The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and lived in its cities. So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn’t fear Yahweh. Therefore Yahweh sent lions among them, which killed some of them. Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations which you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria don’t know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they kill them, because they don’t know the law of the god of the land.”
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the law of the god of the land.”
So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear Yahweh. However 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 in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. So they feared Yahweh, and also made from among themselves priests of the high places for themselves, who sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. They feared Yahweh, and also served their own gods, after the ways of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they do what they did before. They don’t fear Yahweh, and they do not follow the statutes, or the ordinances, or the law, or the commandment which Yahweh commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel; with whom Yahweh had made a covenant, and commanded them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them; but you shall fear Yahweh, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, and you shall bow yourselves to him, and you shall sacrifice to him. The statutes and the ordinances, and the law and the commandment, which he wrote for you, you shall observe to do forever more. You shall not fear other gods. You shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods. But you shall fear Yahweh your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.” However they didn’t listen, but they did what they did before. So these nations feared Yahweh, and also served their engraved images. Their children did likewise, and so did their children’s children. They do as their fathers did to this day.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv24, 25, 27, 30, 33, 34, 41 Of these peoples came the Samaritans, whereof mention is…
Of these peoples came the Samaritans, whereof mention is so much made in the Gospel, and with whom the Jews would have nothing to do, John 4:9.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv24–34 2Ki 17:24 And the king of Assyria brought [men]…
2Ki 17:24 And 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, and dwelt in the cities thereof.
Ver. 24. And the king of Assyria.] First Shalmaneser, as here, and then his grandson Esarhaddon. {Ezr 4:2} These colonies were afterwards called Samaritans. {Mat 10:5 Luk 9:52 Joh 4:4}
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 On vv24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41 The king of Assyria; either Shalmaneser, or rather his…
The king of Assyria; either Shalmaneser, or rather his son and successor, Esar-haddon, Ezr 4:2, because this was a work of some time; and as his father had projected, and possibly begun this, so he executed or finished it; whence it is ascribed to him, rather than to his father. Babylon then was subject to the Assyrian monarch; but a few years after revolted from him, and set up another king; as appears both from sacred and profane histories.
Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim; several places then in his dominion.
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 On v24 Never was land lost, we say, for want of…
Never was land lost, we say, for want of an heir. When the children of Israel were dispossessed, and turned out of Canaan, the king of Assyria soon transplanted thither the supernumeraries of his own country, such as it could well spare, who should be servants to him and masters to the Israelites that remained; and here we have an account of these new inhabitants, whose story is related here that we may take our leave of Samaria, as also of the Israelites that were carried captive into Assyria.
I. Concerning the Assyrians that were brought into the land of Israel we are here told, 1. That they possessed Samaria and dwelt in the cities thereof, Kg2 17:24. It is common for lands to change their owners, but sad that the holy land should become a heathen land again. See what work sin makes. 2. That at their first coming God sent lions among them. They were probably insufficient to people the country, which occasioned the beasts of the field to multiply against them (Exo 23:29); yet, besides the natural cause, there was a manifest hand of God in it, who is Lord of hosts, of all the creatures, and can serve his own purposes by which he pleases, small or great, lice or lions. God ordered them this rough welcome to check their pride and insolence, and to let them know that though they had conquered Israel the God of Israel had power enough to deal with them - that he could have prevented their settling here, by ordering lions into the service of Israel, and that he permitted it, not for their righteousness, but the wickedness of his own people - and that they were now under his visitation. They had lived without God in their own land, and were not plagued with lions; but, if they do so in this land, it is at their peril. 3. That they sent a remonstrance of this grievance to the king their master, setting forth, it is likely, the loss their infant colony had sustained by the lions and the continual fear they were in of them, and stating that they looked upon it to be a judgment upon them for not worshipping the God of the land, which they could not, because they knew not how, Kg2 17:26. The God of Israel was the God of the whole world, but they ignorantly call him the God of the land, apprehending themselves therefore within his reach, and concerned to be upon good terms with him. Herein they shamed the Israelites, who were not so ready to hear the voice of God's judgments as they were, and who had not served the God of that land, though he was the God of their fathers and their great benefactor, and though they were well instructed in the manner of his worship. Assyrians begged to be taught that which Israelites hated to be taught. 4. That the king of Assyria took care to have them taught the manner of the God of the land (Kg2 17:27, Kg2 17:28), not out of any affection to that God, but to save his subjects from the lions. On this errand he sent back one of the priests whom he had carried away captive. A prophet would have done them more good, for this was but one of the priests of the calves, and therefore chose to dwell at Bethel for old acquaintance' sake, and, though he might teach them to do better than they did, he was not likely to teach them to do well, unless he had taught his own people better. However, he came and dwelt among them, to teach them how they should fear the Lord. Whether he taught them out of the book of the law, or only by word of mouth, is uncertain. 5. That, being thus taught, they made a mongrel religion of it, worshipped the God of Israel for fear and their own idols for love (Kg2 17:33): They feared the Lord, but they served their own gods. They all agreed to worship the God of the land according to the manner, to serve the Jewish festivals and rites of sacrificing, but every nation made gods of their own besides, not only for their private use in their own families, but to be put in the houses of their high places, Kg2 17:9. The idols of each country are here named, Kg2 17:30, Kg2 17:31. The learned are at a loss for the signification of several of these names, and cannot agree by what representations these gods were worshipped. If we may credit the traditions of the Jewish doctors, they tell us that Succoth-Benoth was worshipped in a hen and chickens, Nergal in a cock, Ashima in a smooth goat, Nibhaz in a dog, Tartak in an ass, Adrammelech in a peacock, Anammelech in a pheasant. Our own tell us, more probably, that Succoth-Benoth (signifying the tents of the daughters) was Venus. Nergal, being worshipped by the Cuthites, or Persians, was the fire, Adrammelech and Anammelech were only distinctions of Moloch. See how vain idolaters were in their imaginations, and wonder at their sottishness. Our very ignorance concerning these idols teaches us the accomplishment of that word which God has spoken, that these false gods should all perish (Jer 10:11); they are all buried in oblivion, while the name of the true God shall continue for ever. 6. This medley superstition is here said to continue unto this day (Kg2 17:41), till the time when this book was written and long after, above 300 years in all, till the time of Alexander the Great, when Manasse, brother to Jaddus the high priest of the Jews, having married the daughter of Sanballat, governor of the Samaritans, went over to them, got leave of Alexander to build a temple in Mount Gerizim, drew over many of the Jews to him, and prevailed with the Samaritans to cast away all their idols and to worship the God of Israel only; yet their worship was mixed with so much superstition that our Saviour told them they knew not what they worshipped, Joh 4:22.
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II. Concerning the Israelites that were carried into the land of Assyria. This historian has occasion to speak of them (Kg2 17:22), showing that their successors in the land did as they had done (after the manner of the nations whom they carried away), they worshipped both the God of Israel and those other gods; but what did the captives do in the land of their affliction? Were they reformed, and brought to repentance, by their troubles? No, they did after the former manner, Kg2 17:34. When the two tribes were afterwards carried into Babylon, they were cured by it of their idolatry, and therefore, after seventy years, they were brought back with joy; but the ten tribes were hardened in the furnace, and therefore were justly lost in it and left to perish. This obstinacy of theirs is here aggravated by the consideration, 1. Of the honour God had put upon them, as the seed of Jacob, whom he named Israel, and from him they were so named, but were a reproach to that worthy name by which they were called. 2. Of the covenant he made with them, and the charge he gave them upon that covenant, which is here very fully recited, that they should fear and serve the Lord Jehovah only, who had brought them up out of Egypt (Kg2 17:36), that, having received his statutes and ordinances in writing, they should observe to do them for evermore (Kg2 17:37), and never forget that covenant which God had made with them, the promises and conditions of that covenant, especially that great article of it which is here thrice repeated, because it had been so often inculcated and so much insisted on, that they should not fear other gods. He had told them that, if they kept close to him, he would deliver them out of the hand of all their enemies (Kg2 17:39); yet when they were in the hand of their enemies, and stood in need of deliverance, they were so stupid, and had so little sense of their own interest, that they did after the former manner (Kg2 17:40), they served both the true God and false gods, as if they knew no difference. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. So they did, and so did the nations that succeeded them. Well might the apostle ask, What then, Are we better than they? No, in no wise, for both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, Rom 3:9.
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 On vv24–39 And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon,....…
And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon,.... Which was at this time under the dominion of the king of Assyria; though in a little time after this it revolted, and had a king of its own, Kg2 20:12, this king of Assyria was either Shalmaneser, who carried Israel captive, or it may be rather his son Esarhaddon, see Ezr 4:2,
and from Cuthah; which, according to Josephus (k), was a city in Persia, where was a river of the same name; but it was rather a place in Erech, in the country of Babylon; see Gill on Gen 10:10,
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and from Ava; the same with Ivah, Isa 37:13, where perhaps a colony of the Avim had settled, Deu 2:23.
and from Hamath; a city of Syria, which lay on the northern borders of the land of Canaan, Num 34:8
and from Sepharvaim; thought by some to be the Sippara of Ptolemy, or the Sippareni of Abydenus, in Mesopotamia; though Vitringa takes it to be a city in Syro-Phoenicia; see Gill on Isa 36:19,
and placed them in the cities of Samaria, instead of the children of Israel; not in Samaria, which was now destroyed, according to the prophecy in Mic 1:6 as Abarbinel and other Jewish writers note:
and they possessed Samaria; as an inheritance; sowed it with corn, and planted vineyards there:
and dwelt in the cities thereof; in the several parts of the kingdom.
(k) Antiqu. l. 9. c. 14. sect. 1.
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 On vv25, 28, 32, 33, 34, 41 Therefore - For their gross neglect, and contempt of…
Therefore - For their gross neglect, and contempt of God, which was contrary to the principles and practices of the Heathens, who used to worship the gods of the nations where they lived, and gave that honour to their false Gods, which here they denied to the true. Hereby also God asserted his own sovereignty over that land, and made them to understand, that neither the Israelites were cast out, nor they brought in by their valour, or strength, but by God's providence, who as he had cast the Israelites out for their neglect of God's service; so both could, and would in his due time, turn them out also, if they were guilty of the same sins.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 41 Verse 24. The king of Assyria brought men from…
Verse 24. The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon] He removed one people entirely, and substituted others in their place; and this he did to cut off all occasion for mutiny or insurrection; for the people being removed from their own land, had no object worthy of attention to contend for, and no patrimony in the land of their captivity to induce them to hazard any opposition to their oppressors.
By men from Babylon, we may understand some cities of Babylonia then under the Assyrian empire; for at this time Babylon had a king of its own; but some parts of what was called Babylonia might have been still under the Assyrian government.
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From Cuthah] This is supposed to be the same as Cush, the Chaldeans and Syrians changing ש shin into ת tau; thus they make כוש Cush into כות Cuth; and אשור Ashshur, Assyria, into אתור Attur. From these came the Scythae; and from these the Samaritans were called Cuthaeans, and their language Cuthite. The original language of this people, or at least the language they spoke after their settlement in Israel, is contained in the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, printed under the Hebraeo-Samaritan in vol. i. of the London Polyglot. This Cuthah was probably the country in the land of Shinar, first inhabited by Cush.
From Ava] The Avim were an ancient people, expelled by the Caphtorim from Hazerim, De 2:23.
From Hamath] This was Hemath or Emath of Syria, frequently mentioned in the sacred writings.
From Sepharvaim] There was a city called Syphera, near the Euphrates; others think the Saspires, a people situated between the Colchians and the Medes, are meant. There is much uncertainty relative to these places: all that we know is, that the Assyrians carried away the Israelites into Assyria, and placed them in cities and districts called Halah and Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 2Kg 17:6; and it is very likely that they brought some of the inhabitants of those places into the cities of Israel.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 41 2Ki 17:24. The king of Assyria brought men from…
2Ki 17:24. The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon — Which then was subject to the Assyrian monarch, but a few years after revolted from him, and set up another king, as appears from both sacred and profane histories. And from Cuthah, &c. — Several places then in his dominion. It is probable that it was not Shalmaneser, but Esar-haddon, his son and successor, that did this, (Ezr 4:2,) because it was a work of some time; and as his father had projected, and perhaps even begun it, so he executed and finished it, whence it is ascribed to him rather than to his father. And they possessed Samaria, &c. — That is, the whole country in which the ten tribes had dwelt.
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 On vv24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 41 Sargon is probably the king of Assyria intended, not…
Sargon is probably the king of Assyria intended, not (as generally supposed) either Shalmaneser or Esar-haddon.
The ruins of Cutha have been discovered about 15 miles northeast of Babylon, at a place which is called Ibrahim, because it is the traditional site of a contest between Abraham and Nimrod. The name of Cuilia is found on the bricks of this place, which are mostly of the era of Nebuchadnezzar. The Assyrian inscriptions show that the special god of Cutha was Nergal (see the 2Ki 17:30 note).
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Ava or Ivah or Ahava Ezr 8:15 was on the Euphrates; perhaps the city in ancient times called Ihi or Aia, between Sippara (Sepharvaim) and Hena (Anah).
On Hamath, see 1Ki 8:65 note.
Sepharvaim or Sippara is frequently mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions under the name of Tsipar (2Ki 17:31 note). The dual form of the Hebrew name is explained by the fact that the town lay on both sides of the river. Its position is marked by the modern village of Mosaib, about 20 miles from the ruins of Babylon up the course of the stream.
The towns mentioned in this verse were, excepting Hamath, conquered by Sargon in his twelfth year, 709 B.C.; and it cannot have been until this time, or a little later, that the transplantation here recorded took place. Hamath had revolted, and been conquered by Sargon in his first year, shortly after the conquest of Samaria.
Instead of the children of Israel - This does not mean that the whole population of Samaria was carried off (compare 2Ch 34:9). The writer here, by expressly confining the new-comers to the “cities of Samaria,” seems to imply that the country districts were in other hands.
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 On vv24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34 King, Assaraddon, who led away the remnants of Israel,…
King, Assaraddon, who led away the remnants of Israel, and fulfilled the prediction, Isaias vii. 8. (Du Hamel) --- Babylon, or the territory. These people had been lately conquered from the Babylonian empire, from Syria, &c. --- Cutha: the greatest part were from this city; so that the Samaritans were afterwards called Cutheans. --- Emath, on the Orontes. --- Sepharvaim; or the Saspires, near Media. (Calmet) --- We find several other places mentioned, 1 Esdras iv. 9. (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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv24, 29, 30, 31, 34 the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, etc.--This…
the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, etc.--This was not Shalmaneser, but Esar-haddon (Eze 4:2). The places vacated by the captive Israelites he ordered to be occupied by several colonies of his own subjects from Babylon and other provinces.
from Cuthah--the Chaldee form of Cush or Susiana, now Khusistan.
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Ava--supposed to be Ahivaz, situated on the river Karuns, which empties into the head of the Persian Gulf.
Hamath--on the Orontes.
Sepharvaim--Siphara, a city on the Euphrates above Babylon.
placed them in the cities of Samaria, &c.--It must not be supposed that the Israelites were universally removed to a man. A remnant was left, chiefly however of the poor and lower classes, with whom these foreign colonists mingled; so that the prevailing character of society about Samaria was heathen, not Israelite. For the Assyrian colonists became masters of the land; and, forming partial intermarriages with the remnant Jews, the inhabitants became a mongrel race, no longer a people of Ephraim (Isa 7:6). These people, imperfectly instructed in the creed of the Jews, acquired also a mongrel doctrine. Being too few to replenish the land, lions, by which the land had been infested (Jdg 14:5; Sa1 17:34; Kg1 13:24; Kg1 20:36; Sol 4:8), multiplied and committed frequent ravages upon them. Recognizing in these attacks a judgment from the God of the land, whom they had not worshipped, they petitioned the Assyrian court to send them some Jewish priests who might instruct them in the right way of serving Him. The king, in compliance with their request, sent them one of the exiled priests of Israel [Kg2 17:27], who established his headquarters at Beth-el, and taught them how they should fear the Lord. It is not said that he took a copy of the Pentateuch with him, out of which he might teach them. Oral teaching was much better fitted for the superstitious people than instruction out of a written book. He could teach them more effectually by word of mouth. Believing that he would adopt the best and simplest method for them, it is unlikely that he took the written law with him, and so gave origin to the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch [DAVIDSON, Criticism]. Besides, it is evident from his being one of the exiled priests, and from his settlement at Beth-el, that he was not a Levite, but one of the calf-worshipping priests. Consequently his instructions would be neither sound nor efficient.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 ORIGIN OF THE SAMARITANS, 2Ki_17:24-41.
ORIGIN OF THE SAMARITANS, 2Ki_17:24-41.
24. The king of Assyria brought — This king was Sargon, who tells us in his inscription that he “took and occupied the city of Samaria, and… changed the former government of the country, and placed over it lieutenants of his own.” See the note on 2Ki_17:6. It appears from Ezr_4:2, that subsequently Esar-haddon also transported colonists to the cities of Samaria.
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From Babylon — Either from the city or province, for the whole of Babylonia belonged at this time to the Assyrian empire.
Cuthah — Called, in 2Ki_17:30, Cuth. Its site has been the subject of dispute and uncertainty, but G. Rawlinson is confident that it was a city near Babylon whose ruins are now called Ibrahim. He says, (Herodotus, vol. i, p. 515,) “The city was called Digona by Ptolemy, Digba by Pliny, Digubis in the Peutingerian map. The ruins of Cuthah, distant about twelve miles from Babylon, were first discovered by Sir H. Rawlinson in 1846, and have since been repeatedly visited by travellers.” In the Chaldee and the Talmud the Samaritans are called Cuthites, and hence some have thought that the main portion of these colonists came from Cuthah. Compare also Josephus, 2Ki_9:14; 2Ki_9:3. “With almost equal confidence,” adds Rawlinson, (Historical Evidences, p. 341,) “may we pronounce on the position of Ava, of which Winer says, that it is most probably a Mesopotamian town, ‘of which no trace remains in ancient authors, or in modern Oriental topography.’ Ava, or Ivah, (2Ki_18:34,) is a city dedicated to the god Hea, (Neptune,) which was on the Euphrates, at the extreme northern limit of Babylonia. It is called by the Talmudical writers Ihi, or with an epithet, Ihi-dakira, by Herodotus Is, by the Egyptians Ist, by the Turks and Arabs of the present day Hit. The first corruption of the name may be traced in the Ahava of Ezra, (Ezr_8:15; Ezr_8:21,) where the Jews encamped on their way from Babylon to Jerusalem.”
Hamath — On the Orontes. See on Jos_13:5; 1Ki_8:65. This city had probably been subjected to Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-pileser.
Sepharvaim — Doubtless identical with the Sippara of Ptolemy, which was situated on the Euphrates above Babylon, near the modern Mosaib. The dual form of the name is explained from the fact, noted in the inscriptions, that the city was built on each side of the river. Berosus calls it a city of the sun, and, according to Rawlinson, the inscriptions give it the same name. Hence a reason why “the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire.” 2Ki_17:31.
They possessed Samaria — And hence their descendants are called, even to this day, Samaritans.
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 On vv24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 40, 41 24–41. Of those nations which were brought to inhabit…
24–41. Of those nations which were brought to inhabit Samaria, how they were plagued with lions. The mixed character of their religion (Not in Chronicles)
24. the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon] These would most likely be the leaders of the colony as coming from the capital of the empire.
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and from Cuthah] It is not certain what district is intended by this name. Some have thought that the country should be identified with that between the Euphrates and the Tigris, where a town Cutha is mentioned by early geographers and from which neighbourhood others of these colonists came. Others think ‘Cuthæans’ is another form of ‘Cossæans’, who were a tribe dwelling in the hills between Persia and Media, northward of the river Choaspes. The latter appears the more probable conjecture, but it remains only a conjecture.
and from Ava] R.V. Avva. This is without doubt the same place as Ivah (R.V. Ivvah) of 2Ki_18:34 below. The place is not clearly identified, but opinions incline to make it the same as Ahava, which stood where the modern Hit does, on the Euphrates at some distance to the N.W. of Babylon.
and from Hamath] This was the well-known Syrian city on the Orontes, which we read of as recovered by Jeroboam II. (2Ki_14:28, where see note) but which the Assyrians soon afterwards reconquered (2Ki_18:34), and seem now to have brought some of its population southward to Samaria.
and from Sepharvaim] This place is mentioned also in 2Ki_18:34 among cities which had been reduced to subjection by the Assyrians (cf. also 2Ki_19:13 and Isa_37:13). It is identified with the famous town of Sippara on the Euphrates, a little distance above Babylon. The LXX. writes the name Σεπφαρουαὶμ, which form favours this identification.
instead of the children of Israel] We are not from these words to suppose that all the Israelites were taken away. We know that in the later captivity of Judah, Jerusalem was never wholly left of its old inhabitants. We read in 2Ch_34:9, in the days of Josiah, that there was still ‘a remnant of Israel’, and these must be taken to be the people left behind when their fellow-countrymen were for the most part carried away.
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 On vv24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41 (24) The king of Assyria.—Sargon (Sargîna), who actually records…
(24-33) RE-PEOPLING OF THE LAND WITH ALIENS; THEIR WORSHIP DESCRIBED.
(24) The king of Assyria.—Sargon (Sargîna), who actually records that in his first year (721 B.C. ) he settled a body of conquered Babylonians in the land of Hatti or Syria. In another passage he speaks of locating certain Arab tribes, including those of Thamûd and Ephah, in the land of Beth-Omri; and in a third passage of his annals he says that he “removed the rest” of these Arab tribes, “and caused them to dwell in the city of Samerina” (Samaria). This notice be. longs to Sargon’s seventh year (715 B.C. ). Kuthah and Sepharvaim were also towns in Babylonia. The former is called Kutie in the cuneiform inscriptions. It had a temple of Nergal and Laz, the ruins of which have been discovered at Tell-Ibrâhîm, north-east of Babylon. Sepharvaim, in the cuneiform Sipar and Sippar, means “the two Sipars;” in allusion, probably, to the fact that the town was divided between the two deities Samas (the sun), and Anunitum, and bore the names of Sippar sa Samas (“Sippara of the Sun”), and Sippar sa Anunitum (“Sippara of Anunit”). Rassam discovered ruins of Èparra, the great sun-temple, at Abu Habba, south-west of Bagdad, on the east bank of the Euphrates.
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Ava (Heb., (‘Avvâ) may be the same as Ivah (Heb. Iwwah) (2Ki_18:34; 2Ki_19:13).
Hamath.—Sargon has recorded his reduction, in 720 B.C. , of Itu-bi-’di (or Yau-bi-’di) king of Hamath, and also his settling of colonists in Hainathite territory. It is, therefore, quite likely that he had, as usual, deported the conquered Hamathites, and, in fact, settled some of them in Samaria, as this verse relates.
Placed them.—Heb., made them dwell, the very phrase used by Sargon himself in describing these arrangements (usesib). At a later period Esarhaddon reinforced these colonists (Ezr_4:2).
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 On vv24–41 Vers. 24-41. Re-peopling of the kingdom of Israel by…
Vers. 24-41. Re-peopling of the kingdom of Israel by Assyrian colonists, and formation of a mixed religion. The writer, before dismissing the subject of the Israelite kingdom, proceeds to inform us of certain results of the conquest. Having removed the bulk of the native inhabitants, the Assyrians did not allow the country to lie waste, but proceeded to replace the population which they had carried off by settlers from other localities (ver. 24). These settlers were, after a short time, incommoded by lions, which increased upon them, and diminished their numbers (ver. 25). The idea arose that the visitation was supernatural, and might be traced to the fact that the newcomers, not knowing "the manner of the God of the land," displeased him by the neglect of his rites or by the introduction of alien worship (ver. 26). A remedy for this was sought in the sending to them from Assyria one of the priests who had been carried off, from whom it was thought they might learn how "the God of the land" was to be propitiated. This was the orion of the "mixed religion" which grew up in the country. While the nations who had replaced the Israelites brought in their own superstitions, and severally worshipped their own gods (vers. 30, 31), there was a general acknowledgment of Jehovah by all of them, and a continuance of Jehovistic worship in the various high places. The nations both "feared the Lord, and served their graven images," down to the time when the writer of Kings composed his work (vers. 33-41).
And the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon. It has been supposed, in connection with, Ezr_4:2, that no colonists were introduced into the country till the time of Esarhaddon, who began to reign in B.C. 681. But this, which would be intrinsically most improbable (for when did a king forego his tribute from a fertile country for forty-one years?) is contradicted by a statement of Sargon, that he placed colonists there in B.C. 715 ("Ancient Monarchies," vol. it. p. 415). These were not necessarily the first; and, on the whole, it is probable that the re-peopling of the country begun earlier. Hamath was reduced by Sargon in B.C. 720, and punished severely. Its inhabitants were carried off, and replaced by Assyrians ("Eponym Canon," p. 127). Probably some of them were at once settled in Samaria. The conquest of Babylon by Sargon was not till later. It occurred in B.C. 709, and was probably followed by the immediate deportation of some of its inhabitants to the same quarter. And from Cuthah. "Cuthah," or "Cutha," was an important Babylonian city, often mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions ("Records of the Past," vol. 1. pp. 74, 75; vol. 3. p. 35; vol. 5. pp. 93, 94, 102). Its ruins exist at the site now called Ibrahim, about fifteen miles northeast of Babylon. Sargon must have become master of it when he put down Merodach-Baladan and assumed the sovereignty of Babylonia, in B.C. 709. Why the later Jews called the Samaritans "Cuthaeans," rather than Sepharvites, or Avites, or Hamathites, it is impossible to determine. Possibly the Cuthaean settlers preponderated in numbers ever the others. And from Ava. "Ava" (aw) is probably the same as the Ivah (hw) of, (2Ki_18:34 and 2Ki_19:13) and perhaps identical with the Ahava (awha) of Ezra (8:15, 21). The city intended is thought to be the "Is" of Herodotus (1. 179), and the modern Hit. Hit lies upon the Euphrates, about a hundred and thirty miles above Babylon, in lat. 33 45" nearly. It is famous for its bitumen springs. And from Hamath. (see the comment on 2Ki_14:25) Hamath on the Orontes was conquered by Sargon in B.C. 720, two years after his capture of Samaria ("Eponym Canon," pp. 126-128). Its rude inhabitants were carried off, and Assyrians were placed there. And from Sepharvaim. It is generally allowed that "Sepharvaim" is "Sippara," the dual form being accounted for by the fact that Sippara was a double town, partly on the right and partly on the left bank of a stream derived from the Euphrates. Hence Pliny speaks of it as "oppida Hipparenorum" ("Hist. Nat.," 6:30). The exact site, at Abu-Habba, sixteen miles southwest of Baghdad, has only recently been discovered (see the "Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology" for 1885, vol. 8. pp. 172-176). And placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. Transplantation of nations, commenced by Tiglath-pileser, was practiced on a still larger scale by Sargon. The following summary will illustrate this point: "In all his wars Sargon largely employed the system of wholesale deportation. The Israelites were removed from Samaria, and planted partly in Gozan or Mygdonia, and partly in the cities recently taken from the Medes. Hamath and Damascus were peopled with captives from Armenia and other regions of the north. A portion of the Tibareni were carried captive to Assyria, and Assyrians were established in the Tibarenian country. Vast numbers of the inhabitants of the Zagros range were also transported to Assyria; Babylonians, Cuthaeans, Sapharrites, Arabians, and others were placed in Samaria; men from the extreme east (perhaps Media) in Ashdod. The Comukha were removed from the extreme north to Susiana, and Chaldaeans were brought from the extreme south to supply their places. Everywhere Sargon "changed the abodes" of his subjects, his aim being, as it would seem, to weaken the stronger races by dispersion, and to destroy the spirit of the weaker ones by severing at a blow all the links which unite a patriotic people to the country it has long inhabited. The practice had not been unknown to previous monarchs; but it had never been employed by any of them so generally or on so grand a scale as it was by this king" (see "Ancient Monarchies," vol. it. p. 423).
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Vers. 24-41. The absurdity and uselessness of a mixed religion.
Syncretism has been at all times a form which religion is apt to assume in mixed communities. Theoretically, religions are antithetic, exclusive, mutually repulsive. Practically, where they coexist, they tend to give and take, to approximate one to the other, to drop differences, to blend together into an apparent, if not a real, union. Christianity had at first those who would sit in an idol-temple, and partake of idol-sacrifices. (1Co_8:10) Judaism under the Seleucidae, but for the rude impatience of Antiochus Epiphanes, was on the point of making terms with Hellenism. In Samaria, after the events related in vers. 24-28, a mixed religion a "mingle-mangle," to use Reformation language took its place as the religion of the mixed people. "They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." Jehovah was everywhere acknowledged, honored, worshipped with sacrifice. But at the same time, heathen gods partial, local, hail-material, sacred, but not holy were objects of a far more real and intense worship. Such a religion is
(1) absurd,
(2) useless.
I SYNCRETISM IS ABSURD, since it is self-contradictory. "What concord has Christ with Belial?". (2Co_6:15) Religions which are really different have contradictory first principles; and agreement can only be effected by a dropping, on one side or the other, or both, of what is vital and essential. In the particular case before us, absolute monotheism was the very core and essence of the Jehovah-worship; actual polytheism was the root and groundwork of the other. The two were logically inconsistent, incompatible. Practically, the contradiction may not always have been perceived, for man, though a rational, is not a logical animal; but the general result, no doubt, was that the monotheistic idea had to give way: Jehovah, the one only God of the whole earth, had to sink into a "god of the land," and to receive an occasional and grudging acknowledgment from those whose hearts were with their own gods, Nergal and Ashima and Adrammelech. But, in this case, the worship of Jehovah was superfluous. God does not thank men for dragging him into a pantheon, and setting him side by side with beings who are no gods, but the fantastic inventions of imaginations depraved and corrupted by sin.
II SYNCRETISM IS USELESS. Contrary systems of religion will not amalgamate, let men do what they may. Either each neutralizes the other, and the result is no religion at all; or one gets the upper hand, and the other element might as well be absent. There is no serving "God and mammon, Christ and Belial." The mind cannot really, at one and the same time, accept contradictories. The lips may do so, but religion is an affair of the heart. Syncretism is an apparent, not a real union. Theories mutually destructive cannot coalesce. Thus, practically, syncretism is useless. It is either a mere nominal union or a mode of eliminating religion from human life. In the case before us it seems to have left the Samaritans just as much polytheists, just as much idolaters, as it found them. Zerubbabel did well to allow them no part in the building of the second temple, and to give them the curt answer, "Ye have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our. (Ezr_4:3) Had he done otherwise, he would have merged Judaism in a polytheistic and idolatrous pseudo-religion.
Vers. 24-41. Samaria and its religion.
I ITS EARLY GODLESSNESS. The land of Samaria was now deprived of its Israelitish inhabitants. The King of Assyria colonized it with heathen immigrants. "At the beginning of their dwelling there, they feared not the Lord." What a mistake to go anywhere without taking God"s presence with us! How many journeys are undertaken, how many a business is entered on, without ever a word of prayer being offered to God! How many a home life is commenced without a family altar! As the young Scotch lad said of a house where he stayed for some time, and where there was no family prayer, "There is no roof on that house." "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
II ITS SUBSEQUENT JUDGMENTS. "Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore 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" (vers. 25, 26). It was judgment that first made them think of God. It is often so in the history of human life. Men live without God, prayerless, godless lives, so long as all appears to be going well with them. But when sickness comes, or troubles overtake them, or death is drawing near, they cry to the Lord then. There is something mean about this. It is better to call upon God and to come to him in trouble than not to call on him at all; but how much better it is to serve him in health as well as in sickness, in prosperity as well as in trouble!
III ITS MIXED RELIGION. Samaria tried the experiment of serving the true God and the gods of the heathen at the same time. It tried the impossible task of serving two masters. "They feared the Lord, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence" (ver. 33). In their case, as in every case, it proved to be an impossible task. "Unto this day they 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" (ver. 34); "So these nations 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" (ver. 41). They "feared the Lord:" that was profession. "They served their graven images." that was practice. Yet there are many who are trying the same impossible task. They have a certain amount of fear of God. They are afraid to die, afraid of the judgment to come. So they think it desirable to be "religious." They go to church. They read the Bible occasionally, perhaps. They hear the name of good Christians. But it is a name only. Their life cannot be called a Christian life. They serve God on the Sunday in a kind of way, and the world or sin the rest of the week. They try, perhaps, to serve God and mammon. They try to serve God and the world. They are liberal-minded Christians. But this kind of mixed religion is no religion in the sight of God. He cannot have a divided service. This is emphatically brought out in the first chapter of Isaiah. There the inconsistency and uselessness of a religious profession combined with a godless life is clearly shown. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?" "Bring no more vain oblations;" "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Here it is plainly taught that a religious profession is worthless without a religious life. If we regard iniquity in our heart, the Lord will not hear us. It is interesting to remember that even this degraded people of Samaria, with their mixed and corrupt religion, were permitted twice at least to receive the gospel message. They were looked down upon with contempt and aversion by the Jews. But there is mercy even for the most degraded. A city of Samaria received Christ himself, and many of its people believed on him, for the saying of the woman who testified, "He told me all things that ever I did." It was even in the apostate city of Samaria that, when Philip went down and preached Christ unto them, "the people with one accord gave heed unto the things which Philip spake," and many of them believed and were baptized. And we read that "there was great joy in that city." Even to these Samaritans, aliens from the ancient Jewish faith, a people despised and hated by the Jews, the gospel of Christ brought great joy. Surely there is here an encouragement for the greatest sinner. Surely there is here a reason for us to hope and work for the salvation even of the most degraded. Surely an encouragement for Christian missions to the heathen. C.H.I.
Vers. 24-41. Subjects worth thinking about.
the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon," etc. This fragment of Israelitish history brings under our notice four subjects which run through all human history, and which find their illustration in the events of modern as well as ancient life.
I THE TYRANNY OF MAN. Here we find the Assyrians committing two great enormities on the men of Israel driving them out of their own land into Assyria, and taking possession of their own country and home. "And 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, and dwelt in the cities thereof." Who that King of Assyria was at this time who carried away the last remnant of the ten tribes into a foreign land, and brought from various parts of his own country men to occupy their property and their homes, whether Shalmaneser or Esarhaddon, is a question not worth debating. He was a tyrant. The places from which he selected the men whom he placed in the cities of Samaria are mentioned. Cuthah, a city about fifteen miles north-east from Babylon; Ava, situated on the Euphrates, to the north of Babylon; Hamath, the chief city of Upper Syria; and Sepharvaim, supposed to be on a branch stream from the Euphrates, lying about sixteen miles from Babylon. Now, there was tyranny in both cases. There was tyranny in taking the Assyrians from their own countries and placing them in the cities of Samaria; as well as tyranny in taking away the ten tribes from Samaria into foreign regions. Had the exchange taken place with the mutual consent of both parties, there would have been no outrage on the rights of man, but it might, indeed, have conduced to the interests of both parties concerned. Men are constantly changing their countries, especially in this age, when facilities for traveling are increasing every day, when the old countries are becoming overpopulated, their resources rapidly decreasing, and new and fertile regions opening up in every part of the globe. All this is right enough, as well as often necessary and truly expedient. But to be forced away from home, this is tyranny, and such tyranny is not extinct even in our England. The tens of thousands that leave our shores every year for strange and distant lands, for the most part do it by a terrible coercion. Not only is he a tyrant who inflicts positive injustice on another, but also he who withholds from another his due. Tyranny is not confined to the throne of despots, but it sits in every heart where there is not a practical regard for the rights of others. It is in Belgravian mansions and ducal castles, where the groans of starving millions around are disregarded, as well as in the palace of the Czar of Russia, where the rights of millions are trodden underfoot.
Thinkest thou there is no tyranny but that Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice, The weakness and the wickedness of luxury, The negligence, the apathy, the evils
Of sensual sloth produce ten thousand tyrants, Whose delegated cruelty surpasses The worst acts of one energetic master, However harsh and hard in his own bearing. (Byron.)
II THE RETRIBUTIONS OF LIFE. "And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the Lord: therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore 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." Probably the lions had been in the land of Samaria before the settlement of the Assyrian colonists, but after their settlement these furious beasts of prey seem to have been multiplied. Perhaps the colonists were too few in number to keep them down and to check their increase. Still, whatever the natural cause or causes of their increase, it was regarded by the new population as a retributive visitation. The statement of the courtiers to the king was, "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," etc. The law of retribution is ever at work in human history, not only in the lives of nations, but in the lives of individuals. No man can do a wrong thing without suffering for it in some form or other. Nemesis surely, though silently, treads on the heels of wrong. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The lions of retribution track our steps as sinners stealthily, and are ready to spring on us at any moment. We are far enough from saying that retribution here is adequate and complete; hence there is within all a "fearful looking for" of some future judgment. We do not fully discharge the debt; as we go on it accumulates, and there is a balance to be settled in the great hereafter. Albeit the retribution here is a foretaste and pledge of a judgment to come.
Nature has her laws, That will not brook infringement; in all time, All circumstances, all state, in every clime She holds aloft the same avenging sword,
And, sitting on her boundless throne sublime, The vials of her wrath, with Justice stored, Shall in her own good hour on all that"s ill be poured. (Percival.)
III THE PROSTITUTION OF RELIGION. The Assyrian king, it would seem, in answer to the alarm which was felt concerning the colonists whom he had settled in the cities of Samaria, conceived the plan of adopting religion as the remedy. "Then 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." The priest whom the king sent to them seems to have been one of the exiled priests who had formerly had his head-quarters at Bethel. It is not said this priest took a copy of the Pentateuch with him; perhaps he trusted to his religious intelligence and to his oral abilities. The fact of his being one of the exiled priests, and being settled in Bethel, would imply that he was not a Levite, but rather one of the calf-worshipping priests; his instructions, therefore, would most likely not be very sound or useful. Now, the question is, why did this Assyrian king introduce this religion? Not because he or his people had any faith in it. "Howbeit 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," etc. (vers. 29-31). Several of the gods of these people are here mentioned. "Succoth-benoth." The meaning of this word, which is thought to be "tents or booths of daughters," might seem to point to the places where the Babylonians celebrated impure rites; but here it represents one of the deities. "Nergal" is said to have been worshipped under the form of a cock; and from Layard, in his work on Nineveh and Babylon, we find that a cock was sometimes associated with a priest on the Assyrian monuments. Ashima," accord ing to some, was worshipped under the form of a he-goat, bald to the very skin. "Nibhaz." This deity was represented in the figure of a dog. "Tartak." According to the rabbis, this deity was represented in the form of an ass. "Adrammelech." This means the "fireking," who was worshipped as a sun-god. "Anammelech," a deity worshipped, some say in the form of a hare, and some say in the form of a goat. These were the gods in which the king and the colonists seem to have had faith, and not in the one true and living God. Why, then, did the king send this priest from Bethel to impart to them a knowledge of the God of Israel? Simply as a matter of selfish policy. The attention that they paid to any representation that the priest made of the true God was partial, insincere, and selfish. "So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. They feared the Lord, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. Unto this day they do after the former manners," etc. Here you have one of the million examples of that religion of policy that has abounded in all lands and times. In every page in history, nay, in every scene of life, we find religion taken up as a means to an end, rather than as the grand end of being. Some use it as a means for secular advantage, others as a means for personal salvation what is called the salvation of the soul. Rulers employ it as a means to govern the people, and priests employ it as a means to coerce men into ecclesiastical order or conventional morality. In such cases their own personal interests are by no means ignored. This is a prostitution of religion. True religion should ever be pursued as the supreme end of man. In it alone his highest obligations are fulfilled, his full powers employed, his true destiny realized. But, alas! everywhere we find it regarded as a subsidiary and partial element in man"s calculations, experience, and life. What is here said applies to millions even in Christendom. "They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." The religion of policy will never rescue man from the rapacious jaws of the lions of retribution.
IV THE THEISTIC HUNGER OF SOULS. All these men, both the colonists and the Israelites, would have their gods; a god seemed to them as necessary almost as their life. "So these nations 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 same hunger for worship which the generations that preceded them possessed and developed had been transmitted to these their children as an innate force in their spiritual constitution. The religious element in man is not a passing sentiment, not a traditional belief, not something superadded to his nature. It is the very core of his being, the substratum in which all his higher faculties inhere, lie who has this element in him (and who has not?) needs no argument to prove the existence of a God. If it be alive within him, all such arguments are an impertinence. The existence of a Supreme Being is independent of all proof. It is written on the consciousness of human nature. Like the fact of our own being, it is too near, too evident, too much a matter of living self, for outward argument to have any force. Faith in God springs from within. It is based on those immutable sentiments of the soul that outlive all theories and defy all skepticism. To deny the existence of God is to offer violence to all that is great and sacred in human nature. D.T.
Vers. 24-41. Heathen occupants of the land.
The narrative of the fall of the northern kingdom concludes with an account of the arrangements made by the King of Assyria for resettling the land of Israel.
I THE NEW SETTLERS.
1. Their foreign origin. The policy of removing rebellious populations to distant parts at this time a favorite one with the Assyrians led not only to the Israelites being carried away to Assyria, but to foreign settlers being brought and put down in their place. The nationalities of the new inhabitants are mentioned. They were men from Babylon, and Cuthah, and Ava, and Hamath, and Sepharvaim. These took possession of the cities of Samaria, and dwelt in them. Behold now God"s holy land in the possession of aliens, men without one glimmer of knowledge of the true God and his ways! The Israelites had become heathen in heart, and were removed, and now real heathen were put in their place. In the sight of God the latter were less objectionable than the former. They had never known anything better than heathenism; while the Israelites had sinned against the clearest light and the strongest love. In the judgment day, the heathen will rise up to condemn those who have abused the light of revelation. (Mat_12:41)
2. The visitation of lions. Thick darkness had now settled on the land. Even the outward worship of Jehovah had ceased, and the only gods known were those of the heathen colonists. Yet the land was Jehovah"s, and however he might "wink" at the ignorance of a rude, uninstructed people, it was not meet that something should not be done to arouse them to inquiry. The removal of the former inhabitants seems to have led to the multiplication of lions, and these now began to attack the people in a way which convinced them that the God of the land was displeased with them. It is not only the colonists who took this view of the matter. The sacred writer gives the same interpretation. God has his own ways of speaking to the consciences of men, and this was the one now adopted. The people were right in seeing in the visitation a reminder of their neglect of "the manner of the God of the land;" they were wrong in thinking that all that was necessary to remedy this neglect was the performance of certain external rites. It was moral conduct, based on a right knowledge of himself, which "the God of the land" required. But their error was only part of their dark heathen superstition.
3. Their request for instruction. The people were much concerned about the visitation which had befallen them, and their case was reported at once to the King of Assyria, who sent them one of the priests who had been carried away captive, to teach them "how they should fear the Lord." Alas! how shall the blind lead the blind! This priest was himself one who had no right knowledge of Jehovah. He was doubtless one of the priests of Bethel, who had been mixed up with the calf-worship and all the other sins for which Israel had been carried away. It is evident from the results that he gave the people no right instruction. He probably set up again at the Bethel sanctuary the disused rites of the former idolatry, and taught the people some external observances connected with the Name of Jehovah. A religion so deeply corrupted was hardly better than those they already practiced. Jehovah remained to them a local deity, of whose real character they knew nothing, and whom they served from motives of fear.
II MIXED RELIGIONS.
1. Extraordinary syncretism. An extraordinary scene was now witnessed. The new-comers, once settled in their cities, lost no time in organizing their religions in this, at all events, setting an example to more enlightened peoples. The high places formerly used by the Israelites stood temptingly ready to receive the new idols. Whatever may have been the character of the priest"s instructions, they had no influence in checking the multiplication of strange gods. In the mixture of peoples, each nationality adhered to its own deity. The Babylonians made Succoth-benoth, the Cuthites made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, etc. The result was a chaotic confusion of religions, such as perhaps has never before or since been equaled. The new worships needed priests, and these were made from the lowest of the people. The whole is a sad but instructive picture of heathenism in its want of internal unity, its Babel-like confusion, its destitution of moral character, and its degrading and cruel practices, e.g. the burning of the children in the fire to Adrammelech, etc. Only monotheism can give true unity to life, religion, and worship.
2. Jehovah and strange gods. Meanwhile Jehovah was not overlooked, but had his place given him among the rest. The people "feared the Lord, and served their own gods." This showed, of course, that the first principles of the religion of Jehovah were not understood by them. But is it so uncommon a thing for men not heathen, but professedly Christian thus to attempt to combine incompatibilities? Is there not such a thing as attempting to combine the service of the Lord with the friendship of the world, which yet is declared to be "enmity with God"? (Jam_4:4) Is there no such thing as professing to serve God, yet giving the chief place in the heart to money, pleasure, fashion, or some other spiritual idol, which is duly worshipped upon its own high place? The less glaring idolatries are not always the least sinful. Ere condemning the irrational practices of these heathen, let us sit strictly in judgment on ourselves.
3. The absence of true religion. The cause of all this religious confusion was that the true God was not rightly known. Men may possess theoretically correct notions of God, and not act upon them; but it is impossible to base a right moral or religious life on conceptions of God which are fundamentally erroneous. These colonists did not know Jehovah"s real character; they had not been properly instructed in his statutes; therefore they thought they were serving him when they were doing him the highest dishonor.
III A PAST MEMORY.
1. Gods ancient covenant. The sight of this indescribable chaos recalls to the historian the memory of that original covenant of God with Israel, by the terms of which the people were pledged not to serve strange gods, but to adhere to Jehovah, their Redeemer from Egypt, and to keep his holy statutes. Had they been faithful to that covenant, how different would have been the result! Instead of being in exile, the nation would have been safe, happy, and prosperous under Jehovah"s care.
2. The melancholy contrast. As it was, the people had been driven from their land, and this motley crowd of heathen held possession of it. Their obedience was not better than that of the rejected Israelites, and, so far as experience had gone, they showed no sigma of improvement. It is due, however, to the Samaritans to say that, when better instructed, they did improve, and, in Christ"s time, they were as strict monotheists as the Jews, and more willing to receive the gospel. 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 On vv24, 33 And the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon.
2Ki_17:24-41
And the King of Assyria brought men from Babylon.
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Subjects worth thinking about
This fragment of Israelitish history brings under our notice four subjects which run through all human history, and which find their illustration in the events of modern as well as ancient life.
I. The tyranny of man. Here we find the Assyrians committing two great enormities on the men of Israel, driving them out of their own land into Assyria, and taking possession of their own country and home.
II. The retributions of life. Probably the lions had been in the land of Samaria before the settlement of the Assyrian colonists, but after their settlement these furious beasts of prey seem to have multiplied. The law of retribution is ever at work in human history, not only in the lives of nations but in the lives of individuals. No man can do a wrong thing without suffering for it in some form or other. Nemesis surely, though silently, treads on the heels of wrong. The lions of retribution track our steps as sinners; stealthily, and are ready to spring at any moment. We are far enough from saying that retribution here is adequate and complete, hence there is within all a fearful looking for of some future judgment.
III. The prostitution of religion. The Assyrian king, it would seem, in answer to the alarm which his people, whom he had settled in Samaria, felt concerning the lions, conceived the plan of adopting religion as the remedy. Here you have one of the million examples of that religion of policy that has abounded in all lands and times. In every page in history, nay, in every scene of life, we find religion taken up as a means to an end, rather than as the grand end of being.
IV. The theistic hunger of souls. All these men, both the colonists and the Israelites, would have their gods; a god seemed to them as necessary almost as their life. (David Thomas, D. D.)
Christians condemned by men of the world
The King of Assyria intended here is not Shalmaneser or Esar-haddon, as is generally supposed, but Sargon. It is not doubted that Esar-haddon sent colonists into the country, from whom the new Samaritans were, at least in part, descended. It is believed that there was a previous colonisation by the conqueror of the country. We must regard these men as strangers; and so regarding them, their judgment upon the religious condition of the people is the more remarkable. They noticed, for example, that at the beginning of their dwelling in the country, the people feared not the Lord. It should be a rule with us in life to know that even those who do not share our own religious sentiments may yet be observing how those sentiments affect our personal conduct. Probably there is hardly a deeper humiliation than that the people of God, at least nominally so regarded, should have been judged as impious by men who came from a far-off land and who professed only a heathenish religion. It is noticeable that one of the very first things observed by the Assyrians was that the people were not faithful to their religion. There is evidently something deeper than a mere form of religious faith; otherwise the Assyrians could not have noticed a discrepancy between doctrine and practice; the nominal people of God had so far descended into corruption and licentiousness as to care absolutely nothing for the opinion of heathen critics. Their piety had been displaced not only by impiety, as representing a negative condition of mind, but by absolute contempt and defiance. It is not to be supposed because our life-work lies amongst men who do not profess religion, that therefore we can afford to dispense with our own religion and not incur the disapprobation of observers. There is an honesty even apart from spiritual religion; that is to say, there is a spirit in man which instinctively revolts at inconsistency, treachery, and all forms of practical lying in reference to high religious obligations. This should be noticed by men who enjoy spiritual emoluments and advantages which they have not earned by merit or by honest labour. All kinds of religious promotion should be jealously regarded as being under the criticism of men of the world. We might so far become victims of infatuation as to suppose that men of the world would rather applaud us for so using ecclesiastical position and privilege as to consolidate our financial and social position. Men of the world, however, do nothing of the kind; although they do not profess to be pious, they yet have clear ideas as to honesty and integrity. To be condemned by men of the world for want of faithfulness to our religious convictions is one of the severest judgments which can befall our religious life. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v24 2Ki_17:24. King of Assyria brought men from Babylon, &c.—Had…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2Ki_17:24. King of Assyria brought men from Babylon, &c.—Had the land been depopulated there would have seemed promise of the exiles’ return; but under the royal direction Assyrian subjects came in and possessed the sacred soil, making it the home of foreigners. This king, called here מֶלֶך אַשּׁוּר is regarded by many expositors as Esarhaddon; but a doubt naturally springs from the fact that Esarhaddon did not come to the throne for some twenty-six years after Shalmanezer, who carried Israel into captivity. From Ezr_4:2 we gain information that Esarhaddon brought these colonists into Samaria.
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2Ki_17:27. Carry thither one of the priests The country was too thinly populated to subdue the growth of those beasts of prey by which the land had been infested prior to its occupancy by Israel (Jdg_14:5; 1Sa_17:34, &c.); now they again multiplied and ravaged the country. Interpreting this as a judgment from God for the neglect of His worship, an exiled priest was sent back to the people to teach them Jehovah’s will. And from this event arose that mingled religion which became distinctive of the Samaritans; also the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, which acquired such historic importance.
2Ki_17:30. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth—“Booths of the daughters,” i.e., tents of voluptuousness, where lust was sanctioned as a religious observance. Nergal—Identified in the British Museum inscriptions as Mars, the god of war. Ashima—a goat idol. Nibhaz—a dog. Tartak—an ass, or planet of ill omen. Adrammelech—Either Moloch the Assyrian sun-god; or, as others think, a mule or a peacock. Anammelech—An idol in form of a hare. Thus the Samaritans became a people of varied religious forms and vagaries, the true worship and knowledge of God being perverted by the rival heathenish fallacies and rites which the immigrants of Babylon had brought into the land. So even though Jehovah was in some way “feared” (2Ki_17:32), idolatry was fostered, and they “served their graven images” through generations following (2Ki_17:41).—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 2Ki_17:24-41
RELIGIOUS COMPROMISE
I. That religious compromise is the offspring of human fear (2Ki_17:24-28). The incursion and ravages of the lions and wild beasts that multiplied so rapidly in the Jordan Valley and the forests of Samaria filled the now scattered inhabitants with dread. Regarding their sufferings as an indication of the anger of some local deity, they were anxious to be instructed in “the manner of the god of the land.” Thus it came to pass that Jehovah was worshipped as one of many other deities. Fear—fear of consequences, fear of offending, fear of suffering—leads to the most calamitous compromises. “In morals,” says a certain writer, “what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.”
II. That religious compromise is ever productive of error and confusion (2Ki_17:29-34). What a curious and pitiable jumble of creeds and deities we have here! It is an illustration of what must happen when man is left to himself. The key-note of the paragraph is 2Ki_17:33—“They feared the Lord and served their own gods.” They sought to accomplish the impossible—to blend what can never be united, as there are certain metals that can never weld together, and certain fluids that can never coalesce. One part of the day the worshipper enters the temple of Jehovah, and at another part the temple of Succoth-Benoth. So confused and mixed a cultus could not but produce serious misconceptions of religion in the minds of both old and young. The haphazard mixture of glaring colours in the pattern offends the eye and vitiates the taste.
III. That religions compromise creates a class of inferior and incompetent teachers. “They made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests” (2Ki_17:32). There is in the sinful human heart that which responds too readily to what is broad and vague in religious thought. Eccentricity of religious opinion has many imitators. It is an easy matter to procure teachers—and sometimes men gifted with no mean intellectual ability—who are willing to teach what is agreeable to believe and pleasant to practise. A false system of religion never lacks advocates, such as they are.
The sweet words
Of Christian promise, words that even yet
Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,
Are muttered o’er by men, whose tones proclaim
How flat and wearisome they feel their trade:
Bank scoffers some, but most too indolent
To redeem their falsehoods, or to know their truth.
Coleridge.
IV. That the claims of true religion admit of no compromise (2Ki_17:35-41). In these verses the writer rehearses the terms of the covenant between Jehovah and His people, and shows that nothing short of full submission and obedience could be acceptable to God. Religion is a necessity of the soul. “The ivy cannot grow alone; it must twine around some support or other; if not the goodly oak, then the ragged thorn; round any dead stick whatever, rather than have no stay or support at all. It is even so with the heart and affections of man; if they do not twine around God, they must twine around some meaner thing.” True religion demands the absolute surrender of the whole man to God. When he begins to hesitate, to palter, to compromise, he begins to drift away from God. The Divine claims become an irksome bondage. He seeks to snap one fetter of obligation after another; but when he has snapped the last fetter, as he thinks—a belief in a personal God—he has still himself left. Which is preferable—the golden fetters of a righteous and impartial Ruler, or the tyranny of a Frankenstein monster, generated from the dreary swamps of a perverted self? It is dangerous to trifle with the absolute claims of true religion.
LESSONS:—
1. Compromise may be useful in settling external difficulties, but is inadmissible when it touches vital principles.
2. The man who compromises religious principle, loses caste with those to whom he yields, and loses strength in himself.
3. The claims of Jehovah should be reverently recognised and faithfully observed.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ki_17:24-28. The religion of fear.
1. To be carefully distinguished from a spirit of reverential awe.
2. Is based on a natural dread of suffering and calamity (2Ki_17:25).
3. Will pay court to any deity who promises protection and safety (2Ki_17:26).
4. Readily listens to any teacher who professes to know anything about the deity who is dreaded (2Ki_17:27-28).
2Ki_17:25. Not the veriest Pagan can be excused for his ignorance of God. Even the most depraved nature might teach us to tremble at a Deity. The brute creatures are sent to revenge the quarrel of their Maker. Still hath God left himself champions in Israel. Lions tear the Assyrians in pieces, and put them in mind that, had it not been for wickedness, the land needed not to have changed masters. The great Lord of the world cannot want means to plague offenders. There is no security but in being at peace with God.—Bp. Hall.
2Ki_17:26. These blind heathens that think every land hath a several god, yet hold that god worthy of worship; yet hold that worship must be grounded upon knowledge, the want of that knowledge punishable, the punishment of that want just and divine. How much worse than Assyrians are they who are ready to ascribe all calamities to nature, to chance!—who, acknowledging but one God, are yet careless to know and serve Him!—Ibid.
2Ki_17:29-33. Polytheism.
1. Bewilders the worshipper by the multiplicity of gods (2Ki_17:29-31).
2. Is not scrupulous as to the character of its priests (2Ki_17:32).
3. Makes no distinction between the only true God and false deities (2Ki_17:33).
4. Can never meet the deepest needs of man’s nature.
—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 imaginatons, 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 anything 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.—Lange.
—What a prodigious mixture was here of religions—true with false, Jewish with Pagan, divine with devilish! Every division of these transplanted Assyrians had their several deities, high places, sacrifices. No beggar’s coat is more pieced than the religion of these inhabitants of Israel. I know not how their bodies sped for the lions; I am sure their souls fared the worse for this medley. Above all things God hates a mongrel devotion. If we be not all Israel, it were better to be all Ashur. It cannot so much displease God to be unknown or neglected, as to be consorted with idols.—Bp. Hall.
2Ki_17:34-41. The sin of disobedience.
1. All the more grievous when it is the violation of solemn covenant.
2. When committed against a Being who has wrought out great deliverances and bestowed signal blessing.
3. When it is a breach of the plainest and oft-repeated commandments.
4. When it is perpetuated generation after generation.
5. Is an occasion of sorrowful regret to every lover of the Divine law.
2Ki_17:34. Rightly they fear him not, because neither truly nor totally. Their religion was galimfrey, a mixture of true and false, which is as good as none; for God will not part stakes with the devil at any hand. Such a religion is a mere irreligion, because—
1. Contrary to God’s law which rejects heathen rites (2Ki_17:34; 2Ki_17:36-38; 2Ki_17:40).
2. Contrary to God’s covenant, which heathens have nothing to do with (2Ki_17:33; 2Ki_17:38).—Trapp.
—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 conditions of true national unity. The existence of different creeds and professions 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.—Lange.
2Ki_17:41. Mongrel religion. This base union of fearing God and serving other gods is by no means obsolete. From generation to generation there have been mongrel religionists who have tried to please both God and the devil, and have been on both sides, or on either side, as their interest led them. Some of these wretched blunderers are always hovering around every congregation.
I. The nature of this mongrel religion.
1. These people were not infidels. Far from it. “They feared the Lord.” They did not deny the existence, or the power, or the rights of the great God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah. They had faith, though only enough to produce fear. It was better to dread God than to despise Him; better slavishly to fear than stupidly to forget.
2. They were willing to be taught. The man sent to teach them was a Bethelite, one who worshipped God under the symbol of an ox, which the Scripture calls a calf. He was a very slight improvement upon a heathen; but we must be glad even of small mercies.
3. They were willing to learn, yet they stuck to their old gods. Thus this mingle-mangle religion left the people practically where they were: whatever their fear might be, their customs and practices remained the same. Have you never met with persons of the same mongrel kind? They take delight in divine services, and yet are much at home with the God of this world. Some worship a deity as horrible as Moloch, whose name in the olden time was Bacchus—the god of the wine cup and the beer barrel. There are others who adore the goddess Venus, the queen of lust and uncleanness. Too often the god is Mammon, who is as degraded a deity as any of them.
II. The manner of the growth of this mongrel religion.
1. These people came to live where the people of God had lived. If the Sepharvites had stopped at Sepharvaim they would never have thought of fearing Jehovah; if the men of Babylon had continued to live in Babylon they would have been perfectly satisfied with Bel, or Succoth-Benoth. But when they were brought into Canaan they came under a different order of things. God would not allow them to go the whole length of idolatry in His land. It sometimes happens to utter worldlings that they are dropped into the midst of Christian people. A kind of fashion is set by the professors among whom they dwell, and they fall into it.
2. The Lord sent lions among them. Affliction is a wild beast by which God teaches men who act like wild beasts. This is the growth of mongrelists. First, they are among godly people, and they must, therefore, go a little that way; and next, they are afflicted, and they must now go further still. They argue that if the ills they feel do not reform them, they may expect worse. If God begins with lions, what will come next?
3. Notice that the root of this religion is fear. Their hearts go after their idols, but to Jehovah they yield nothing but dread. If sin were not followed with inconvenient consequences they would live in it as their element, as fishes swim in the sea. They are only kept under by the hangman’s whip or the jailer’s keys. They dread God, and this is but a gentler form of hating him.
4. They had a trimming teacher. The king of Assyria sent them a priest: he could not have sent them a prophet, but that was what they really wanted. He sent them a Bethelite, not a genuine servant of Jehovah, but one who worships, God by means of symbols; and this the Lord had expressly forbidden. I know of no surer way of a people’s perishing than by being led by one who does not speak out straight, and honestly denounce evil. If the preacher trims and twists to please all parties, can you expect his people to be honest? Those who are afraid to rebuke sin, or to probe the conscience, will have much to answer for.
III. The value of this mongrel religion.
1. It must evidently be feeble on both sides, because the man who serves Succoth-Benoth cannot do it thoroughly if all the while he fears Jehovah; and he who fears Jehovah cannot be sincere if he is worshipping Moloch. The one sucks out the life of the other. The man is lame on both feet, impotent in both directions. He is like the salt which has lost its savour, neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill.
2. It looked like an improvement. It had a look in the right direction. They feared the Lord only in a certain sense, but inasmuch as they also served other gods, it came to this, when summed up, that they did not fear God at all. The man who is religious and also immoral, to put it short, is irreligious. The value of this mixture is less than nothing. It is sin with a little varnish upon it. It is enmity to God with a brilliant colouring of formality.
3. These Samaritans in after years became the bitterest foes of God’s people. Read the Book of Nehemiah, and you will see that the most bitter opponents of that godly man were these mongrels. Their fear of God was such that they wanted to join with the Jews in building the Temple, and when they found that the Jews would not have them, they became their fiercest foes. No people do so much hurt as those who are like Jack-o’-both-sides. The mischief does not begin with the people of God, but with those who are with them, but not of them. As the clinging ivy will eat out the life of a tree around which it climbs, so will these impostors devour the church if they be left to their own devices.
4. How provoking this adulterated religion must be to God. It is even provoking to God’s ministers to be pestered with men whose hypocrisies weaken the force of his testimony. How provoking must it be to God Himself! True religion suffers for their falsehood.
IV. The continuance of this evil. “As did their fathers, so do they, unto this day.” I am almost obliged to believe in the final perseverance of hypocrites; for, really, when a man once screws himself up to play the double, and both to fear God and serve other gods, he is very apt to stick there. On the anvil of a false profession, Satan hammers out the most hardened of hard hearts.
V. The cure of this dreadful evil of mongrelism. He who in any way tries to serve God and His enemies, is a traitor to God. Suppose God were to treat us after the same double fashion; suppose he smiled to-day and cursed to-morrow. You want one course of conduct from God—mercy, tenderness, gentleness, forgiveness; but if you play fast and loose with Him, what is this but mocking Him? O thou great Father of our spirits, if we poor prodigals return to thee, shall we come driving all the swine in front of us, and bringing all the harlots and citizens of the far country at our heels, and introduce ourselves to thee by saying, “Father, we have sinned, and have come home to be forgiven,” and to go on sinning? It were infernal; I can say no less. Lastly, what shall I say of the Holy Spirit? If He does not dwell in our hearts we are lost; there is no hope for us unless He rules within us. None can hang between spiritual death and spiritual life, so as to be partly in one and partly in the other. Be one thing or the other.—C. H. Spurgeon.
—In time the idolatrous dross got purged out, and eventually the Samaritan system of belief and practice became as pure as that of the Jews, though less exact in some of its observances. In some respects it may have been purer, as the Samaritans would have nothing to do with the mass of oral traditions with which, before the birth of Christ, the Jewish system became disfigured and overladen.—Kitto.
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.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v33 2 Kings
2 Kings
DIVIDED WORSHIP
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2Ki 17:33.
The kingdom of Israel had come to its fated end. Its king and people had been carried away captives in accordance with the cruel policy of the great Eastern despotisms, which had so much to do with weakening them by their very conquests. The land had lain desolate and uncultivated for many years, savage beasts had increased in the untilled solitudes, even as weeds and nettles grew in the gardens and vineyards of Samaria. At last the king of Assyria resolved to people the country; and for this purpose he sent a mixed multitude from the different nationalities of his empire to the land of Israel. They were men of five nationalities, most of them recently conquered. Israel had been deported to different parts of the Assyrian empire; men from different parts of the empire were deported to the land of Israel. Such cruel uprootings seemed to be wisdom, but were really a policy that kept alive disaffection. It was the same mistake {and bore the same fruits} as Austria pursued in sending Hungarian regiments to keep down Venice, and Venetian-born soldiers to overawe Hungary.
These new settlers brought with them their national peculiarities, and among the rest, their gods. They knew nothing about the Jehovah whom they supposed to be the local deity of Israel; and when they were troubled by the wild beasts which had, of course, rapidly increased in the land, they attributed it to their neglect of His worship, and sent an embassy to the king of Assyria telling that as they ‘know not the manners of the God of the land,’ He has sent lions among them.
This is an instructive example of the heathen way of thinking. They have their local deities. Each land, each valley, each mountain top, has its own. They are ready to worship them all, for they have no real worship for any. Their reason for worship is to escape from harm, to pay the tribute to which the god has a right on his own territory, lest he should make it the worse for them if they neglect it. ‘The mild tolerance of heathendom’ simply means the utter absence of religion and an altogether inadequate notion of deity.
So the settlers have sent to them one of these schismatic priests who had belonged to the extinct sanctuary at Beth-el, and he, apparently, not having any truer notions of God or of worship than they had, nothing loth, teaches them the rites of the Israelite worship, which was not like that of Judah, as is distinctly stated in the context. This worship of Jehovah was, however, blended by them with their own national idolatry. How contemptuously the historian enumerates the hard names of their gods and the rabble rout of them which each nation made! ‘The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth’ {probably a deity, though the name may mean booths for purposes of prostitution} and the others ‘made Nergal and Ashima and Nibhaz and Tartak.’ What names, and what a pantheon! ‘They feared the Lord and served their own gods.’
This was the beginning of the Samaritan people, whom we find through the rest of Scripture even down to the Acts of the Apostles, retaining some trace of their heathen origin. Simon Magus bewitched them in his sorceries. They began as heathen, though in lapse of years they came to be pure monotheists, even more rigid than the Jews themselves, and today, if you went to Nablus, you would find the small remnant of their descendants adhering to Moses and the law, guarding their sacred copy of the Pentateuch with unintelligent awe, and eating the Paschal Lamb with wild rites. They have changed the object of their worship, but one fears that it is little more real and deep than in old days, 2500 years ago, when their forefathers ‘feared the Lord and served their own gods.’
Now I venture to take this verse as indicative of a tendency which belongs to a great many more people than the confused mass of settlers that were shot down on the hills of Israel by the king of Assyria. It is really a description of a great deal of what goes by the name of religion amongst us.
I. The Religion of Fear.
These people would never have thought about God if it had not been for the lions. When they did think of Him it was only to tremble before Him. The reason for their trembling was that they did not know the etiquette of His worship; that they thought of Him as having rights over them because they had come into His territory, which He would exact, or punish them for omitting. In a word, their notion of God was that of a jealous, capricious tyrant, whose ways were inscrutable to them, in whose territory they found themselves without their will, and who needed to be propitiated if they would live in peace.
And this is the thought which is most operative in many minds, though it is veiled in more seemly phrases, and which darkens and injures all those on whom it lays hold. Need I spend time in showing you how, point by point, this picture is a picture of many among us? How many of you think of God when you are ill, and forget Him when you are well? How many of you pour out a prayer when you are in trouble, and forget all about Him and it when you are prosperous? How many of you see God in your calamities and not in your joys? Why do people call sudden deaths and the like the ‘visitation of God’? How many of us are like Italian sailors who burn candles and shriek out to the Madonna when the storm catches them, and get drunk in the first wine-shop which they come to when they land! Is not many a man’s thought of God, ‘I knew Thee that Thou wert an austere Man, and I was afraid’?
The popular religion is largely a religion of fear.
There is a fear which is right and noble. That is reverend, humble adoration at the sight or thought of God’s great perfections. Angels veil their faces with their wings. Such awe has no thought of personal consequences-is inseparable from all true knowledge of God; for all greatness of character is perfected by love. Of such fear we are not now speaking.
Terror of God is deep in men’s hearts.
Fear is the apprehension of personal evil from some person or thing. Now I believe that terror has its place in the human economy, and in religion, as the sense of pain has. There is something in man’s relations to God to cause it.
The Bible sets forth ‘the terror of the Lord,’ that men may tremble before Him. Moses said, ‘I exceedingly fear and quake.’ But that terror is only right when it proceeds from a sense of God’s holiness and a consciousness of my own sinfulness. It is not right when it is a mere dread of a hard tyrant. That terror is only right when it leads to a joyful acceptance of God’s revelation of His love in Christ.
Fear was never meant to be permanent, it is only the alarum-bell which rings to wake up the soul that sleeps on when in mortal peril. And it should pass into penitence, faith, joy in Jesus. ‘We have access with confidence by the faith of Him.’ The brightness is great and awful, but go nearer, as you can in Jesus, and lo! there is love in the brightness. You see it all tender and sweet. A heart and a hand are there, and from the midst of it the Father’s voice speaks, and says, ‘My son, give Me thine heart.’
The religion of fear is worthless. It produces no holiness, it does nothing for a man, it does not bind him to God. He is none the stronger for it. It paralyses so far as it does anything.
It is spasmodic and intermittent. It is impossible to keep it up, so it comes in fits and starts. When the morning comes men laugh at their terrors. It leads to wild endeavours to forget God-atheism-to insensibility. He who begins by fearing when there was no need, ends by not fearing when he ought.
II. The Religion of Form.
The Samaritans’ whole worship was outward worship. They did the things which the Beth-el priest taught them to do, and that was all.
And this again is a type, very common in our day. Religion must have forms. The forms often help to bring us the spirit. But we are always in danger of trusting to them too much.
How many of us have our Christianity only in outward seeming? The only thing that unites men to God is love.
So your external connection with God’s worship is of no use at all unless you have that.
Church and chapel-goers are alike exposed to the danger of erecting the forms of worship to a place in which they cannot be put without marring the spirit of worship. Whether our worship be more or less symbolic, whether we have a more or less elaborate ritual, whether we think more or less of sacraments, whether we put hearing a sermon as more or less prominent, or even if we follow the formless forms of the Friends, we are all tempted to substitute our forms for the spirit which alone is worship.
III. The Religion of Compromise or Worldliness.
They had God and they had gods. They liked the latter best. They gave God formal worship, but they gave the others more active service.
Such a kind of religion is a type of much that we see around us; the attempt to be Christians and worldlings, the indecision under which many men labour all their lives, being drawn one way by their consciences, another by their inclinations.
You cannot unite the two. God requires all. He fills the heart, and claims supreme control over all the nature. There cannot be two supreme in the soul. It cannot be God and self. It must be God or self. You may look now one way and now another, but the way the heart goes is the thing. Mr. Facing-both-ways does not really face both ways. He only turns quickly round from one to the other.
Such divided religion is impossible in the nature of God-of the soul-of religion.
To attempt it, then, is really to decide against God.
It is weak and unmanly to be thus vague and decided by circumstances. You would have been a Mohammedan if you had been born in Turkey.
You ought to decide for God.
He claims, He deserves, He will reward and bless, your whole soul.
‘Choose you this day whom ye will serve. If the Lord be God, follow Him’ If Baal or Succoth-benoth, then follow him. ‘You cannot serve God and Mammon.’ ‘He that is not for us is against us.’ Be one thing or the other.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv33, 36, 39, 41 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
feared
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v24 The Origin of the Samaritans
The Origin of the Samaritans
v. 24. And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sephar-vaim, colonists from all these cities, districts, and provinces to the north and east, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel, the great majority of whom had been taken away and never saw the land of their birth again; and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.
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v. 25. And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there that they feared not the Lord, there was no worship of Jehovah in the land; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which had had a chance to multiply during the time that the country lay waste, which slew some of them.
v. 26. Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, sending him a special message, saying, The nations which thou hast removed and placed in the cities of Samaria know not the manner of the God of the land, for they believed that each country had its own god; therefore He hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land, had no idea of the religious customs and worship which He desired.
v. 27. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence, one of those addicted to calf-worship, and let them go and dwell there, that is, the colonists, who were not to leave the country, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.
v. 28. Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, one of the former centers of calf-worship, and taught them how they should fear the Lord. It was, indeed, only a very meager and insufficient instruction, because the man himself possessed only an incomplete knowledge of Jehovah. Therefore a strange mixture of religions resulted.
v. 29. Howbeit, every nation made gods of their own, retaining their old idols, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, in the old places of worship, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt; since they lived in communities according to the countries from which they came, they retained their ancient worship beside that of Jehovah. The religion of Samaria therefore became a monstrosity, as the further description shows.
v. 30. And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the goddess of victories and also of fertility, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, the god of battles, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, a very repulsive god under the picture of a goat,
v. 31. and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, the former in the shape of a dog, the latter in that of a donkey, and the Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim, idols like the Moloch of the southeastern nations.
v. 32. So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them, from the mass of the people, without regard to Levitical extraction, priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.
v. 33. They feared the Lord, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. It was a hybrid religion of the most abominable kind, which has left its impress on the people of that country to this day.
v. 34. Unto this day they do after their former manners; they fear not the Lord, for it is impossible for true reverence and devotion to exist under such conditions, 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,
v. 35. with whom the Lord had made a covenant, and charged them, in the assembly at Mount Sinai and through Moses, His servant, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them;
v. 36. but 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, Deu 10:20.
v. 37. And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the Law, and the commandment which He wrote for you ye shall observe to do forevermore; and ye shall not fear other gods.
v. 38. And the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget, Deu 4:23;neither shall ye fear other gods.
v. 39. But the Lord, your God, ye shall fear; and He shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.
v. 40. Howbeit, they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner, they continued the worship introduced by Jeroboam.
v. 41. So these nations, the inhabitants of Samaria,feared the Lord, they knew of Him and were afraid of Him as a mighty God, and served their graven images, to those they gave their faith and worship, both their children and their children’s children; as did their fathers, so do they unto this day. Although the Samaritans, after the Jewish exile, discontinued the actual gross service of idols, they remain in their blindness and darkness to this day, accepting only the five Books of Moses as the Word of God and rejecting Jesus as the Messiah. They are nearer the true religion than the heathen, but the knowledge which they possess is not the saving knowledge. There is only one way to heaven—through the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior.
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 On vv24, 27, 29, 32, 34, 36, 39 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh's judgment continues against the new Assyrian inhabitants who practice their pagan religions.
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Kuthah ... Avva ... Hamath ... Sepharvaim
These are places in the Assyrian empire. (See: How to Translate Names)
It happened at the beginning of their residence there that
"When those people first lived there"
The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria
"The people you have moved from other lands and sent to live in the cities of Samaria"
do not know the practices required by the god of the land
"do not know how to worship the God that the Israelites worshiped in this land"
translationWords
Babylon
Hamath
Samaria
kingdom of Israel
honor
lions
nation
false god
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 On vv24, 26, 32, 35, 40 17:24-41 The writer appends information concerning later events in…
17:24-41 The writer appends information concerning later events in Israel, including the repopulation of the land with foreigners and the syncretistic worship that developed among the mixed population.
17:24 Not only were the Israelites exiled to other places held by the Assyrians (17:6), but groups of people were sent to settle in Israel. By mixing diverse peoples, the Assyrians hoped to have better control of the resulting population and transfer their loyalties to Assyria. • Samaria became the official name of the new Assyrian province.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.