to the capital by investment. In 722 he died. He left a son who was a minor. The Tartan or general-in-chief, Sargon, a member of the royal family, seized the throne in spite of some opposition. An eclipse of March 19, 721, was influential in some way at this crisis. For three years he was nominally regent for the young prince (Samdan-Malik=Samdan [Hercules] is King). From 718 on he reigned alone. He was a great conqueror, one of the most famous of the kings of Assyria. He regained all the territory which had been lost and extended the empire beyond any limits which it had ever attained “The long inscriptions found by M. Botta in the palace of Khor-sabad make us even better acquainted with the details of his reign than with those of more than one of the Roman emperors.” A long inscription, called commonly the “Acts of Sargon,” details the events of fifteen campaigns. The following are the contents, so far as they are interesting to us in the present connection:
“I besieged, took, and occupied the city of Samaria, and caried into captivity 27,280 of its inhabitants. I changed the former government of the country, and placed over it lieutenants of my own” Thus he counts the capture of Samaria among his own achievements. In place of the inhabitants whom he forced to emigrate, he introduced colonies from Elam which he had just conquered.
“… and Sebeh, Sultan [so Lenormant translates a rare title which is said to mean suzerain, referring probably to Shebek’s position as a recent conqueror and not regular king] of Egypt, came to Raphia to fight against me; they met me and I routed them. Sebeh fled.”
Pursuing the record in order to find traces of the recolonization of Samaria, we notice the following:
From 720 to 715 the Assyrians were occupied in an unsuccessful siege of Tyre. “Yaubid of Hamath.… persuaded … Damascus and Samaria to revolt against me, and prepared for battle.… I killed the chiefs of the rebels in each city and destroyed the cities.” [This revolt of Samaria, after its reduction to a province, is not mentioned in the Bible. It may have been after this conquest of Hamath that some of the inhabitants of that country were colonized in Samaria.]
The inhabitants of Papha in Pisidia were transported to Damascus.
In 710 he marched against Ashdod, which had revolted (Isa_20:1).
In 709, according to the canon of Ptolemy, Sargon defeated Merodach Baladan at the battle of Dur Yakin. By this victory he resubjugated Chaldea, which had been independent since 747. The prisoners taken in Chaldea were colonized in Samaria. In August, 704, Sargon was assassinated.
He was succeeded by Sennacherib, whose glory rivalled that of his predecessor. In regard to him see the Note after the Exeg. section on the next chapter. In 681 he was assassinated by his two sons.
Another son, Esarhaddon, succeeded him, and reigned from 681 to 667. On him also see below. We are only concerned here with one statement in his annals.—At the close of his first campaign, which was in Phœnicia, he says: “I settled the inhabitants of Syria and the sea shore in strange lands. I built in Syria a fortress, called Dur-asshur-akhiddin, and there established men whom my bow had subdued in the mountains, and towards the sea of the rising sun (Caspian)” [Whether Syria here includes Samaria is indeed doubtful, but it is probable that, as the policy of transportation was practised more and more, it became more thorough and comprehensive. Probably this was a large migration, since the name of a country is given for the new seat of the colonists instead of the names of cities. Hence the memory of this migration was perpetuated while the lesser migrations under Sargon were forgotten. It is not at all likely that the different migrations remained distinct from one another, and remembered each the time and occasion of its own migration. The second temple was finished in 516 (Ewald), so that from the time of Esarhaddon to the time of the speakers in Ezr_4:2 there must have been 160 years. This is sufficient to account for the fact that they ascribe their origin to Esarhaddon.] In this account we have followed Lenormant’s Manual very closely.—W. G. S.]
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL
1. Only so much is narrated in regard to the nine years’ reign of Hoshea as pertains to this fact, that he was the last king of the kingdom of the ten tribes. “Hoshea’s chief aim was to become independent of Assyria. He saw what a mistake Menahem had made when he called Pul into the country, and what had been the sad consequences to Pekah, who had subjected himself to Tiglath Pileser” (Schlier). [See the last paragraph of the Supplementary Note on chap. 15.] He therefore refused the tribute which had been imposed, turned to Egypt for help, and defended himself for three years bravely and perseveringly against the Assyrian power. From this it is evident that he was not a weak ruler, but that he had a strong will and was an able general. But the despairing resistance was useless, the measure was full, the days of the northern kingdom were numbered, and the long threatened ruin drew on unchecked. The criticism upon Hoshea’s reign, and his conduct in general, which is given in 2Ki_17:2, is often understood as if it asserted that he was the best of all the kings of the northern kingdom. Ewald says: “It seems like a harsh jest of fate that this Hoshea, who was to be the last king, was better than all his predecessors. The words of the noble prophets who, during the last fifty years, had spoken so many and such grand oracles in regard to this kingdom, had perhaps had more influence upon him. But as these prophets had always foretold the destruction of the kingdom as certain, so the irresistible power which works in history was now to show that an individual, though a king, better than all his predecessors, is too weak to arrest the ruin of the commonwealth when the time for reformation is past” The Calwer Bibel also says of Hoshea: “When he was at length seated upon the throne he showed himself personally better than all his predecessors, and nevertheless it was in his reign that the destruction was consummated.” Schlier also supposes that Hoshea, in the conflict, through which it is assumed that he won the throne, “turned to the Lord more sincerely than his predecessors.” There is not a word of all that, however, in the text. The words in 2Ki_17:2 do not say that he was better than all his predecessors, but only that he was not as bad as the kings before him (לְפָנָיו). This can only be understood, however, as applying to his immediate predecessors (Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah), for the word “all” is not in the text. [It is arbitrary and untenable to restrict the application of the words to these kings. The “all” is not in the text, but it is a fact that the author introduces a modification here into the standing formula which goes farther towards lessening the sweeping condemnation than any which is introduced at the mention of any other king of the northern kingdom. Jehoram is said to have been bad, but not as bad as Ahab and Jezebel (2Ki_3:2). In the other cases the condemnation is utter and complete. The modification introduced in reference to Hoshea, slight as it is, is, therefore, by comparison, very weighty.—W. G. S.] The statement does not apply to his personal and moral character, but to his attitude as king towards the national religion. He made his way to the throne by conspiracy and murder (2Ki_15:30), as several of his predecessors had done. He did not, therefore, have any “better principles,” and was not a “better man” than they. If he had listened to the warnings of the true prophets, he would not have turned to Egypt for help, for they warned him against this as much as against Assyria. The least probable supposition of all is that Hoshea gave up the cultus which Jeroboam had introduced, for, if he had done so, then his fate would have been undeserved. [This argument is presumptuous and unfounded. All such inferences from the dispensations of Providence to the desert of those who suffer calamity are precarious and unbecoming. The special fact here at. stake is insignificant, but the general principle involved in this method of argument is of the first importance.—W. G. S.] The review of the history which the author appends to the story of this reign assumes that the king adhered to Jeroboam’s cultus. His case is similar to that of Jehoram, of whom it is said (2Ki_3:2): “He wrought evil in the. sight of the Lord, but not like his father and like his mother, for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam.” Hoshea may have differed from his immediate predecessors in the same way. Probably he was led more by political than by religious considerations, at least we find no sign at all of the latter. We have no reason at all to imagine that he was genuinely converted. For the rest, it has several times occurred in the history of the world, as Keil remarks, that the last rulers of a falling kingdom have been better than their predecessors.
2. The somewhat lengthy review which the author appends to the story of the downfall of the northern kingdom is, as Hess observes: “Almost the only instance in the Old Testament where the author departs from his usual habit of simply narrating, without inserting any comments of his own.” We see from this that he was interested not only in the narrative, but also in something further. Here, where the kingdom of the ten tribes comes to an end, and disappears forever from history, was the place, if there was any, for casting a glance back upon its development and history, and for bringing together the characteristics of the story in a summary. This he does from the Old Testament stand-point, according to which God chose the people of Israel to be His own peculiar people, made a covenant with it, and took it under His especial guidance and direction for the welfare and salvation of all nations. The breach of the covenant by the northern kingdom is, therefore, in his view, the first, the peculiar, and the only cause of its final fall, and this fall is the judgment of the holy and just God. By showing this in careful detail he makes it clear to us that this is the only light in which the history can be or ought to be criticised. His mode of criticism, therefore, stands in marked contrast with that of modern critical science, which considers it its task to set aside this point of view,—to measure the history of the people of God by the same standards as that of any other ancient people. There is no other passage in the Bible where what we have called in the Introduction, § 3, the theocratic-pragmatic form of representation, is so clearly and distinctly evident as in this review. This is a proof that the author of these books was a prophet, or belonged to the prophet-class, and so that it is properly reckoned among the נְבִיאים. This review, however, is noticeable also in another respect, viz., that the existence of the תּוֹרָה with all its עֵדוֹת ,הֻקּוֹת ,מִצְוֹת, and מִשְׁפָּטִים, long before the time of the monarchy, and that too in a written form (2Ki_17:37), is assumed in it as unquestioned. If the author had not known that this Law, in the form in which he was familiar with it, had existed long before the division of the kingdom, he could not have declared so distinctly and decidedly that the fall of the kingdom of the ten tribes was a divine judgment upon it for its apostasy from that Law.
3. The forced emigration of the ten tribes to Assyria was a result of the despotic principle which was accepted throughout the entire Orient, that it was right to make any revolt of subjugated nations impossible (see Exeg. on 1Ki_8:50). In this case it was not merely a transportation into another country, but also the commencement of the dissolution of the ten tribes as a nationality. No one particular province in Assyria was assigned to them as their dwelling-place, but several, which were far separated from one another, so that, although this or that tribe may have been kept more or less together, as seems probable from Tob. i., yet the different tribes were scattered up and down in a foreign nation, without the least organic connection with one another. They never again came together; on the contrary they were gradually lost among the surrounding nations, so that no one knows, until this day, what became of them, and every attempt to discover the remains of them has been vain. (See, on the attempts which have been made, Keil, Comm. zu den BÜchern d. K. s. 311, sq.) In this particular the exile of the ten tribes differs from that of Judah and Benjamin. The exile in Babylon was temporary. It lasted for a definite period which had been foretold by the prophets (2Ch_36:21; Jer_29:10). It was not like the Assyrian exile, a period of national dissolution. Judah did not perish in exile; it rather gained strength, and finally came back into the land of promise, whereas, of the ten tribes only a few who had joined themselves to Judah, and become a part of it, ever found their way back. The ten tribes had, by their violent separation from the rest of the nation, broken the unity of the chosen people, and, in order to maintain this separation, they had revolted from the national covenant with Jehovah. The breach of the covenant was the corner-stone of their existence as a separate nationality. Thereby also they had given up the destiny of the people of God in the world’s history. They were the larger fragment of the entire nation, but they were only a separate member which was torn away from the common stock, a branch separated from the trunk, which could only wither away. After 250 years of separate existence, when all the proofs of the divine grace and faithfulness had proved vain, it was the natural fate of the ten tribes to perish and to cease to be an independent nation. “The Lord removed them out of his sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone” (2Ki_17:18). The case was different with Judah. Although it had sinned often and deeply against its God, yet it never revolted formally and in principle from the covenant, much less was its existence built upon a breach of the covenant. It remained the supporter and the preserver of the Law, and therefore also of the promise. Its deportation was indeed a heavy punishment and a well-deserved chastisement, but it did not perish thereby, nor disappear as a nation from history, but it was preserved until He came of whom it was said: “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luk_1:32, sq.).
4. The population of the country of the ten tribes after their migration consisted, in the first place, of the few of the ancient inhabitants who had remained. That such a remnant did remain is certain, whether we assume that there were two immigrations, one under Shalmaneser and the other under Esarhaddon, or only one under the latter (see note on 2Ki_17:24 under Exegetical [See, also, the bracketed note under Exeget. and Crit., on 2Ki_17:41, for the classes among the population, and the Supplementary Note above, at the end of the Exeg. section, for the details of the repopulation of the country by Sargon and Esarhaddon.]). This is proved beyond question by 2Ch_30:6; 2Ch_30:10; 2Ch_34:9; Jer_41:5. Furthermore this is supported by “the analogy of all similar deportations, in which only the mass of the population was carried off, especially the classes from whom revolts might be expected, and by the fact that, in a mountainous country, it would be impossible to seize every man of the population” (Keil). [For the number of persons carried away see the Inscription quoted in the Supp. Note above.] The new inhabitants, however, formed the chief portion of the population. The king of Assyria had brought them from different parts of his kingdom, which was already far extended. They did not, therefore, belong to one, but to many diverse nationalities and races. They worshipped various national divinities, and each nation amongst them had its own cultus which it retained (2Ki_17:29-31). Their common life in the same country produced unavoidably a mixture of the various nationalities with each other as well as with the remnant of the Israelites. A nation was thus formed which lacked all unity of worship, and which, socially and religiously, formed a complete chaos. As the exiles, scattered in different localities, lost their national unity and character, so did also the few Isralites who remained in the country and formed connections with the immigrants. In place of unity there arose a complete dissolution and disintegration of the nationality of the ten tribes. They never regained their unity. The author means to say in the passage from 2Ki_17:24 on that this was the judgment of God upon the covenant-breaking and apostate people which had resisted every chastisement and every warning to reform.
5. The cultus which prevailed in the northern kingdom after the exile of the ten tribes, is commonly designated as an “amalgam of Jehovah calf-worship, and heathen idolatry” (Keil and others). But the text speaks, not of an amalgamated cultus, but of an amalgamated population (see notes on 2Ki_17:34). Jeroboam’s Jehovah-worship, although it was illegal, was nevertheless monotheism. As such it simply and utterly excluded polytheism. So, for instance, Jehu, who maintained Jeroboam’s cultus, rooted out idolatry with violence (2Ki_10:28 sq.). Now a cultus which had for its object the one true God, and at the same time many gods, a cultus in which monotheism and polytheism were combined, is inconceivable, because it involves a fundamental contradiction. [This is unquestionably true in logic, but such inconsistencies are very common in history. The population of Samaria (see bracketed note on 2Ki_17:41 under Exeg.) had no such clear and well-defined devotion to the Jehovah-worship, even under its degraded form, and no such pure consciousness of the bearings of the various parts of their cultus upon one another, as to feel this contradiction and try to escape it. A truer conception of the state of things would be that the Jehovah calf-worship, when reestablished, took its place among the other acknowledged forms of worship. The remains of the ancient Israelitish population cultivated this worship especially, the other nationalties cultivated each its own cultus especially, and thus the various forms existed side by side, doubtless not without mutual influence on one another. This is substantially the view advocated by Bahr below, and it is far more consistent with all we know of the state of things than the amalgamation theory. The latter cannot be disposed of, however, by showing its logical inconsistency.—W. G. S.] It seems that the exiles maintained in their banishment the worship of Jehovah through Jeroboam’s calf images (Tob. i. 5). It is still more probable that those who remained in Samaria did the same. The priest who was sent back to Samaria (2Ki_17:27) was to “teach them the manner of the God of the land.” He therefore took up his residence at the chief seat of Jeroboam’s worship, at Bethel, which thus became once more the centre of this worship. It was not, however, the source of a new worship which combined the ancient form with idolatry. That the Jehovah-worship was maintained in the country without mixture with heathenism is shown by the statement of those who, 200 years afterwards, came to Zerubbabel and said: “Let us build with you; for we seek your God as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assur, who brought us up hither” (Ezr_4:2). In later times this Samaritan people “was more strict in its adherence to the Mosaic law than even the Jews” (Von Gerlach). How could this have been the case if their cultus had been mixed with idolatry from the time of the Assyrian exile onwards? The form of Jehovah-worship which Jeroboam had introduced, and heathen idolatry, existed, as a consequence of the mixed population, alongside of one another, but not in one another. Although individuals may have tried to practise both worships at once, or may have turned now to one and now to the other, the mass of the Israelites who remained held firmly to the illegitimate Jehovah-worship, so that this gradually gained the upper hand of heathenism. At the time of Christ we hear no more of the latter in Samaria. As the Samaritans recognized the authority of the whole Pentateuch, the Jews could not regard them as idolators. They were not willing, however, to have any intercourse with them, because, in blood, they were no longer pure Israelites, and so were not a portion of the people which was sharply separated, in. blood, from all heathen nations. They were considered, ἀλλογενεῖς and as such they were held in about the same estimation as the heathen (Luk_17:16; Luk_17:18; Mat_10:5; Joh_4:9; Joh_8:48). The bitter hostility between the Samaritans and the-Jews is to be ascribed, in great part, to the ancient, deep-rooted, never extinguished hatred of the tribes of Judah and Ephraim for one another (see 1 Kings 12, Hist. § 1.). On the Samaritans see Winer, R.-W.-B. II. s. 369; Herzog, Real-Encyc. XIII. s. 363.
6. Finally, we may here briefly take notice of the manner in which modern historians represent and judge the fall of the Kingdom of the Ten Tribes. “Samaria,” says Duncker (Gesch. d. Alt. s. 443, sq.), “defended itself with the energy of despair in the determination either to preserve its independent national existence or to perish. It was only after a siege of three years’ duration, and the most obstinate resistance, that the capital fell, and with it the kingdom. Without proper preparation or energetic leadership, unsupported by the natural allies in Judah or by Egypt, Israel fell after brave resistance, and so not without honor.” Weber speaks in like manner of the “glorious” fall of Israel. Menzel (Staats- und Religionsgesch. s. 229) passes his judgment as follows: “The energetic prophet class, which had had so much to do with the foundation of the kingdom of Israel, had found its grave with Elisha. The prophets Amos and Hosea, who appeared during the reigns of the last kings of the house of Israel, saw their activity limited to rebukes and reproofs. The former was banished from Bethel as an inciter of sedition. The ancient prophets do not seem to have recorded anything which would cast upon the kings or the people of Israel the reproach of an idolatry which was stained by human blood, as the historical and prophetical books do for several of the kings of Judah, although they are severe enough in their denunciations of the vices, and of the illegitimate forms of worship, of the northern kingdom. It is true that the institution of the prophets had shown itself incapable of arresting the decline of the northern kingdom, or of setting up a strong dynasty in the place of the regular succession which had been broken by the overthrow of the house of Omri, and that, in Judah, the duration of the kingdom of the house of David had been preserved, by the help of the priesthood, yet even there the final ruin had only been postponed for a century.” As for this last conception of the history, which in fact makes the prophets responsible for the fall of Israel, in the first place it runs directly counter to the entire history of the redemptive scheme, and in so far needs no refutation. It only shows how far astray we may go, if we give up and abandon the stand-point from which alone this history claims to be considered, and from which alone it can be understood. But the first representation quoted above is, to say the least, destitute of foundation, for the text, which says no more than that Shalmaneser, after 2½ years’ siege, took the city, does not by any means intend by this to chant a song of praise and glory over the fallen city. There is no syllable to imply that this siege was lengthened out by the brave and “heroic resistance” of the inhabitants. The great allied army of the Syrians and the Israelites besieged Jerusalem for a long time, and nevertheless could not take it (2Ki_16:5), though the cowardly Ahaz did not offer heroic resistance. Shalmaneser was at the same time carrying on war with the surrounding people, by which the strength of his army was divided. Moreover, Samaria had a very strong site on a hill. Still other circumstances which are not mentioned may have conspired to lengthen out the siege. Although the city may have been bravely defended, which certainly is very possible, yet it does not follow that the northern kingdom “fell with honor.” It is impossible to speak of the “glorious end” of a kingdom which was in a state of anarchy, and which was politically, morally, and religiously rotten and shattered, as the contemporary prophets testify in the plainest and strongest terms. The praise which is awarded, however, is most plainly shown to be undeserved by the review which the ancient historian himself gives of the decline and fall of Israel.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
2Ki_17:1-6. The last King of Israel. a) “He did, &c., yet not, &c.,” 2Ki_17:2. (Though he did not go so far in wickedness as the 18 who preceded him, nevertheless he did not walk in the way of salvation. Half-way conversion is no conversion. In order to bring back the nation from its wicked ways, he should have been himself devoted to the Lord with all his heart. When people are not fully in earnest in their conversion, then there is no cessation of corruption, whether it be the case of an individual or of a State.) b) He makes a covenant with the king of Egypt, 2Ki_17:4. (By this he showed that his heart was not perfect with God. Egypt, the very power out of whose hand God had wonderfully rescued His people, was to help him against Assyria. But: “Cursed be the man,” &c., Jer_17:5; Jer_17:7; Hos_7:11-13. “Woe to them,” &c., Isa_31:1. “It is better,” &c., Psa_118:8-9; Psa_91:1. sq.). c) He loses his land and his people and is cast into prison, 2Ki_17:4-6. (By conspiracy and murder he had attained to the throne and to the highest pitch of human greatness, but his end was disgrace, misery, and life-long imprisonment, Psa_1:1-6. Thus ended the kingdom of Israel, Isa_28:1-4.)—Cramer: Godless men think that they will escape punishment though they do not repent. They therefore fall into discontent; as a result of such discontent they have recourse to forbidden means, such as perjury, treachery, and secret plots. They hew them out cisterns that can hold no water, Jer_2:13, for it is vain to make covenants with the godless, and to neglect the true God (Hos_7:11).—Starke: Upon him who will not be humbled by small evils God sends great and heavy ones (1Pe_5:6).
2Ki_17:7-23. The fall of the kingdom of the ten tribes. a) It was the result of the sin and guilt of the people. (Separation from the other tribes and dissolution of the national unity—revolt from the national covenant and overthrow of the Law—degeneration into heathenism—persistence in sin—moral and religious corruption, Mat_12:25; Hos_13:9.) It was a judgment of the just and holy God. (“I, the Lord, … give to every man according to his ways;” Jer_17:10; Rom_2:5-6 : “The Lord God, merciful and gracious,” etc., Exo_34:6; “God is not mocked,” Gal_6:7. He guarded the kingdom of Israel for 250 years in patience and long-suffering. He warned, and threatened, and taught, and chastised, and sent messengers to summon them to return. When all proved vain He sent the Assyrians, the rod of His wrath and the staff of His indignation, Isa_10:5-6. He removed them from before His face. The judgment never fails to come. It does not come at once, it is often delayed for centuries, but it comes at last, upon States as well as upon individuals, 1Co_10:11-12.)—Berleb. Bibel: Would that men, when they read such passages, would stop and think, and would enter upon a comparison between the people of God of that time and of this, and would thus make application of the lesson of history. The people of Israel were hardly as wicked as the Christians of to-day. The responsibility to-day is far greater, for they were called to righteousness under the old Law, we under the Gospel of free grace. The people of the ten tribes did not reject belief in the God who had brought them out of Egypt, when they founded the kingdom of Israel (1Ki_12:28), but they made to themselves, contrary to the law of this God, an image of Him. This was the beginning of their downfall, the germ of their ruin, which produced all the evil fruits which followed. This led from error to error. They commenced with an image of Jehovah; they finished with the frightful sacrifices of Moloch. He who has once abandoned the centre of revealed truth, sinks inevitably deeper and deeper, either into unbelief or into superstition, so that he finally comes to consider darkness light, and folly wisdom. So it was in Israel, so it is now in Christendom. He who abandons the central truth of Christianity, Christ, the Son of God, is in the way of losing God, for “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father” (1Jn_2:23).—A nation which no longer respects the word of God, but makes a religion for itself according to its own good pleasure, will sooner or later come to ruin.
2Ki_17:9-12. External rites of worship were not wanting in the land of Israel. In all the cities, on all the mountains and hills, under all the green trees, there were places for prayer, altars, and images, but nevertheless the true God was not known (Act_17:22-23), and no worship of the true God in spirit and in truth existed. Their heart was darkened in spite of all their worship (Rom_1:21; Rom_1:23), because they did not revere the word of God, and placed their light under a bushel. So it was at the time when Luther appeared, and so it is yet everywhere where the light of the Gospel is not set upon a candlestick that it may give light to the whole house. What is the use of crucifixes if the Crucified One dwell not in the heart, and if the flesh with its lusts be not crucified?
2Ki_17:13-14. Starke: Before God sends forth His judgments and chastisements, He sends out true and upright teachers who call the people to repentance (2Ch_36:15-16).—The Lord still provides a testimony of Himself, and sends to the unbelieving and perverse world this message by His faithful servants: Turn ye from your evil ways! But, as it was with Israel, so it is still; those who preach repentance are laughed to scorn. He, however, who does not listen to the exhortation to repentance, does not remain as he was, he becomes continually worse and worse. If such a heavy punishment fell upon those who would not hear the prophets, what must those expect who do not listen to the words of the Son of God, but persevere in their unbelief and in their sins? Heb_4:7; Heb_10:29. 2Ki_17:15-17. Contempt for the covenant and for the testimonies of God makes men “vain,” that is, insignificant and empty, like the heathen whose gods are nothingness. [A heathen god is nothing, a nullity, it is emptiness, a name for something which does not exist, vanity. People who worship them make themselves empty, insignificant, and vain.] The further a man removes himself from God, the more vain and insignificant he becomes, however learned and cultivated he may be, and however highly esteemed he may appear.—If an entire people falls into slavery and misery, or even loses its national existence, the reason for it must not be sought merely in external, political circumstances, but, first of all, in its apostasy from the living God and His word.—Berl. Bibel: They rejected His ordinances, not indeed by a declaration in words, but by their life and conduct. What can be regarded among us as more explicit rejection and contempt of God, than to assert and to try to convince one’s self that it is impossible to keep God’s ordinances? Only look at Christ’s ordinances in Matthew 5, 6, , 7, and compare them with the maxims which we profess, and then say whether more of us accept than reject the former. How do we keep the covenant which we have made in baptism, to conduct ourselves as those who belong to God (Gal_5:24)? But that covenant is the covenant of a good conscience towards God (1Pe_3:21). If we take up the point of “vanity,” we may use the words of Ecc_1:2. Our speeches, our works, our dress, our buildings, our food, and all our habits of mind bear testimony of its truth. They served Baal; we serve the belly, mammon, the world, nay, even the devil himself, Rom_6:16. They caused their children to pass through the fire; through how many dangerous fires of worldly lust we cause our children to pass? Most of them are so corrupted by false education, and so much trained to evil by false example, that finally parents and children fall together into the eternal fire.
2Ki_17:18. Kyburz: The kingdom of Israel had nineteen kings, and not one of them was truly pious. Wonder not at the wrath but at the patience of God, in that He endured their evil ways for many hundred years, and at their ingratitude, that they did not allow themselves, by His long-suffering, to be led to repentance. Is it any better nowadays?
2Ki_17:19. Richter: Judah was corrupted by Israel as Germany was by France. Observe: Israel was never improved by the good which still remained in Judah, but Judah was only too often corrupted by the evil in Israel. Evil conquers and spreads faster than good.
2Ki_17:20-23. Pfaff. Bibel: When the measure of sin is full, then at last the judgments of God begin to fall (Psa_7:11-12).—Würt Summ.: We should see ourselves in this mirror and not bring on and hasten the ruin of our fatherland by our sins, for what here befell the kingdom of Israel, or even more, may befall us (Rom_11:21).
2Ki_17:24-41. The Land of the Ten Tribes after their Exile. a) The substitution of foreign and heathen nations for the Israelitish population, 2Ki_17:24-33. b) The religious state of things in the country, which was produced by this. Cramer: It is indeed a great calamity when the inhabitants of a country are expelled, with their wives and children, by the invasion of foreign nations; but it is a still greater misfortune when the devil’s temple is set up in places where the worship of the true God has been celebrated (Psa_74:3).—Würt. Summ.: The land in which Christ and His Apostles preached has fared as did the land of Israel; the Koran now prevails there. So also have many other cities and States fared, which now hear the doctrines of Antichrist, instead of the doctrines of Christ. Therefore we ought to guard ourselves against contempt of the word of God, that God may not be led to chastise our land and church also (Rev_2:5).
2Ki_17:25-28. The heathen immigrants imagined that, in order to get rid of the plague of the lions, it was necessary to observe particular religious ceremonies. This fancy prevails yet to a considerable extent even in Christendom. People think that they can be delivered from all sorts of evil by practising certain rites, whereas no religious acts are pleasing to Almighty God, or have value, unless they are an involuntary, direct expression of living faith, and of surrender of the heart to God.
2Ki_17:27. The king of Assyria, a heathen, took care that the religious necessities of his subjects should be provided for. He even sent a priest of Jehovah to teach them. Would that all Christian rulers were like him in this! 2Ki_17:29-33. A country cannot fall lower than it does when each man makes unto himself his own god. We are indeed beyond the danger of making to ourselves idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, but we are none the less disposed to form idols for ourselves out of our own imaginations, and not to fear and worship the one true God as He has revealed Himself to us. That is the cultivated heathenism of the present day. Some make to themselves a god who dwells above the stars and does not care much for the omissions or commissions of men upon earth; others, one who can do everything but chastise and punish, or one in whose sight men forgive themselves their own sins; who does not recompense each according to his works, but forgives all without discrimination, and who opens heaven to all alike, no matter how they have lived upon earth (Jer_10:14-15).
2Ki_17:29. Cramer: Sketch of the papacy, under which each country, city, and house has its own divinity, its saint and patron. (“O Israel!…in me is thine help:” Hos_13:9; see also 2Ki_17:39 of this chapter).
2Ki_17:33. Berl. Bib. They feared the Lord and worshipped their own idols! Is not that exactly the state of things amongst us? We want to serve more than one Lord. We have invented a kind of fear of God with which the worship of gold, fame, and worldly enjoyment, and, above all, of selfishness, is not inconsistent, nay, it is rather a component part of it.
2Ki_17:34, sq. Decay in religious matters, lack of unity of conviction in the highest and noblest affairs, prevents a nation from ever becoming great and strong. It is a sign of the most radical corruption. Similarity of faith and community of worship form a strong uniting force, and are the condition of true national unity. The existence of different creeds and confessions by the side of one another is a source of national weakness. It is an error to try to produce this unity by force; it is a blessing only when it proceeds from a free conviction (Eph_4:3-6).—J. Lange: The correct application of the lesson of this passage is to abstain from communion with whatever is inconsistent with the Christian religion, for, outside of Christianity there are, besides the errors which undermine the foundation of faith, also those ordinances of men, and service of the world and sin, which, alas! the majority, even in evangelical churches, while they have knowledge of the pure truth of the gospel, yet endeavor to unite with pure religion. Verily, to serve God and sin at the same time is as radical an apostasy from true religion as ever the errors of the Samaritans were.
Footnotes:
[1]2Ki_17:6. [בשׁנת התשׁיעית The stat. const., is used in such cases, where only the second word has the article, in order to form a closer connection between the words. Ew. § 287a. 1.
[2]2Ki_17:13.—[On the hifil form ויעד cf. וַיָּסַר, Gen_8:13; Gesen. § 72. 7.—W. G. S.]
[3]2Ki_17:13.—The keri נביא for the chetib נביאו is in so far correct that the ו belongs to the following word, כל, as a copula, and there is no sufficient reason why נביא should have the possessive pronoun and חזה not. The keri is followed by the Vulg. and the Syr. and Arab. versions, and is presented by several codices. Maurer and Keil prefer the chetib, but do not offer satisfactory reasons for it.—Bähr.[Ew. § 156 e. note 2, says that, if the chetib is to be kept, then חזֶֹה is a noun = oracle.
[4]2Ki_17:21.—[The chetib, וַיַּדֵּא, is hifil from נדא, or, by an interchange of consonants which is frequent in books later than the Pentateuch, נדה. The form does not occur elsewhere from either of those stems. The keri proposes וַיַּדַּח, hif. of נדח. The signification is the same, repel, remove, or seduce (Deu_13:14; Pro_7:21).
[5]2Ki_17:22.—[The fem. suff. in ממנה refers to the plural חטאות. Abstracts are expressed by the plur. or by the fem., and sometimes, where the words are far separated, such an interchange of the one for the other, in relative words, takes place. Cf. Job_39:15; Job_14:19; 2Ki_3:8; 2Ki_10:26. Ew. § 317 a.
[6]2Ki_17:28.—[Imperf. in an indirect question referring to something which at a past time was regarded as not to come to pass.—W. G. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain REIGN OF HOSEA AND FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF…
REIGN OF HOSEA AND FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL, 2Ki_17:1-23.
1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz — In our note on 2Ki_15:30, following Usher we understand that Hoshea slew Pekah in the fourth year of Ahaz. Accordingly there must have been an interregnum of about eight years after Pekah’s death before Hoshea succeeded in seating himself on the throne. This opinion is adopted by Keil, who says, “His possession of the throne must have been contested for eight years. The earlier commentators, and almost all the chronologists, have justly assumed that there was an eight years’ anarchy between the death of Pekah and the commencement of Hoshea’s reign. This assumption merits the preference, above all the attempts made to remove the discrepancy by alterations of the text, since there is nothing at all surprising in the existence of anarchy at a time when the kingdom was in a state of the greatest inward disturbance and decay.” This seems to us more satisfactory than Bahr’s proposal to alter the text in 2Ki_15:27 by reading thirty instead of twenty years for Pekah’s reign, and to regard the latter part of 2Ki_15:30 as an interpolation.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain Ch. 2Ki_17:1-6. Reign of Hoshea king of Israel. Shalmaneser…
Ch. 2Ki_17:1-6. Reign of Hoshea king of Israel. Shalmaneser invades Israel, imprisons Hoshea and carries the people captive (Not in Chronicles)
1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz … began Hoshea … to reign] This is one more evidence that there is error in the chronological statements. In 2Ki_15:30 Hoshea is said to have begun to reign in the twentieth year of Jotham. As in 2Ki_15:33 Jotham’s reign is stated to have been only sixteen years, the two statements are contradictory. Moreover we find that Pekah was not slain in Jotham’s reign, but was an active monarch in the days of Ahaz. The reconciliation of the various statements is full of difficulty. See chronological notice.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) In the twelfth year of Ahaz.—If Pekah reigned…
XVII.
THE REIGN OF HOSHEA, THE LAST KING OF SAMARIA. THE FALL OF SAMARIA. CAPTIVITY OF ISRAEL, AND RE-PEOPLING OF THE LAND BY FOREIGNERS.
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(1) In the twelfth year of Ahaz.—If Pekah reigned thirty years (see Note on 2Ki_15:27), and Ahaz succeeded in Pekah’s seventeenth year (2Ki_16:1), Ahaz must have reigned thirteen years concurrently with Pekah. Hoshea, therefore, succeeded Pekah in the fourteenth year of Ahaz.
Began Hoshea.—See the inscription of Tiglath Pileser, quoted at 2Ki_15:30, according to which, Hoshea (A-u-si-ha) only mounted the throne as a vassal of Assyria. On the news of the death of Tiglath, he probably refused further tribute.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 1-41. THE REIGN OF HOSHEA OVER ISRAEL. DESTRUCTION…
Vers. 1-41. THE REIGN OF HOSHEA OVER ISRAEL. DESTRUCTION OF THE ISRAELITE KINGDOM, AND THE GROUNDS OF IT RE-PEOPLING OF THE KINGDOM BY ASSYRIAN COLONISTS.
Vers. 1-6. REIGN OF HOSHEA. Hoshea, the last King of Israel, had a short reign of nine years only, during two of which he was besieged in his capital by the Assyrians. The writer notes that he was a bad king, but not so bad as most of his predecessors (ver. 2); that he submitted to Shalmaneser, and then rebelled against him (vers. 3, 4); that he called in the aid of So, King of Egypt (ver. 4); that he was besieged by Shalmaneser in Samaria (ver. 5); and that after three years, or in the third year of the siege, he was taken, and with his people carried off into captivity (ver. 6).
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In the twelfth year of Ahaz King of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria. in 2Ki_15:30 Hoshea was said to have smitten Pekah and slain him, and become king in his stead, "in the twentieth year of Jotham ." This has been supposed to mean "in the twentieth year from the accession of Jotham," or, in other words, in the fourth year of Ahaz, since Jotham reigned only sixteen years. (2Ki_15:33) But now the beginning of his reign is placed eight years later. An interregnum of this duration has been placed by some between Pekah and Doshea; but this is contradicted by 2Ki_15:30, and also by an inscription of Tiglath-pileser ("Eponym Canon," pp. 123, 124, lines 17, 18). If Ahaz reigned sixteen years, the present statement would seem to be correct, and the former one wrong. Hoshea"s accession may be confidently dated as in B.C. 730. Nine years. (comp. 2Ki_18:10) It is certain that Hoshea"s reign came to an end in the first year of Sargon, B.C. 722, from which to B.C. 730 would be eight complete, or nine incomplete, years.
Vers. 1-4. The unwisdom of worldly craft and policy.
Hoshea came to the throne at a time of great danger and difficulty. The Assyrian system of gradual expansion and annexation was settled and almost declared. The petty states upon her borders were first invaded and ravaged; then they were taken under her protection; finally they were absorbed. The process had been going on from the days of Tiglath-pileser I (about B.C. 1130), and was still in operation. Damascus was a recentexample of it. Under these circumstances, Hoshea could not but feel his throne precarious, and the independence of his country more than threatened. How would he act most wisely for his own security and that of his country? There were three courses open to him.
I HE MIGHT LOOK SOLELY TO THE ASSYRIAN KING. Absolute submission, fidelity, watchful regard for the suzerain"s interests, punctual payment of the fixed tribute, liberal donations to the court officials and the monarch beyond the sum appointed, generally secured to the protected state the continuance of its suzerain"s favor, and a prolongation of its protected existence. Hoshea might have adopted this policy. He might have bent all his efforts to the propitiation of the Assyrian monarch, and the obtaining of his favorable regard. In this way he would probably have secured to himself a long and quiet reign; and his country would have been spared for many a year the horrors of war, and his people the misery of being carried into captivity.
II HE MIGHT LOOK FOR A HUMAN PROTECTOR AGAINST ASSYRIA. Human helps, negotiations, treaties, alliances, are the natural and ordinary resort of weak states when menaced by a stronger. Cannot a counterpoise be raised up against the monster community which threatens the existence of all its neighbors? Cannot a "balance of power" be established? Hoshea was particularly tempted at the time by the rise to greatness of a new dynasty in Egypt, which seemed to have greater strength and greater resources than had been possessed by its predecessors. It was probably regarded by his advisers as a wonderfully clever stroke of policy when they suggested that alliance with Shebek, the new King of Egypt, might be the salvation of Samaria under the circumstances. So Aetolia called in the aid of Rome against Macedon; and so recently, with better results, Sardinia called in the aid of France against Austria. Hoshea caught at the suggestion. Though pledged to Assyria, though actually owing his throne to an Assyrian monarch ("Eponym Canon," pp. 123, 124), he accepted the advice, made alliance with Shebek, and broke with Shalmaneser, to his own destruction and that of his country.
III HE MIGHT DISCARD "ARMS OF FLESH," AND LOOK WHOLLY TO JEHOVAH. The prophets were calling Israel to repentance. They were denouncing the calf-worship and the other idolatries. They were condemning reliance on either Egypt or Assyria. (Hos_7:11 Hos_12:1) They were threatening the destruction of the kingdom unless Israel truly repented and turned to the Lord. They were pointing to a possible restoration to God"s favor if these conditions were fulfilled, (Hos_2:14-23 Hos_7:1-3 Hos_14:1-9; Amo_5:4-9, and 14, 15) and urging compliance before it was too late. They taught that God could save by his own power, and "not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen". (Hos_1:7) True wisdom would have taught Hoshea and his advisers to look for salvation to this quarter; but they were so infatuated with their trust in the strength of Egypt that they seem not even to have given the alternative course a thought. The result showed that their (supposed) worldly wisdom was the extremest unwisdom, their perfection of policy the worst policy that could possibly have been adopted.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN. Vers. 1-5. The reign of Hoshea.
I A FOOLISH SERVICE. The life of every man is a service of some sort. We cannot, even if we would, be absolutely our own masters. Some men are the servants of self. Some are the servants of others. Some are the servants of good. Some are the servants of evil. Some are the servants of money, or of pleasure, or of their passions. What higher epitaph could be written over any man"s tomb than the simple words, "A servant of God"? What higher choice could any man make than this, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"? But that was not the choice which Hoshea made. He thought the service of God was slavery. He chose the service of the King of Assyria. What fools men are sometimes! How blind to their own best interests! The prodigal son in his father"s house had every comfort, consideration, and care. But he thought there was too much restriction. He would like to have more of his own way. And so he went away from his father"s house. But he was glad enough to return. He did not find the service of the world and of sin quite so pleasant as he expected. So many discover, when it is too late, "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
II A FAITHLESS SERVANT. Hoshea was unfaithful to God. And the man who is unfaithful to the claims of God the highest of all claims is generally unfaithful to his fellow-men. So it was in this case. "The King of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea." Hoshea had entered into engagements which he did not fulfill. The best security for right dealing between man and man is obedience to the Law of God. The history of nations and individuals teaches us that. The nation where God is honored, where the Word of God is read, is generally superior to others in the industry, contentment, and prosperity of its inhabitants. The man who fears God is the man who can be depended on. "He backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. C.H.I.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Vers. 1-8. Aspects of a corrupt nation.
the twelfth year of Ahaz King of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years," etc. Hoshea, the king here mentioned, was the nineteenth and last King of Israel. He lived about seven hundred and twenty years or more before Christ. After a reign of nine years his subjects were carried away captive to Assyria, and the kingdom of Israel came to an end. The selection we have made from this chapter presents to us Aspects of a corrupt nation. A nation appears here as an unfortunate inheritor of wrong; as a guilty worker of wrong; and as a terrible victim of wrong.
I AS AN UNFORTUNATE INHERITOR OF WRONG. Upon Hoshea and his age there came clown the corrupting influence of no less than eighteen princes, all of whom were steeped in wickedness and fanatical idolatry. The whole nation had become completely immoral and idolatrous. This king the last of the Israelitish it is said, "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him." If one shade better than his predecessors, he was, notwithstanding, a man whose character seems unredeemed by one single virtue. It is one of not only the commonest, but the most perplexing, facts in history that one generation comes to inherit, to a great extent, the character of its predecessor. The thoughts, the principles, and the spirit that animated the men of the past, come down and take possession of the minds of the men of the present. Though the bodies of our predecessors are moldering in the dust, they are still here in their thoughts and influences. This is an undoubted fact. It serves to explain three things.
1. The vital connection between all the members of the race. Though men are countless in number, and ever multiplying, humanity is one. All are branches of the same root, members of the same body, links in one chain. None can be affected without affecting others; the motion of one link propagates an influence to the end of the chain. None of us liveth unto himself. Solemn thought! Our very breathings may produce ripples upon the mighty lake of existence, which will spread in ever-widening circles to the very shores of eternity. There are mystic springs connecting us with the universe. Can we move without touching them? Can we give a touch that will not send its vibrations along the arches of the boundless future? The effects of a man"s influence, either for good or evil, will be determined by his moral character. A bad man is a moral curse; the influence that streams from him will be moral poison. A good man, under God, is a blessing; his influence, like the living waters, will irrigate and beautify the mental districts through which it flows.
2. The immense difficulty of improving the moral condition of the race. There have been men in every age and land who have "striven even unto blood" to improve the race. Poets have depicted the charms of virtue, moralists have reasoned against wrong, martyrs have died for the right; and during the last eighteen centuries, throughout Christendom, the best men throughout all communions have struggled hard to bring the world"s mind under the supreme reign of the true, the beautiful, and the good. But how miserable has been the result! Evil is everywhere the dominant force dominant not merely in markets and governments, but even in Churches.
3. Those of us who have lived longest in the world, looked deepest into its moral heart, and labored most zealously and persistently for its improvement, feel, like Sisyphus in ancient fable, struggling to roll a large stone to the top of a mountains which, as soon as we think some progress has been made, rolls back to its old position, and that with greater impetuosity. Scripture everywhere recognizes this difficulty, and speaks of the work as a "race," a "battle," a "crucifixion." I question whether the world is morally much better than it has ever been.
4. The absolute need of superhuman agency spiritually to redeem the race. Philosophy shows that a bad world cannot improve itself, cannot make itself good. Bad men can neither help themselves morally nor help others. If the world is to be improved, thoughts and influences from superhuman regions must be transfused into its heart. Moral goodness must come in a new form, and ply new agencies. Herein is the gospel: "When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
II AS A GUILTY WORKER OF WRONG. Hoshea and his people were not only the inheritors of the corruptions of past generations, but they themselves became agents in propagating and perpetuating the wickedness. See what is said of Hoshea here. "The King of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea." This is only one specimen or development of this man"s wickedness. See what is said of his people. "The children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh King of Egypt, and had feared other gods." So that while they were the inheritors of a corrupt past, they were at the same time guilty agents in a wicked present. Strong as is the influence of the past upon us, it is not strong enough to coerce us into wrong. Gracious Heaven has endowed every man with the power of thought and resolve sufficient, if he uses it, to rise above the influence of the past, and to mount into a new moral orbit of life. He has the power to stand on the firm rock of his own individuality, and to say to the swelling sea of depravity, as its waves are approaching him, "So far shall thou come, and no further." Because the father has been bad, there is no just reason why the child should be bad also. Because all the generations that have gone have been bad, there is no reason why this generation should be wicked. We are not like logs of wood on the surging seas of past wickedness, but rather like those snowy birds that can at pleasure mount from the billows, and quit them for the wide fields of air.
III AS A TERRIBLE VICTIM OF WRONG. What was the judicial outcome of all this wickedness? Retribution stern, rigorous, and crushing. "Then the King of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years." "This was the third and final expedition of Shalmaneser against the whole of Syria, and it seems to have been after the lapse of a year or two from his second expedition. What new offence had excited his wrath has not been recorded; but as a determined resistance was made by his refractory vassal, Shalmaneser prepared for a regular siege of Samaria, which, through the stubborn valor of the Israelites themselves, or with the aid of Egyptian troops, lasted for nearly three years. At length the city capitulated; or, if Josephus is correct, was taken by storm. But the glory of this conquest was not enjoyed By Shalmaneser, who had been suddenly recalled by the outbreak of a domestic revolution occasioned, or at least encouraged, by his protracted absences from his capital. He was dethroned by the insurrection of an ambitious subject, and he seems to have died also before the fall of Samaria" (Dr. Jameson). Thus the whole of the inhabitants, one and all, were carried away by tyrannic force. "From inscriptions in the palace at Khorasbad," says a modern expositor, "which record the number of Israelitish captives, it appears that 27, 280 were transported into Assyria from Samaria and other parts of the kingdom of Israel. The removal of entire populations from vanquished countries to some other portion of the conqueror"s dominions had not been adopted, so far as reliable history testifies, as the policy of any ancient sovereigns in the East until it was introduced and acted upon by the later Assyrian kings. Soldiers when taken captive in battle, women and children belonging to the conquered enemy, it had, indeed, for ages been the custom to carry into the land of the victor. And even numerous tribes of foreigners, resident within the territory, and reduced to a state of bondage, like the Israelites in Egypt, had frequently, by the arbitrary will of ancient kings, been dragged to different quarters of their kingdom to labor on the public works." Here is the temporal retribution, at any rate, of two hundred years of idolatry and wickedness. During this period Israel had sinned away its liberty, its property, its country. The ten tribes sinned themselves into slavery, destitution, and everlasting obscurity. For where are they? Two thousand years have rolled away since this terrible catastrophe, and none can tell us who they are or where they are. "Be sure your sins will find you out." Retribution may move silently and slowly, but ever with a resistless step. It follows the sins of a nation as well as of an individual. It was the crimes of the Israelites that ruined the kingdom, and made them the victims of this terrible catastrophe. So it ever is; the great dynasties and kingdoms of the past have met with the same fate by the same inexorable law of retribution. There are sins in our England that are working towards its ruin. The sins of a nation work, like the subterranean fires, underground. The nation may have arts lovely as the landscape, institutions apparently grand and firm as the old mountains. But whilst the people revel in their exuberance of resources, their natural beauties, and in the grandeur of their institutions, and that for ages, sin, like an ocean of fire underground, will one day break out in flames, that will destroy the whole, as in the case of the ten tribes. D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-6. The end of the kingdom of Israel
We learn from the inscriptions that Hoshea, the murderer of Pekah, only secured his throne by acknowledging the supremacy of the King of Assyria. It was not long, however, before he conspired to achieve his independence. This led to the final overthrow of the kingdom.
I A LAST FLICKER.
1. Hosheas better character. It is said of this last King of Israel that he did evil in the sight of the Lord, "but not as the kings of Israel that were before him." The testimony rather points to the great wickedness of the earlier kings than implies any exceptional virtue in Hoshea, who came to the throne by blood, and showed no more reliance on God than the others. His character, however, must have had some redeeming qualities. Possibly he tried to check some of the excesses of wickedness in the land, and to discountenance at least foreign idolatries. The unfavorable judgment we are sometimes compelled to pass on men"s characters as a whole need not blind us to what is praiseworthy in them.
2. A hopeless task. It is both curious and pathetic to see this last flicker of a better disposition in the kings of Israel just before the end. But even had Hoshea been a better ruler than he was, it was probably now too late to do the nation any good. Every attempt to bring the people back to God had proved in vain, and corruption had reached a height which made a crisis inevitable. The carcass was there, and the vultures were preparing to descend upon it. We have a modern example in the state of the French nation prior to the great Revolution. A nation, like an individual, has its day of grace, and if that is sinned away there remains only "a fearful looking for of judgment". (Heb_10:27)
II BROKEN ENGAGEMENTS.
1. A policy of double-dealing. Hoshea"s desire from the first was to free his land from the yoke of Assyria. Some attempt of this kind, probably at the death of Tiglath-pileser, brought down upon him the new king, Shalmaneser, who compelled his submission, and exacted tribute. But Hoshea was not faithful to his engagements. While still pretending loyalty to Shalmaneser, he was carrying on a system of intrigue with So, King of Egypt (Sabaco). They "made a covenant with the Assyrians," and at the same time "oil was carried into Egypt". (Hos_12:1) It was not God Hoshea trusted in, but an alliance with Egypt. He relied on treachery, on double-dealing, on clever intrigue, to get him out of his difficulties. This kind of policy never permanently succeeds.
2. Open revolt. When Hoshea thought himself strong enough, he threw off his allegiance to Shalmaneser. He brought him no present, as he had done year by year. He was playing a desperate game, but he seems to have thought himself secure. A people is justified in rebellion against foreign authority when it is strong enough to make success probable; but God"s blessing could hardly be looked for on an attempt which was cradled in duplicity, and in which God himself was totally ignored.
3. A bruised reed. As might have been anticipated, so failed Hoshea in his hour of need. His "oil" and other presents had been sent in vain. The King of Assyria came against him; but there was no movement on the part of Egypt for his help. He had trusted in the staff of a bruised reed. (2Ki_18:21) How manifold are the disappointments of those who rely on "the help of man", (Psa_60:11) and put their "trust in princes"! (Psa_146:3) Hoshea himself was captured, and shut up in prison. His ultimate fate we do not know.
III FINAL RUIN.
1. The siege of Samaria. The King of Assyria now marched against Samaria, which bravely held out for three years. Had details been given us, it would no doubt have been found that this was one of the great sieges of history great in its horrors, as well as in its after-results. We may picture the extremities of the famine of 2Ki 6. repeated with additional horrors of anarchy and bloodshed; or, with perhaps more truth, we may draw our ideas of this siege from the descriptions of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. (cf. 2Ki 24 2Ki 25) That was the concluding act in the history of the southern kingdom, as this was the concluding act in the history of the northern. Both were long-delayed, and in the end terrible judgments of God. The cup of iniquity was full, and another cup the cup of God"s wrath was now put into the nation"s hand (cf. Psa_75:8) The city at length fell, and the final blow descended.
2. The captivity of the tribes. We read on the monuments that, after the fall of Samaria, the King of Egypt, alarmed probably for his own safety, approached, and was defeated by Sargon, Shalmaneser"s successor. In any case, help was now unavailing for the unhappy Israelites. The children of Israel were removed from their cities, and carried away captive into Assyria, being scattered up and down in the places named. 27, 280, according to Sargon, were taken from Samaria alone. What sorrow was here! Torn from their land, exiles from house and home, forced to eat unclean things in Assyria, (Hos_9:3, Hos_9:4) their national existence extinguished, ruled by the heathen, all because, when they knew God, they would not glorify him as God, but gave his glory to dumb idols, and defiled his land with their abominations, and misused the gifts he had so richly bestowed on them. (cf. Ho 2) J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain In the twelfth year of Ahaz King of Judah…
2Ki_17:1-8
In the twelfth year of Ahaz King of Judah began Hoshea.
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Aspects of a corrupt nation
Hoshea, the king here mentioned, was the nineteenth and last king of Israel. He lived about 720 years or more b.c. After a reign of nine years his subjects were carded away captive to Assyria, and the kingdom of Israel came to an end.
I. As an unfortunate inheritor of wrong.
Upon Hoshea and his age there came down the corrupting influence of no less than nineteen princes, all of whom were steeped in wickedness and fanatical idolatry. The whole nation had become completely immoral and idolatrous. It is one of not only the commonest but the most perplexing facts in history that one generation comes to inherit, to a great extent, the character of its predecessor. Though the bodies of our predecessors are mouldering in the dust they are still here in their thought and influences. This is an undoubted fact. It serves to explain three things--
1. The vital connection between all the members of the race. Though men are countless in number, and ever multiplying, humanity is one.
2. The immense difficulty in improving the moral condition of the race. There have been men in every age and land who have striven even unto blood to improve the race. Those of us who have lived longest in the world, looked deepest into its moral heart, and laboured most zealously and persistently for its improvement, feel like Sisyphus, in ancient fable, struggling to roll a large stone to the top of a mountain, which, as soon as we think some progress has been made, rolls back to its old position, and that with greater impetuosity.
3. The absolute need of superhuman agency spiritually to redeem the race. Philosophy shows that a bad world cannot improve itself, cannot make itself good. Bad men can neither hell? themselves, merely, or help others. If the world is to be improved, thoughts and influences from superhuman regions must be injected into its heart.
II. As a guilty worker of wrong.--Hoshea and his people were not only the inheritors of the corruptions of past generations, but they themselves became agents in propagating and perpetuating the wickedness. So that while they were the inheritors of a corrupt past, they were at the same time guilty agents in a wicked present. Strong as is the influence of the past upon us, it is not strong enough to coerce us into wrong.
III. As a terrible victim of wrong. What was the judicial outcome of all this wickedness? Retribution came, stern, rigorous, and crushing. (David Thomas, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain
HOSHEA, AND THE FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM
B.C. 734-725
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2Ki_17:1-41
"As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon: the water."
Hos_10:7
As a matter of convenience, we follow our English Bible in calling the prophet by the name Hosea, and the nineteenth, last, and best king of Israel Hoshea. The names, however, are identical, and mean "Salvation"- the name borne by Joshua also in his earlier days. In the irony of history the name of the last king of Ephraim was thus identical with that of her earliest and greatest hero, just as the last of Roman emperors bore the double name of the Founder of Rome and the Founder of the Empire-Romulus Augustulus. By a yet deeper irony of events the king in whose reign came the final precipitation of ruin wore the name which signified deliverance from it.
And more and more, as time went on, the prophet Hosea felt that he had no word of present hope or comfort for the king his namesake. It was the more brilliant lot of Isaiah, in the Southern Kingdom, to kindle the ardor of a generous courage. Like Tyrtaeus, who roused the Spartans to feel their own greatness-like Demosthenes, who hurled the might of Athens against Philip of Macedon-like Chatham, "bidding England be of good cheer, and hurl defiance at her foes"-like Pitt, pouring forth, in the days of the Napoleonic terror, "the indomitable language of courage and of hope,"-Isaiah was missioned to encourage Judah to despise first the mighty Syrian, and then the mightier Assyrian. Far different was the lot of Hosea, who could only be the denouncer of an inevitable doom. His sad function was like that of Phocion after Chaeroneia, of Hannibal after Zama, of Thiers after Sedan: he had to utter the Cassandra-voices of prophecy, which his besotted and demented contemporaries-among whom the priests were the worst of all-despised and flouted until the time for repentance had gone by forever.
True it is that Hosea could not be content-what true heart could?-to breathe nothing but the language of reprobation and despair. Israel had been "yoked to his two transgressions," but Jehovah could not give up His love for His chosen people:
"How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I surrender thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I treat thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within Me; I am wholly filled with compassion! I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim: For I am God, and not man. The Holy One in the midst of thee! I will not come to exterminate!"
"They shall come after Jehovah as after a lion that roars! For he shall roar, and his sons shall come hurrying from the west, They shall come hurrying as a bird out of Egypt, And as a dove out of the land of Assyria; And I will cause them to dwell in their houses, Saith Jehovah." {Hos_11:8-11}
Alas! the gleam of alleviation was imaginary rather than actual. The prophets wish was father to his thought. He had prophesied that Israel should be scattered in all lands. {Hos_9:3; Hos_9:12; Hos_9:17; Hos_13:3-16} This was true; and it did not prove true, except in some higher ideal sense, that "Israel shall again dwell in his own land" {Hos_14:4-7} in prosperity and joy.
The date of Hosheas accession is uncertain, and we cannot tell in what sense we are to understand his reign as having lasted "nine years." We have no grounds for accepting the statement of Josephus ("Antt.," IX 13:1), that Hoshea had been a friend of Pekah and plotted against him. Tiglath-Pileser expressly says that he himself slew Pekah and appointed Hoshea. His must have been, at the best, a pitiful and humiliating reign. He owed his purely vassal sovereignty to Assyrian patronage. He probably did as well for Israel as was in his power. Singular to relate, he is the only one of all the kings of Israel of whom the historian has a word of commendation: for while we are told that "he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," it is added that it was "not as the kings of Israel that were before him." But we do not know wherein either his evil-doing or his superiority consisted. The Rabbis guess that he did not replace the golden calf at Dan which Tiglath-Pileser had taken away; {Hos_10:6} or that he did not prevent his subjects from going to Hezekiahs passover. "It seems like a harsh jest," says Ewald, "that this Hoshea, who was better than all his predecessors, was to be the last king" But so it has often been in history. The vengeance of the French Revolution smote the innocent and harmless Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette-not Louis XIV, or Louis XV and Madame du Pompadour.
His patron Tiglath-Pileser ended his magnificent reign of conquest in 727, soon after he had seated Hoshea on the throne. The removal of his strong grasp on the helm caused immediate revolt. Phoenicia especially asserted her independence against Shalmaneser IV He seems to have spent five years in an unavailing attempt to capture Island-Tyre. Meanwhile, the internal troubles which had harassed and weakened Egypt ceased, and a strong Ethiopian king named Sabaco established his rule over the whole country. It was perhaps the hope that Phoenicia might hold out against the Assyrian, and that the Egyptian might protect Samaria, which kindled in the mind of Hoshea the delusive plan of freeing himself and his impoverished land from the grinding tribute imposed by Nineveh. While Shalmaneser was trying to quell Tyre, Hoshea, having received promises of assistance from Sabaco, withheld the "presents"-the minchah, as the tribute is euphemistically called-which he had hitherto paid. Seeing the danger of a powerful coalition, Shalmaneser swept down on Samaria in 724. Possibly he defeated the army of Israel in the plain of Jezreel, {Hos_1:5} and got hold of the person of Hoshea. Josephus says that he "besieged him"; but the sacred historian only tells us that "he shut him up, and bound him in prison." Whether Hoshea was taken in battle, or betrayed by the Assyrian party in Samaria, or whether he went in person to see if he could pacify the ruthless conqueror, he henceforth disappears from history "like foam"-or like a chip or a bubble-"upon the water." We do not know whether he was put to death, but we infer from an allusion in Micah that he was subjected to the cruel indignities in which the Assyrians delighted; for the prophet says, "They shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek." {Mic_5:1} Perhaps in the title "Judge" (Shophet, suffes) we may see a sign that Hosheas royalty was little more than the shadow of a name.
Having thus got rid of the king, Shalmaneser proceeded to invest the capital. But Samaria was strongly fortified upon its hill, and the Jewish race has again and again shown-as it showed so conspicuously in the final crisis of its destiny, when Jerusalem defied the terrible armies of Rome-that with walls to protect them they could pluck up a terrible courage and endurance from despair. Strong as Assyria was, the capital of Ephraim for three years resisted her beleaguering host and her crashing battering-rams. About all the anguish which prevailed within the city, and the wild vicissitudes of orgy and starvation, history is silent. But prophecy tells us that the sorrows of a travailling woman came upon the now kingless city. They drank to the dregs the cup of fury. {Hos_13:13} The saddest Northern prophet, "the Jeremiah of Israel," sings the dirge of Israels saddest king.
"I am become to them as a lion; As a leopard will I watch by the way; I will meet them as a bear bereaved of her whelps, And rend the caul of their heart, And there will I devour them like a lioness: The beast of the field shall tear them Where now is thy king, that he may save thee in all thy cities? And thy judges, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and prince? I give thee a king in Mine anger And take him away in My wrath."
For three years Samaria held out. During the siege Shalmaneser died, and was succeeded by Sargon, who-though he vaguely talks of the kings his ancestors, and says that he had been preceded by three hundred and thirty Assyrian dynasts-never names his father, and seems to have been a usurping general.
Sabaco remained inactive, and basely deserted the miserable people which had relied on his protection. In this conduct Egypt was true to its historic character of untrustworthiness and inertness. Both in Israel and in Judah there were two political parties. One relied on the strength of Egypt; the other counseled submission to Assyria, or-in the hour when it became necessary to defy Assyria-confidence in God. Egypt was as frail a support as one of her own paper-reeds, which bent under the weight, and broke and ran into the hand of every one who leaned on it.
Sargon did not raze the city, and we see from the "Eponym Canon" that its inhabitants were still strong enough some years later to take part in a futile revolt. But we have one dreadful glimpse of the horrors which he inflicted upon it. They were the inevitable punishment of every conquered city which had dared to resist the Assyrian arm.
"Samaria shall bear her guilt, For she hath rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword: Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, And their women in child shall be ripped up." {Hos_13:16}
Sargons own record of the matter on the tablets at Khorsabad is: "I besieged, took, and occupied the city of Samaria, and carried into captivity twenty-seven thousand two hundred and eighty of its inhabitants. I changed the former government of this country, and placed over it lieutenants of my own. And Sebeh, Sultan of Egypt, came to Raphia to fight against me. They met me, and I routed them. Sebeh fled." The Assyrians were occupied in the unsuccessful siege of Tyre between 720-715, during which years Sargon put down Yahubid of Hamath, whose revolt had been aided by Damascus and Samaria. In 710 he marched against Ashdod. {Isa_20:1} In 709 he defeated Merodach-Baladan at Dur-Yakin, and reconquered Chaldaea, deporting some of the population into Samaria. In 704, in the fifteenth year of his reign, he was assassinated, after a career of victory. He inscribes on his palace at Khorsabad a prayer to his god Assur, that, after his toils and conquests, "I may be preserved for the long years of a long life, for the happiness of my body, for the satisfaction of my heart. May I accumulate in this palace immense treasures, the booties of all countries, the products of mountains and valleys." Assur and the gods of Chaldaea were invoked in vain; the prayer was scattered to the winds, and the murderers dagger was the comment on Sargons happy anticipations of peace and splendor.
Israel fell unpitied by her southern neighbor, for Judah was still smarting under memories of the old contempt and injury of Joash ben-Jehoahaz, and the more recent wrongs inflicted by Pekah and Rezin. Isaiah exults over the fate of Samaria, while he points the moral of her fall to the drunken priests and prophets of Jerusalem. "Woe," he says, "to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley of them that are smitten down with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one [i.e., the Assyrian]; as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a tempest of mighty water overflowing, shall he cast down to the earth with violence. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden underfoot: and the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as the first ripe fig before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up." (Isa_28:1-4) Israel had begun in hostility to Judah, and perished by it at last.
Such, then, was the end of the once brilliant kingdom of Israel-the kingdom which, even so late as the reign of Jeroboam II, seemed to have a great future before it. No one could have foreseen beforehand that, when, with the prophetic encouragement of Ahijah, Jeroboam I established his sovereignty over the greater, richer, and more flourishing part of the land assigned to the sons of Jacob, the new kingdom should fall into utter ruin and destruction after only two and a half centuries of existence, and its tribes melt away amid the surrounding nations, and sink into a mixed and semi-heathen race without any further nationality or distinctive history. It seemed far less probable that the mere fragment of the Southern Kingdom, after retaining its separate existence for more than one hundred and sixty years longer than its more powerful brother, should continue to endure as a nation till the end of time. Such was the design of God's providence, and we know no more. The Northern Kingdom had, up to this time, produced the greatest and most numerous prophets-Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Nahum, and many more. It had also produced the loveliest and most enduring poetry in the Song of Songs, the Song of Deborah, and other contributions to the Books of Jashar, and of the Wars of Jehovah. It had also brought into vigor the earliest and best historic literature, the narratives of the Elohist and the Jehovist. These immortal legacies of the religious spirit of the Northern Kingdom were incomparably superior in moral and enduring value to the Levitic jejuneness of the Priestly Code, with its hierarchic interests and ineffectual rules, which, in the exaggerated supremacy attached to rites, proved to be the final blight of an unspiritual Judaism. Israel had also been superior in prowess and in deeds of war, and in the days of Joash ben-Jehoahaz ben-Jehu had barely conceded to Judah a right to separate existence. More than all this, the apostasies of Judah, from the days of Solomon downwards, were quite as heinous as Jezebels Baal worship, and far more deadly than the irregular but not at first idolatrous cultus of Bethel. The prophets are careful to teach Judah that if she was spared it was not because of any good deservings. Yet now the cedar was scathed and smitten down, and its boughs were rent and scattered; and the thistle had escaped the wild beasts tread!
In the former volume we glanced at some of the causes of this, and the blessings which resulted from it. The central and chiefest blessing was, first, the preservation of a purer form of monotheism, and a loftier ideal of religion-though only realized by a few in Judah-than had ever prevailed in the Northern Tribes; secondly, and above all, the development of that inspiring Messianic prophecy which was to be fulfilled seven centuries later, when He who was Davids Son and Davids Lord came to our lost race from the bosom of the Father, and brought life and immortality to light.
And it was the work purely of "Gods unseen providence, by men nicknamed Chance," which, dealing with nations as the potter with his clay, chooses some to honor and some to dishonor. For, as all the prophets are anxious to remind the Judaean Kingdom, their success, the procrastination of their downfall, their restoration from captivity, were not due to any merits of their own. The Jews were and ever had been a stiff-necked nation; and though some of their kings had been faithful servants of Jehovah, yet many of them-like Rehoboam, and Ahaz, and Manasseh-exceeded in wickedness and inexcusable apostasy the least faithful of the Worshippers at Gilgal and Bethel. They were plainly reminded of their nothingness: "And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation." {Deu_26:5}
"Fear not, thou worm Jacob: I will help thee." {Isa_41:14} But this was the end of the Ten Tribes. Nor must we say that Hoseas prediction of mercy was laughed to scorn by the irony of events, when he had given it as Gods promise that-
"I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not again destroy Israel For I am God, and not man." {Hos_11:9}
The words mean that mercy is Gods chiefest and most essential attribute; and, after all, a nation is composed of families and individuals, and in political extinction there may have been many families and individuals in Israel, like that of Tobias, and like that of Anna, the prophetess of the tribe of Asher, who found, either in their far exile, or among the scattered Jews who still peopled the old territories, a peace which was impossible during the distracted anarchy and deepening corruption of the whole period which had elapsed since the founding of the house of Omri. In any case God knows and loves His own. The words,
"I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger; For I am God, and not man,"
might stand for an epitome of much that is most precious in Holy Writ. Gods orthodoxy is the truth; and the truth remaineth, though mans orthodoxy exercises all its fury and all its baseness to overwhelm it. What hope has any man, even a St. Paul-what hope had even the Lord Himself-before the harsh, self-interested tribunals of human judgment, or of that purely external religionism which has always shown itself more brutal and more blundering than secular cruelty? What chance has there been, humanly speaking, for Gods best saints, prophets, and reformers, when priests, popes, or inquisitors have been their judges? If God resembled those generations of unresisted ecclesiastics, whose chief resort has been the syllogism of violence, and whose main arguments have been the torture-chamber and the stake, what hope could there possibly be for the vast majority of mankind, but those endless torments by the terrors of which corrupt Churches have forced their tyranny upon the crushed liberties and the paralyzed conscience of mankind? The Indian sage was right who said that "God can only be truly described by the words No! No!"-that is, by repudiating multitudes of the ignoble and cruel basenesses which religious teachers have imagined or invented respecting Him. Because God is God, and not man-God, not a tyrant or an inquisitor-God, with the great compassionate heart of unfathomable tenderness, -therefore, in all who truly love Him, perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. Sin means ruin; yet God is love.
The historian of the Kings here digresses, in a manner unusual to the Old Testament, to give us a most interesting glimpse of the fate of the conquered people, and the origin of the race which was known to after-ages by the name "Samaritan."
Sargon, when he had sacked the capital, carried out the policy of deportation which had now been established by the Assyrian kings. He achieved the double purpose of populating the capital and province of Nineveh, while he reduced subject nations to inanition, by sweeping away all the chief of the inhabitants from conquered states, and settling them in his own more immediate dominions. There they would be reduced to impotence, and mingle with the races among whom their lot would henceforth be cast. He therefore "carried Israel away" into Assyria, and placed them in Halah, north of Thapsacus, on the Euphrates, and in Habor, the river of Gozan-i.e., on the river in Northern Assyria which still bears the name of Khabour, and flows into the Euphrates-and in the cities of the Medes. He replaced the old population by Dinaites, Tarpelites, Apharsathchites, Susanehites, Elamites, Dehavites, and Babylonians, after carrying away the great bulk of the better-class population.
After this the historian pauses to sum up and emphasize once more the main lesson of his narrative. It is that "righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin is the reproach of any people." God had called His son Israel out of Egypt, delivered His chosen from Pharaoh, given them a pleasant land; but "Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the heathen." They had failed therefore in fulfilling the very purpose for which they had been set apart. They had been intended "to uplift among the nations the banner of righteousness" and the banner of the One True God. Instead of this, they were seduced by the heathen ritual of
"Gay religions full of pomp and gold."
They decked out alien institutions, and alike in unfrequented and populous places-"from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city"-set up matstseboth (A.V, "pillars") and Asherim on every high hill. The green trees became obum bratrices scelerum, the secret bowers of-their iniquities. They burnt incense on the bamoth, and served idols, and wrought wickedness. Useless had been the voices of all the prophets and the seers. They went after vain things, and became vain. Beginning with the two "calves," they proceeded to lewd and orgiastic idolatries. Ahab and Jezebel seduced them into Tyrian Baal-worship. From the Assyrians they learnt and practiced the adoration of the host of heaven. From Moab and Ammon they borrowed the abominable rites of Moloch, and used divination and enchantments by means of belomancy {Eze_21:21-22} and necromancy, and sold themselves to do wickedness.
Nor was this all. These idolatries, with their guilty ritualism, were not confined to Israel, but also
"Infected Zions daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah."
And thus, when Jehovah afflicted the seed of Israel and cast them out of His sight, Judah also had to feel the stroke of retribution.
And it is idle to object that even if Israel had been faithful she must have inevitably perished before the superior might of Damascus, or Nineveh, or Babylon. How can we tell? It is not possible for us thus to write unwritten history, and there is absolutely nothing to show that the surmise is correct. In the days of David, of Uzziah, of Jeroboam II, Judah and Israel had shown what they could achieve. Had they been strong in faithfulness to Jehovah, and in the righteousness which that faith required, they would have shown an invincible strength amid the moral enervation of the surrounding people. They might have held their own by welding into one strong kingdom the whole of Palestine, including Philistia, Phoenicia, the Negeb, and the Trans-Jordanic region. They might have consolidated the sway which they at various times attained southwards, as far as the Red Sea port of Elath; northwards over Aram and Damascus, as far as the Hamath on the Orontes; eastwards to Thapsacus on the Euphrates; westward to the Isles of the Gentiles. There is nothing improbable, still less impossible, in the view that, if the Israelites had truly served Jehovah and obeyed His laws, they might then have permanently established the monarchy which was ideally regarded as their inheritance, and which for brief and fitful periods they partially maintained. And such a monarchy, held together by warrior statesmen, strong and righteous, and above all secure in the blessing of God, would have been a thoroughly adequate counterpoise, not only to dilatory and distracted Egypt, which had long ceased to be aggressive, but even to brutal Assyria, which prevailed in no small measure because of the isolation and mutual dissension of these southern principalities.
But, as it was, "Assyria and Egypt-the two world-powers in the dawn of history, the two chief sources of ancient civilization, the twin giant-empires which bounded the Israelite people on the right hand and on the left-were cruel neighbors, between whom the ill-fated nation was tossed to and fro in wanton sport like a shuttlecock. They were cruel friends before whom it must cringe in turns, praying sometimes for help, suing sometimes for very life-alternate scourges in the hand of the Divine wrath. Now it is the fly of Egypt, and now it is the bee of Assyria, whose ruthless swarms issue forth at the word of Jehovah, settling in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes, with deadly sting, fatal to man and beast, devastating the land far and wide. Holding the poor Israelite in their relentless embrace, they threatened ever and again to crush him by their grip. Like the fabled rocks which frowned over the narrow straits of the Bosporus, they would crash together and annihilate the helpless craft which the storms of destiny had placed at their mercy. Israel reeled under their successive blows. As was the beginning, so was the end. As the captivity of Egypt had been the cradle of the nation, so was the captivity of Assyria to be its tomb."
In any case the principle of the historian remains unshaken. Sin is weakness; idolatry is folly and rebellion; uncleanness is decrepitude. St. Paul was not thinking of this ancient Philosophy of History when he wrote his Epistle to the Romans; yet the intense and masterly sketch which he gives of that moral corruption which brought about the long, slow, agonizing dissolution of the beauty that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome, is one of its strongest justifications. His view only differs from the summary before us in the power of its eloquence and the profoundness of its psychologic insight. He says the same thing as the historian of the Kings, only in words of greater power and wider reach, when he writes: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness. Knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings," the very word used in the LXX in 2Ki_17:15, "and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (words which might describe the expediency policy of Jeroboam I, and its fatal consequences), "and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. For this cause God gave them up to passions of dishonor, and unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity,"-and so on through a long catalogue of iniquities which are identical with those which we find so burningly denounced on the pages of the prophets of Israel and Judah.
"Even a Machiavelli, cool and cynical and audacious as was his skepticism, could see and admit that faithfulness to religion is the secret of the happiness and prosperity of states. An irreligious society tends inevitably and always to be a dissolute society; and a dissolute society is the most tragic spectacle which history has ever to present-a nest of disease, of jealousy, of dissensions, of ruin, and despair, whose last hope is to be washed off the world and disappear. Such societies must die sooner or later of their own gangrene, of their own corruption, because the infection of evil, spreading into unbounded selfishness, ever intensifying and reproducing passions which defeat their own aim, can never end in anything but moral dissolution." We need not look further than the collapse of France after the battle of Sedan, and the cause to which that collapse was attributed, not only by Christians, but by her own most worldly and skeptical writers, to see that the same causes ever issue and will issue in the same ruinous effects.
In order to complete the history of the Northern Kingdom, the historian here anticipates the order of time by telling us what happened to the mongrel population whom Sargon transplanted into central Ephraim in place of the old inhabitants.
The king, we are told, brought them from Babylon-which was at this time under the rule of Assyria; from Cuthah-by which seems to be meant some part of Mesopotamia near Babylon; from Avva, or Ivah-probably the same as Aha-vah or Hit, on the Euphrates, northwest of Babylon; from Sepharvaim, or Sippara, also on the Euphrates; and from Hamath, on the Orontes, which had not long remained under Jeroboam. It must not be supposed that the whole population of Ephraim was deported; that was a physical impossibility. Although we are told in Assyrian annals that Sargon carried away with him so vast a number of captives, it is, of course, clear that the lowest and poorest part of the population was left. We can imagine the wild confusion which arose when they found themselves compelled to share the dismantled palaces and abandoned estates of the wealthy with the horde of new colonists, whose language, in all probability, they but imperfectly understood. There must have been many a tumult, many a scene of horror, such as took place in the long antagonism of Normans and Saxons in England, before the immigrants and the relics of the former populace settled down to amalgamation and mutual tolerance.
Sargon is said to have carried away with him the golden calf or calves of Bethel, as Tiglath-Pileser is said by the Rabbis to have carried away that of Dan. He also took away with him all the educated classes, and all the teachers of religion. No one was left to instruct the ignorant inhabitants; and, as Hosea had prophesied, there was neither a sacrifice, nor a pillar, nor an ephod, and not even teraphim to which they could resort {Hos_3:4} Naturally enough, the disunited dregs of an old and of a new population had no clear knowledge of religion. They "feared not Jehovah." The sparseness of inhabitants, with its consequent neglect of agriculture, caused the increase of wild beasts among them. There had always been lions and bears in "the swellings of Jordan," {See Jer_49:19; Jer_49:1 Pro_22:13, etc.} and in all the lonelier parts of the land; and to this day there are leopards in the woods of Carmel, and hyenas and jackals in many regions. Conscious of their miserable and godless condition, and afflicted by the lions, which they regarded as a sign of Jehovahs anger, the Ephraimites sent a message to the King of Assyria. They only claimed Jehovah as their local god, and complained that the new colonists had provoked the wrath of "the God of the land" by not: knowing His "manner" that is, the way in which He should be worshipped. The consequence was that they were in danger of being exterminated by lions. The kings of Assyria were devoted worshippers of Assur and Merodach, but they held the common belief of ancient polytheists that each country had its own potent divinities. Sargon, therefore, gave orders that one of the priests of his captivity should be sent back to Samaria, "to teach them the manner of the god of the land." The priest selected for the purpose returned, took up his residence at the old shrine of Bethel, and "taught them how they should fear Jehovah." His success was, however, extremely limited, except among the former followers of Jeroboams dishonored cult. The old religious shrines still continued, and the immigrants used them for the glorification of their former deities.
Samaria, therefore, witnessed the establishment of a singularly hybrid form of religionism. The Babylonians worshipped Succoth-Benoth, perhaps Zirbanit, wife of Merodach or Bel; the Cuthites worshipped Nergal, the Assyrian war-god, the lion-god; the Hittites, from Hamath, worshipped Ashima or Esmun, the god of air and thunder, under the form of a goat; the Avites preferred Nibhaz and Tartak, perhaps Saturn-unless these names be Jewish jeers, implying that one of these deities had the head of a dog, and the other of an ass. More dreadful, if less ridiculous, was the worship of the Sepharvires, who adored Adrammelech and Anammelech, the sun-god under male and female forms, to whom, as to Moloch, they burnt their children in the fire. As for ministers, "they made unto them priests from among themselves, who offered sacrifices for them in the shrines of the bamoth." Thus the whole mongrel population "feared the Lord, and served their own gods," as they continued to do in the days of the annalist whose record the historian quotes. He ends his interesting sketch with the words, that, in spite of the Divine teaching, "these nations" - so he calls them, and so completely does he refuse to them the dignity of being Israels children-feared the Lord, and served their graven images, their children likewise, and their childrens children, -"as did their fathers, so do they unto this day."
The "unto this day" refers, no doubt, to the document from which the historian of the Kings was quoting-perhaps about B.C. 560, in the third generation after the fall of Samaria. A very brief glance will suffice to indicate the future history of the Samaritans. We hear but little of them between the present reference and the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. By that time they had purged themselves of these grosser idolatries, and held themselves fit in all respects to cooperate with the returned exiles in the work of building the Temple. Such was not the opinion of the Jews. Ezra regarded them as "the adversaries of Judah and Israel." The exiles rejected their overtures. In B.C. 409 Manasseh, a grandson of the high priest expelled by Nehemiah for an unlawful marriage with a daughter of Sanballat, of the Samaritan city of Beth-horon, built the schismatic temple on Mount Gerizim. The relations of the Samaritans to the Jews became thenceforth deadly. In B.C. 175 they seconded the profane attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to paganize the Jews, and in B.C. 130 John Hyrcanus, the Maccabee, destroyed their temple. They were accused of waylaying Jews on their way to the Feasts, and of polluting the Temple with dead bones. They claimed Jewish descent, {Joh_4:12} but our Lord called them "aliens," {Luk_17:18} and Josephus describes them as "residents from other nations." They are now a rapidly dwindling community of fewer than a hundred souls-"the oldest and smallest sect in the world"-equally despised by Jews and Mohammedans. The Jews, as in the days of Christ, have no dealings with them. When Dr. Frank, on his philanthropic visit to the Jews of the East, went to see their celebrated Pentateuch, and mentioned the fact to a Jewish lady-"What!" she exclaimed: "have you been among the worshippers of the pigeon? Take a purifying bath!" Regarding Gerizim as the place which God had chosen, {Joh_4:20} they alone can keep up the old tradition of the sacrificial passover. For long centuries, since the fall of Jerusalem, it is only on Gerizim that the Paschal lambs and kids have been actually slain and eaten, as they are to this day, and will be, till, not long hence, the whole tribe disappears.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain 2Ki_17:2. Did evil … but not as the kings…
THE EXTINCTION OF THE ISRAELITISH KINGDOM
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
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2Ki_17:2. Did evil … but not as the kings of Israel—Scripture merely records the fact, does not explain wherein Hoshea sinned less. But even an abstention from wrong, which others wrought, is noticed by Jehovah, and kept in eternal memory.
2Ki_17:3. Came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria—Thirsting for conquest, he subdued the king of the ten tribes, and made him tributary. Shalmaneser’s reign followed Tiglath-pileser’s, who died B.C 727. From this Assyrian despot Hoshea after a few years, sought relief by alliance with So, king of Egypt (2Ki_17:4). This name—סוא—becomes by punctuation Seveh, and is recognized as Shebek of the 25th dynasty. This Ethiopian monarch, lord of Upper Egypt, in the year B.C. 725 invaded Lower Egypt, and proved so mighty a conqueror that the small kingdoms which had groaned beneath the despotism or Assyria turned to him for defence and security.
HOMILETICS OF 2Ki_17:1-6
THE UTTER DOWNFALL OF ISRAEL
I. Was effected notwithstanding the superior capacity and modified idolatry of the ruler.—Hoshea “did that which was evil, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him” (2Ki_17:2). He did not enforce the edicts of Baal with such determined fanaticism as some of his predecessors. He allowed more liberty in religious worship, and while not approaching the true worship of Jehovah, he did not descend to the abominations of the lowest heathenism. Some have thought that the last king of Israel was the worst; but the history does not favour that view. He was a man of considerable military and political capacity. It is true he reached the throne by violence and bloodshed (chap. 2Ki_15:30); but the people were weary of national abuses and of the imbecility of their kings, and welcomed the advent of any one who had the courage and vigour to rectify matters. Hoshea yearned for liberty, and his whole reign was spent in repeated efforts to cast off the foreign yoke, to excite a more enterprising national spirit, and to arrest the downward tendency of the kingdom. But no human power could now save Israel. The ablest generalship, the most consummate statesmanship, the cleverest combinations, were all in vain. It was a melancholy sight to see this man grappling with a falling kingdom, whose ruin he was powerless to prevent.
II. Was accomplished notwithstanding the most brave and desperate struggles for continued existence (2Ki_17:4-5).—Hoshea saw the mistake that Menahem and Pckah had made in calling in the assistance of Assyria, and what had been the sad results to the country. He made a bold stand for national freedom. He refused to pay tribute, and prepared to withstand the fury of the great Assyrian power. It is a tribute to the superior diplomacy of Hosea that he succeeded in persuading So, the warrior king of Egypt, that it was their mutual safety to oppose Assyria; and though So was but a fickle colleague, he must have rendered considerable assistance until he was obliged to retire within his own kingdom and defend himself from the common enemy. The fact that Samaria held out for three years against the Assyrian army, with all its formidable appliances for siege and assault, indicates the obstinacy and desperation of the defence. They were the last frantic efforts of despair.
“It is remarkable,” says Ewald, “how strong a resemblance the fall of Samaria bears to the first and second destructions of Jerusalem, in the heroic resistance of its inhabitants.”
III. Was associated with scenes of humiliation and suffering (2Ki_17:5-6). Israel was afflicted with all the terrible consequences of war—war carried on by an enemy who was determined to win. The horrors of the siege of Samaria may be inferred from Isa_28:1-4; Hos_10:14; Hos_13:16; Amo_6:9-14. Added to the chagrin of defeat, was the degradation of enforced captivity and estrangement—torn from the midst of loved and familiar scenes, and placed in a strange and distant country, subject to the sarcasms and, it may be, cruelty of its inhabitants. The people who had been delivered from Egyptian slavery by the strong arm of Jehovah are again relegated to bondage, because they had abandoned their Deliverer. The punishment for sin is ever attended with suffering and shame.
IV. Was inevitable, as the opportunity for reformation had passed unimproved.—Instruction had been despised, reproof unheeded, the best of prophets ignored, prosperity abused, and repeated overtures of mercy callously spurned. The time for compromise was passed, the opportunity of salvation was sinned away. Nothing remained but to allow the national infatuation to run its course and produce its inevitable results. The nation must reap what it had sown; it had sown the wind, and must reap the whirlwind. A certain king once caused a lamp to be lit in his palace, and a proclamation made throughout his dominion that every rebel who came and tendered his submission before the light burnt out should be forgiven, whatever the nature of his offence; but that those who refused to obey the summons within the required time should be put to death. The lamp of Israel’s opportunity had long been lit, and the conditions of submission made sufficiently public. When therefore the light became extinct, and Israel refused to return, the threatened punishment must inevitably follow. Shakespeare says truly of opportuity, “Who seeks, and will not take when once ’tis offered, shall never find it more.”
LESSONS:—
1. It is not in the power of any one man unaided to save a kingdom.
2. National sins involve national ruin.
3. Every nation, as every individual, has ample opportunities for reformation.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ki_17:1-6. A doleful picture of national desolation.
1. Fanatical persistence in the evil that works its ruin (2Ki_17:2).
2. Vainly seeking the protection of foreign powers (2Ki_17:3-4).
3. The country overrun and impoverished by hosts of invading foes (2Ki_17:5).
4. Struggling bravely, but uselessly, against superior numbers (2Ki_17:5-6).
5. Draughted unresistingly into strange and distant lands (2Ki_17:16).
6. An imprisoned king and scattered people.
—The last king of Israel. I. He did that which was evil, but not as the kings of Israel before him. Though he did not go so far in wickedness as the eighteen kings who preceded him, nevertheless, he did not walk in the way of salvation. Half-way conversion is no conversion. In order to bring back the nation from its wicked ways, he should have been himself devoted to the Lord with all his heart. When people are not fully in earnest in their conversion, then there is no cessation of corruption, whether it be the case of an individual or a state. II. He makes a covenant with the king of Egypt (2Ki_17:4). By this he showed that his heart was not perfect with God. Egypt, the very power out of whose hand God had wonderfully rescued his people, was to help him against Assyria. But “cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm” (Jer_17:5; Hos_7:11-13). III. He loses his land and his people, and is cast into prison. By conspiracy and murder he had attained to the throne and to the highest pitch of human greatness, but his end was disgrace, misery, and lifelong imprisonment. Upon him who will not be humbled by small evils God sends great and heavy ones.—Lange.
2Ki_17:2. Wickedness—
1. May be modified in its enormity.
2. Every modification observed and impartially recorded.
3. Modification does not alter its nature, or escape its punishment.
—It looks like the bitter irony of fate that this Hosea, who was to be the last king, was a better one than any of his predecessors. The words of the prophets who had uttered so many and such important truths concerning this kingdom during the last fifty years, many have exercised a powerful influence over him and instilled into him better principles. But they had always predicted its fall as certain; and now the irresistible force of history was to prove that no single man, whatever might be his position and superiority, could be strong enough to delay the ruin of the whole structure, if the right moment for its reformation had passed.—Ewald.
2Ki_17:3. Payment of tribute.
1. A humiliating evidence of subjection (2Ki_17:3).
2. Chafes the spirit of a liberty-loving people (2Ki_17:4).
3. Brings disaster if ineffectually resisted (2Ki_17:4).
2Ki_17:5. As the end drew near, they gave themselves up to the frantio revellings of despair. At last the city was stormed. With the ferocity common to all the warfare of those times, the infants were hurled down the rocky sides of the hill on which the city stood, or destroyed in their mothers’ bosoms. Famine and pestilence completed the work of war. The stones of the ruined city were poured down into the rich valley below, and the foundations were laid bare. Palace and hovel alike fell; the statues were broken to pieces; the crown of pride, the glory of Ephraim, was trodden under foot.—Stanley.
2Ki_17:6. The fall of Samaria and Damascus was, according to the prediction of the prophet, synchronous (Isa_7:7-9); and the devastation both of Syria and Israel was foretold at a time and in circumstances when no human sagacity could have anticipated it (Amos 1).—Jamieson.
—O terrible examples of vengeance upon that peculiar people whom God had chosen for Himself out of all the world! All the world were witnesses of the favours, of the miraculous deliverances and protections; all the world shall be witnesses of their just confusion. It is not in the power of slight errors to set off that infinite mercy. What was it, O God, what was it that caused Thee to cast off Thine inheritance? What but the same that made Thee cast the angels out of heaven—even their rebellious sins. Those sins dared to emulate the greatness of Thy mercies, no less than they forced the severity of Thy judgments.—Bp. Hall.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The Fall of Samaria
The Fall of Samaria
This chapter relates the reign of Hoshea. He intrigued with Egypt and rebelled against Assyria; and Samaria, in consequence, was taken and its people carried into captivity, their place being filled by a mixed population.
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1. Hoshea] Hoshea, unlike Pekah (2Ki_16:5), belonged to the faction in Samaria which relied on Assyrian support, and Tiglath-pileser, in his inscriptions, states that after he had slain Pekah, he 'appointed' Hoshea to rule over Israel, and received as tribute 10 talents of gold and 1,000 talents of silver.
3. Shalmaneser] succeeded Tiglath-pileser, his reign lasting from 727 to 723 b.c.
Gave him presents] i.e. rendered him tribute.
4. So] This king, whose name should perhaps be written Seve, is generally identified with Sabako, the first king of the 25th dynasty, though some authorities regard him as a petty prince who was vassal of the Pharaoh. The interference of Assyria with the Israelite kingdoms raised the fears of Egypt, which accordingly encouraged any disaffection which the Israelite sovereigns manifested towards their Assyrian over-lords. But the hopes which Hoshea entertained of Egyptian support proved as delusive to him as they did subsequently to Hezekiah and Zedekiah: cp. Isa_30:3; Isa_31:1; Jer_37:7. Shut him up, and bound him] Possibly Hoshea was either captured, or surrendered before his capital was taken.
6. The king of Assyria] Not Shalmaneser (2Ki_17:3), who died before Samaria was captured, but his successor, Sargon (723-705). The fall of Samaria took place in 722 b.c. Carried Israel away] The numbers deported, as given in Sargon's own inscription, amounted to 27,280 so that a considerable population must have been left behind: cp. 2Ch_34:9.. Of the localities where the captives were settled, Halah is not known. In Habor by the river of Gozan] should be 'on Habor' (the Chaboras, mod. Khabour), 'the river of Gozan' (part of Mesopotamia). The cities (LXX 'mountains') of the Medes] S. of the Caspian Sea.
8. The kings of Israel] especially Jeroboam, who introduced the calf-worship, and Ahab, who introduced Baal worship.
9. The tower of the watchmen] i.e. the watch towers erected for solitary guardians of the vineyards and flocks in lonely localities, the phrase from the tower.. fenced city thus embracing thinly and thickly populated places.
12. Ye shall not do this thing] cp. Deu_12:31. Some of the pillars and Asherim (so read for 'images and groves' in 2Ki_17:10) were probably, like the calves, erected in honour of the Lord, and the LXX after 'things' adds 'unto the Lord.' If so they had an evil tendency, because they were associated with the corruptions of the old Canaanite worship.
13. By all the prophets] Among the prophets who laboured in Israel were Ahijah, Jehu (son of Hanani), Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, Jonah, Oded, Amos, and Hosea; whilst those who ministered in Judah included (up to the time here indicated) Shemaiah, Iddo, Azariah, Hanani, Jehu, Zechariah (son of Jehoiada), Micah, and Isaiah. Through such agents God exhorted and warned His people before sending upon them the punishments which their sins deserved.
15. Vanity] often applied to idols (1Ki_16:13)
16. All the host of heaven] i.e. the stars. There is no previous reference in Kings to this form of idolatry in N. Israel, but an allusion to it occurs in Amo_5:26, where the name 'Chiun' probably denotes the planet Saturn. Warnings against it are found in Deu_4:19; Deu_17:3.
19. Walked Israel] as when Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab, introduced Baal worship: cp. 2Ki_8:18, 2Ki_8:27; 2Ki_16:3.
20. All the seed] The writer here anticipates the future, and refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, an event which he still has to relate.
24. Brought men from, etc.] Of the names that follow, Babylon was on the Euphrates; Cuthah was between the Euphrates and the Tigris; Ava, perhaps the Ivah of 2Ki_18:34, is identified by some with the Ahava of Ezr_8:15; Hamath was on the Orontes; Sepharvaim ('the two Sippars') was in Babylonia. The conquest of some of these places is alluded to in 2Ki_18:34. Sargon in one of his inscriptions mentions the transportation of some of the inhabitants of Babylon to 'the land Khatti,' which, though strictly designating the country of the Hittites, may be intended to denote Palestine generally; but according to another inscription the people settled in Samaria consisted of Arabian tribes.
25. Lions] These, which were common in the Jordan valley, would multiply in consequence of the depopulation of the country.
26. The manner] i.e. the ordinances of worship.
27. One of the priests] The priests alone were acquainted with the proper ritual. Let them] i.e. the priest and his attendants.
30. Succoth-benoth] perhaps Zir-bânit, the wife of Merodach. Nergal] the Assyrian god of war.
31. Adrammelech and Anammelech] probably the gods Adar and Anu, with the addition of the word 'melech' ('king').
32. Of the lowest of them] better, 'of all classes': cp. 1Ki_12:31.
33. They feared the Lord and served, etc.] cp. 2Ki_17:41. The religion that prevailed was a combination of the worship of the Lord (Jehovah), as the God of the land of Israel (2Ki_17:27), with that of the various deities adored by the different nations from which the settlers were drawn. The worship of the Lord was maintained among them as late as the return of the Jews under Zerubbabel (see Ezr_4:2, one reading); and they approached the latter with a request to be allowed to share in the restoration of the Temple. Whom they carried away from thence] RV 'from among whom they' (the settlers) 'had been carried away.'
34. They fear not the Lord] i.e. the worship of the Lord implied in 2Ki_17:33 was not such as God desired.
41. Unto this day] i.e. as late as the time of the writer of the passage, though whether the statement proceeds from the compiler of the book, or from one of his authorities, is not certain.
The Israelite exiles, whose native land was thus occupied by strangers, lost their nationality in the country of their captivity, and never again formed a distinct community. When, however, the people of Judah were deported some 150 years later into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, individual members of the northern tribes joined themselves to them in the course of the Exile, and accompanied them back to Palestine when Cyrus the Persian permitted them to return to their homes. In 1Ch_9:3; 'children of Ephraim and Manasseh,' as well as of Judah and Benjamin, are mentioned as dwelling in Jerusalem after the Return; and Anna the prophetess was of the tribe of Asher (Luk_2:36): cp. also Tob_1:1; Jdt_6:15. But in 2Es_13:39-47 it is related that the Ten Tribes, after being carried into Assyria by Shalmaneser, decided to leave the heathen and go forth 'into a further country where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes which they never kept in their own land'; and from thence their restoration is predicted. These Lost Tribes have been fancifully identified with various nations, including our own.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 7. Assyria Conquers Israel and the Captivity
7. Assyria Conquers Israel and the Captivity
CHAPTER 17
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1. Hoshea, Israel’s last king (2Ki 17:1-2)
2. Shalmaneser imprisons Hoshea (2Ki 17:3-4)
3. Israel carried into captivity (2Ki 17:5-6)
4. Retrospect and Israel’s sins (2Ki 17:7-23)
5. The colonization of Samaria (2Ki 17:24-41)
Israel’s last king was Hoshea. His name means “deliverance.” It indicates what might have been had he and the people repented of their sins. The record of his character is brief. “And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel before him.” This does not mean that he improved. The golden calves had been taken away by the Assyrian from Bethel and Dan, so that he could no longer sin like Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and the other kings of Israel. Hosea had predicted this (Hos 10:5-8).
Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, then came against him, and Hoshea became his servant. The Biblical account is meager, but the Assyrian inscriptions have a great deal to say about this period. Shalmaneser’s name is given in these inscriptions as “Salmanu-ussir” and Hoshea’s as “A-usi.” From these inscriptions we learn that after the siege of Samaria had lasted two years Shalmaneser was succeeded by Sargon, who took Samaria in the first year of his reign. While Sargon is not mentioned in the record here it is significant that the capture of Samaria is not attributed to Shalmaneser. Both passages, 2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 18:10-11, speak only of the king of Assyria. These inscriptions declare that Sargon captured Samaria, led away 27,290 of its inhabitants and appointed a governor over Samaria. There is also a record of the deportation of Israel and the colonization of the land. What would these interesting ancient inscriptions mean if it were not for the Bible? Again we say they are proven true because the Word of God confirms them.
Hoshea had, after he had become the vassal of the king of Assyria, made a conspiracy against the king by sending messengers to So, king of Egypt, and then he refused to pay the tribute. (The proper reading of “So” is given as “Seve” or “Sava.” By the Greeks he is called “Saba Kon” on the monuments “Shabaka,” in cuneiform inscriptions “Shabi-i.”) He was imprisoned and we hear nothing whatever of his fate. (Hos 10:7 tells of his death.) Samaria completely in the hands of the king of Assyria, the people were carried away captives into Assyria. The places are given, but beyond this little is known. Nor do we know anything about their subsequent history. They did not return from the captivity. Various attempts have been made to locate them. The American Indians, the Afghans, Armenians, Nestorians and others have been mentioned as the descendants of the ten tribes, but no substantial evidence can be given to verify this supposition. The so-called “Anglo-Israel theory” is so full of unreasonable speculations and inventions that it does not deserve any consideration. God knows where they are located, and in His own time He will surely gather them and together with the remnant of the house of Judah bring them back to their land. At that time the many unfulfilled promises made to Israel and to Judah will all be literally fulfilled.
There is next given a solemn retrospect of the history of the house of Israel. Judah is also mentioned. The record shows the awful apostasy and the great patience of Jehovah in delaying the threatened judgment.
The account of the colonization of Samaria by the King of Assyria is interesting. It gives the history of the Samaritans, which emanated from this mixture of races and religions and which were responsible for much trouble after the return of the Jewish remnant from the exile. The priest who was returned from Assyria to teach religious rites to the colonists settled in Bethel, where Jeroboam had instituted the idolatrous worship, which had dragged Israel down, produced a new religion, partly Israelitish and partly heathenish, like the mixed multitude which dwelt in the land.
Thus ended the Kingdom of Israel. Out of the nineteen kings which reigned seven were murdered, one died from wounds received on the battlefield, one died from a fall out of the window, one was struck down by the judgment of God and one committed suicide.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The End of Israel as a Nation
The End of Israel as a Nation
v. 1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah, began Hoshea, the son of Elah, after some eight years of a state bordering on anarchy, to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.
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v. 2. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, since Jeroboam’s calf-worship was not abolished under him, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him, he was not their equal in idolatrous practices.
v. 3. Against him came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, a tributary vassal, and gave him presents, rendered the tribute demanded of him.
v. 4. And the king of Assyria, Shalmaneser, whose general was Sargon, found conspiracy in Hoshea, he received evidence of the fact that the king of Israel was secretly planning to overthrow his power; for he had sent messengers to So, also called Seveh and Shebek, king of Egypt, the only other great power which seemed in a position to cope with Assyria, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year, he had refused to deliver his tribute money and thus revolted against the Assyrian supremacy; therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison, this being the end of his reign.
v. 5. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years, since it was very strongly fortified.
v. 6. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel, what was left of the ten tribes after the campaign of Tiglath-pileser, 2Ki 15:29, away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, in Northern Assyria, not far from the Caspian Sea,and in the cities of the Medes. It was at this time that the captive king of Israel was taken in chains to Assyria and there put in prison. The reasons for this fearful catastrophe, whereby Israel ceased to exist as a nation, are now given.
v. 7. For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord, their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, a fact of which their prophets had reminded them time and again, and had feared other gods, this worship of idols being equivalent to a complete rejection of Jehovah,
v. 8. and walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, accepting all their religious ordinances and customs, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. Instead of abiding faithfully by the ordinances which Jehovah had given, the people observed the new rules, as given them by their kings, without divine authority.
v. 9. And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord, their God, literally, "covered over, or attached to, Jehovah," things that were not right or proper, either concealing Him by this mass of strange material, or ascribing things to Him with which He had no business, and they built them high places in all their cities, namely, for purposes of idolatry, from the tower of the watchmen, the lonely buildings erected for the protection of the flocks, to the fenced city; the places of their idol worship were found everywhere.
v. 10. And they set them up images, statues of Baal, and groves, Ashera idols, dedicated to the heathen goddess Astarte, in every high hill and under every green tree;
v. 11. and there they burned incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them, and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger;
v. 12. for they served idols, logs and masses of stone, whereof the Lord had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing, Deu 4:19.
v. 13. Yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah, in the course of all these many years, by all the prophets and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the Law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants, the prophets. They had had both the written Law and the preaching of the prophets to guide them, but they had heeded neither.
v. 14. Notwithstanding, they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, they were stubborn and obstinate, that did not believe in the Lord, their God.
v. 15. And they rejected His statutes, the precepts of the covenant, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them, warning them of the results of their wickedness; and they followed vanity and became vain, Rom 1:21; for heathenism deals with nothingness, with things that really do not exist, but in the foolish imagination of men, and went after the heathen that were round about them, following them in all their idolatry and wickedness, concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them, Deu 12:30-31.
v. 16. And they left all the commandments of the Lord, their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, the ones made by Jeroboam, and made a grove, wooden Ashera idols, and worshiped all the host of heaven, the sun, the moon, the planets, for traces of this idolatry were found very early, and served Baal.
v. 17. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, a particularly horrible offense, and used divination and enchantments, Deu 18:10, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, slaves to every form of wickedness, to provoke Him to anger.
v. 18. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah only, the ten tribes were led away from the country where Jehovah had His dwelling.
v. 19. Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord, their God, they also became guilty of apostasy, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made, following the idolatrous customs of the northern nation.
v. 20. And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, the reference here being to the ten tribes, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, the heathen nations which made them tributary and plundered them, until He had cast them out of His sight.
v. 21. For He rent Israel from the house of David, for the division of the kingdom of Solomon took place according to God’s decree; and they made Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, king; and 3eroboam drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin, in establishing idol-worship.
v. 22. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did, they departed not from them,
v. 23. until the Lord removed Israel out of His sight, since it persevered in wickedness in spite of all divine warnings, as He had said by all His servants, the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day. It was the end of the former mighty kingdom. Some parts of the Christian Church today resemble the kingdom of Israel before the Exile. The redemption through the blood of Christ is denied, the fundamental facts of God’s Word are denied, hypocrisy is lifting its head with ever greater arrogance. But the time will come when all such false Christians will be rejected forever from the face of the Lord.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hoshea son of Elah
Hoshea son of Elah
Hoshea became the king of the northern kingdom of Israel.
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Elah
This is the name of a man. (See: How to Translate Names)
He ruled in Samaria
Samaria was the capital city of Israel. (See: How to Translate Names)
evil in the sight of Yahweh
He did not obey Yahweh's laws as given to Moses. "In the sight of" is metaphor for judgment or opinion. AT: "evil to Yahweh" (See: Metaphor)
Shalmaneser
This is the name of a man. (See: How to Translate Names)
Hoshea became his servant and brought him tribute
Hoshea did as the King of Assyria commanded and brought money to him so that the King would not destroy Israel.
translationWords
Ahaz
king
kingdom of Judah
reign
Hoshea
Samaria
kingdom of Israel
evil
Yahweh
Assyria
servant
tribute
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 17:1-23 The report of the northern kingdom’s fall proceeds…
17:1-23 The report of the northern kingdom’s fall proceeds in two major sections: (1) events in the reign of Israel’s final king, Hoshea, and the circumstances that brought about the capture of Samaria and the deportation of Israel’s citizens (17:1-6); (2) the reasons for Israel’s collapse and conquest by Assyria—Israel’s many sins (17:7-17) that merited God’s judgment (17:18-20) and the great sin of Jeroboam I, who laid the foundation for Israel’s rampant apostasy (17:21-23).
17:1 Hoshea . . . began to rule over Israel in 732 BC. • Hoshea’s reign is listed as beginning in “the twentieth year of Jotham” (15:30) and in the twelfth year of King Ahaz’s reign in Judah. Ahaz apparently co-reigned with Jotham from about 743 BC, when he was twelve years old, but Ahaz’s official regnal years were calculated from 731 BC (16:2). Thus the references to Ahaz’s reign are in harmony.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.