Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute. The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against Yahweh their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city; and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill, and under every green tree; and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger; and they served idols, of which Yahweh had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in Yahweh their God. They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them. They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal. They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger. Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight. For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following Yahweh, and made them sin a great sin. The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.
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2 Kings 17:3-23 sits inside this longer paragraph.
In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel for nine years. He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute. The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against Yahweh their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city; and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill, and under every green tree; and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger; and they served idols, of which Yahweh had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in Yahweh their God. They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them. They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal. They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger. Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only. Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight. For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following Yahweh, and made them sin a great sin. The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.
Parallel Translations
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Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute.
The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison.
Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made.
The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against Yahweh their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city;
and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill, and under every green tree;
and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger;
and they served idols, of which Yahweh had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”
Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in Yahweh their God.
They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.
They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal.
They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight.
For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following Yahweh, and made them sin a great sin.
The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them
until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.
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Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents.
And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.
Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:
And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:
For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.
Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God.
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.
And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.
And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.
And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.
For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin.
For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them;
Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
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Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him presents.
And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.
Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away unto Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
And it was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they practised;
and the children of Israel did impute things that were not right unto the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city;
and they set them up pillars and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every leafy tree;
and there they offered in all the high places, as did the nations whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD;
and they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them: 'Ye shall not do this thing';
yet the LORD forewarned Israel, and Judah, by the hand of every prophet, and of every seer, saying: 'Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by the hand of My servants the prophets';
notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their neck, like to the neck of their fathers, who believed not in the LORD their God;
and they rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies wherewith He testified against them; and they went after things of nought, and became nought, and after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them that they should not do like them;
and they forsook all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal;
and they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and gave themselves over to do that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him;
that the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they practised.
And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight.
For He rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drew Israel away from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin.
And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them;
until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He spoke by the hand of all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria, unto this day.
Cross-references (300)
- Deuteronomy 12:30-31 (vv8, 15) be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you not inquire after their gods,…
- 1 Kings 14:23 (vv10, 16) For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
- 2 Kings 21:6 (vv11, 17) He made his son to pass through the fire, practiced sorcery, used enchantments, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with…
- 2 Kings 16:3 (vv8, 17, 19) But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yes, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the…
- Hosea 13:16 (vv5–6) Samaria will bear her guilt; for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces, and…
Show all 100 cross-references
- Deuteronomy 32:21 (v15) They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy…
- 2 Kings 17:6 (v23) In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the…
- Micah 5:14 (v10) I will uproot your Asherah poles out from among you; and I will destroy your cities.
- 1 Kings 12:28 (vv8, 16) So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold…
- 2 Kings 15:29 (vv3, 20) In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead,…
- Exodus 34:13 (v10) but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherah poles;
- Leviticus 18:3 (v8) You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived. You shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing…
- Deuteronomy 18:9 (v8) When you have come into the land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations.
- Deuteronomy 18:10-12 (v17) There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who tells…
- Deuteronomy 28:64 (v6) Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which…
- 1 Samuel 9:9 (v13) (In earlier times in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, “Come! Let’s go to the seer;” for he who is now called a prophet…
- 1 Kings 11:11 (v21) Therefore Yahweh said to Solomon, “Because this is done by you, and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded…
- 1 Kings 11:13 (v18) However I will not tear away all the kingdom; but I will give one tribe to your son, for David my servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake…
- 1 Kings 12:20 (v18) When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the congregation, and made him king over all Israel. There…
- 1 Kings 14:15 (v16) For Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their…
- 1 Kings 16:31 (v16) As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal…
- 1 Kings 21:20 (v17) Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do that which is evil…
- 2 Kings 16:4 (v10) He sacrificed and burned incense in the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
- 2 Kings 17:13 (v23) Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments…
- 2 Kings 18:8 (v9) He struck the Philistines to Gaza and its borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city.
- 1 Chronicles 5:26 (v6) So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them…
- Jeremiah 2:5 (v15) Yahweh says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity,…
- Jeremiah 35:15 (v13) I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, ‘Every one of you must return now from his…
- Ezekiel 23:37 (v17) For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have also caused their…
- Hosea 10:14 (v3) Therefore a battle roar will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day…
- Romans 1:21-23 (v15) Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart…
- Joshua 23:16 (vv7, 13) when you disobey the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them.…
- Amos 5:27 (vv6, 23) Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says Yahweh, whose name is the God of Armies.
- Exodus 24:6-8 (v15) Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. He took the book of the covenant and…
- Leviticus 26:32-33 (v6) I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations,…
- Deuteronomy 4:19 (v16) and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn…
- Deuteronomy 28:36 (v6) Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There…
- Deuteronomy 29:27-28 (v6) Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book. Yahweh rooted them out of…
- Deuteronomy 32:21-26 (v18) They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy…
- 1 Kings 11:31 (v21) He said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon,…
- 1 Kings 11:32 (v18) (but he shall have one tribe, for my servant David’s sake and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of…
- 1 Kings 11:36 (v18) I will give one tribe to his son, that David my servant may have a lamp always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for…
- 1 Kings 14:22-23 (v19) Judah did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that…
- 1 Kings 16:13 (v15) for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and with which they made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the…
- 2 Kings 18:10-11 (v6) At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was…
- Psalms 106:37-38 (v17) Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their…
- Psalms 115:8 (v15) Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.
- Isaiah 13:17 (v6) Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it.
- Isaiah 21:2 (v6) A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have…
- Jeremiah 8:9 (v15) The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?
- Jeremiah 18:11 (v13) “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I frame evil against you,…
- Hosea 11:12 (v18) Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood, and the house of Israel with deceit. Judah still strays from God, and is unfaithful to the Holy One.
- Micah 5:12 (v17) I will destroy witchcraft from your hand; and you shall have no soothsayers.
- 1 Kings 14:16 (vv21, 23) He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin.”
- 2 Chronicles 36:15-16 (vv13, 15) Yahweh, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because he had compassion on his people, and…
- Nehemiah 9:26 (vv7, 15) “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against…
- Nehemiah 9:29-30 (vv13, 15) and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they were arrogant, and didn’t listen to your commandments,…
- Jeremiah 3:8-11 (vv13, 19) I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce,…
- Exodus 20:2 (v7) “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
- Leviticus 18:21 (v17) “ ‘You shall not give any of your children as a sacrifice to Molech. You shall not profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh.
- Leviticus 19:26 (v17) “ ‘You shall not eat any meat with the blood still in it. You shall not use enchantments, nor practice sorcery.
- Leviticus 26:38 (v6) You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.
- Deuteronomy 4:25-28 (v6) When you shall father children and children’s children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a…
- Deuteronomy 6:17-18 (v15) You shall diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he has commanded you. You shall…
- Deuteronomy 12:2-3 (v10) You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the…
- Deuteronomy 16:21 (v10) You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves.
- Deuteronomy 29:10-15 (v15) All of you stand today in the presence of Yahweh your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of…
- Deuteronomy 29:25-26 (v15) Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them…
- Deuteronomy 30:18 (v6) I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to…
- Deuteronomy 31:21 (v13) It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a witness; for it will not be…
- Deuteronomy 31:27 (v14) For I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. Behold, while I am yet alive with you today, you have been rebellious against Yahweh. How…
- Deuteronomy 32:31 (v15) For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves concede.
- Judges 2:14-17 (v7) Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of…
- 1 Samuel 12:21 (v15) Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain.
- 1 Kings 12:28-30 (v21) So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold…
- 1 Kings 14:15-16 (v6) For Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their…
- 1 Kings 15:13 (v16) He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah. Asa cut down her image and…
- 1 Kings 16:33 (v16) Ahab made the Asherah; and Ahab did more yet to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before…
- 1 Kings 21:25 (v17) But there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
- 1 Kings 22:53 (v16) He served Baal and worshiped him, and provoked Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger in all the ways that his father had done so.
- 2 Kings 11:18 (v16) All the people of the land went to the house of Baal, and broke it down. They broke his altars and his images in pieces thoroughly, and…
- 2 Kings 13:3 (v20) Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of…
- 2 Kings 17:8 (v15) and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they…
- 2 Kings 17:11-12 (v15) and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them did; and they did wicked things…
- 2 Kings 17:20 (v23) Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of…
- 2 Kings 18:11-12 (v23) The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the…
- 2 Kings 21:3 (v16) For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab…
- 2 Kings 23:27 (v18) Yahweh said, “I will also remove Judah out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, even…
- 2 Chronicles 21:11 (v19) Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem play the prostitute, and led Judah astray.
- 2 Chronicles 21:13 (v19) but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the prostitute like Ahab’s…
- 2 Chronicles 33:2 (v15) He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 33:9 (v15) Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than did the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the…
- Psalms 106:35-41 (v7) but mixed themselves with the nations, and learned their works. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. Yes, they sacrificed…
- Isaiah 7:17 (v21) Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from…
- Isaiah 57:5 (v10) you who inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?
- Jeremiah 6:30 (v20) Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them.”
- Jeremiah 10:5 (v7) They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for…
- Jeremiah 10:8 (v15) But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.
- Jeremiah 10:15 (v15) They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.
- Jeremiah 31:32 (v15) not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of…
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23 For he had paid tribute for the space of…
For he had paid tribute for the space of eight years.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv3–23 2Ki 17:3 Against him came up Shalmaneser king of…
2Ki 17:3 Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents.
Ver. 3. Against him came up Shalmaneser.] Son to Tiglathpileser, and father to Sennacherib; not the same with Sennacherib, as Eusebius maketh him. Under this Shalmaneser Tobias was carried captive, and he seemeth to be the same with that Shalman {Hos 10:14} who "spoiled Betharbel" - famous afterwards for the overthrow of Darius there - "in the day of battle; the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children."
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 vv3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 Shalmaneser; the son or successor of Tiglath-pileser. The ancient…
Shalmaneser; the son or successor of Tiglath-pileser. The ancient Hebrew writers make him the same with Sennacherib, who eight years after this time invaded the kingdom of Judah; see 2Ki 18:10,13; it being very frequent in the eastern parts for one man to be called by several names, especially by the people of several countries. Josephus affirms that he met with his name in the Annals of the Tyrians, which were extant in his days. He came against him, either because he denied the tribute which he had promised to pay, or that he might make him tributary.
Gave him presents; swore fealty to him, and engaged to pay him a tribute.
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 v7 Though the destruction of the kingdom of the ten…
Though the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes was but briefly related, it is in these verses largely commented upon by our historian, and the reasons of it assigned, not taken from the second causes - the weakness of Israel, their impolitic management, and the strength and growing greatness of the Assyrian monarch (these things are overlooked) - but only from the First Cause. Observe, 1. It was the Lord that removed Israel out of his sight; whoever were the instruments, he was the author of this calamity. It was destruction from the Almighty; the Assyrian was but the rod of his anger, Isa 10:5. It was the Lord that rejected the seed of Israel, else their enemies could not have seized upon them, Kg2 17:20. Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord? Isa 43:24. We lose the benefit of national judgments if we do not eye the hand of God in them, and the fulfilling of the scripture, for that also is taken notice of here (Kg2 17:23): The Lord removed Israel out of his favour, and out of their own land, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. Rather shall heaven and earth pass than one tittle of God's word fall to the ground. When God's word and his works are compared, it will be found not only that they agree, but that they illustrate each other. But why would God ruin a people that were raised and incorporated, as Israel was, by miracles and oracles? Why would he undo that which he himself had done at so vast an expense? Was it purely an act of sovereignty? No, it was an act of necessary justice. For, 2. They provoked him to do this by their wickedness. Was it God's doing? Nay, it was their own; by their way and their doings they procured all this to themselves, and it was their own wickedness that did correct them. This the sacred historian shows here at large, that it might appear that God did them no wrong and that others might hear and fear. Come and see what it was that did all this mischief, that broke their power and laid their honour in the dust; it was sin; that, and nothing else, separated between them and God. This is here very movingly laid open as the cause of all the desolations of Israel. He here shows,
I. What God had done for Israel, to engage them to serve him. 1. He gave them their liberty (Kg2 17:7): He brought them from under the hand of Pharaoh who oppressed them, asserted their freedom (Israel is my son), and effected their freedom with a high hand. Thus they were bound in duty and gratitude to be his servants, for he had loosed their bonds; nor would he that rescued them out of the hand of the king of Egypt have contradicted himself so far as to deliver them into the hand of the king of Assyria, as he did, if they had not, by their iniquity, betrayed their liberty and sold themselves. 2. He gave them their law, and was himself their king. They were immediately under a divine regimen. They could not plead ignorance of good and evil, sin and duty, for God had particularly charged them against those very things which here he charges them with (Kg2 17:15), That they should not do like the heathen. Nor could they be in any doubt concerning their obligation to observe the laws which they are here charged with rejecting, for they were the commandments and statutes of the Lord their God (Kg2 17:13), so that no room was left to dispute whether they should keep them or no. He had not dealt so with other nations, Psa 147:19, Psa 147:20. 3. He gave them their land, for he cast out the heathen from before them (Kg2 17:8), to make room for them; and the casting out of them for their idolatries was as fair a warning as could be given to Israel not to do like them.
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II. What they had done against God, notwithstanding these engagements which he had laid upon them. 1. In general. They sinned against the Lord their God (Kg2 17:7), they did those things that were not right (Kg2 17:9), but secretly. So wedded were they to their evil practices that when they could not do them publicly, could not for shame or could not for fear, they would do them secretly - an evidence of their atheism, that they thought what was done in secret was from under the eye of God himself and would not be required. Again, they wrought wicked things in such a direct contradiction to the divine law that they seemed as if they were done on purpose to provoke the Lord to anger (Kg2 17:11), in contempt of his authority and defiance of his justice. They rejected God's statutes and his covenant (Kg2 17:15), would not be bound up either by his command or the consent they themselves had given to the covenant, but threw off the obligations of both, and therefore God justly rejected them, Kg2 17:20. See Hos 4:6. They left all the commandments of the Lord their God (Kg2 17:16), left the way, left the work, which those commandments prescribed them and directed them in. Nay, lastly, they sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, that is, they wholly addicted themselves to sin, as slaves to the service of those to whom they are sold, and, by their obstinately persisting in sin, so hardened their own hearts that at length it had become morally impossible for them to recover themselves, as one that has sold himself has put his liberty past recall. 2. In particular. Though they were guilty (no doubt) of many immoralities, and violated all the commands of the second table, yet nothing is here specified, but their idolatry. This was the sin that did most easily beset them; this was, of all sins, most provoking to God: it was the spiritual adultery that broke the marriage-covenant, and was the inlet of all other wickedness. Hence it is again and again mentioned here as the sin that ruined them. (1.) They feared other gods (Kg2 17:7), that is, worshipped them and paid their homage to them, as if they feared their displeasure. (2.) They walked in the statutes of the heathen, which were contrary to God's statutes (Kg2 17:8), did as did the heathen (Kg2 17:11), went after the heathen that were round about them (Kg2 17:15), so prostituting the honour of their peculiarity, and defeating God's design concerning them, which was that they should be distinguished from the heathen. Must those that were taught of God go to school to the heathen - those that were appropriated to God take their measures from the nations that were abandoned by him? (3.) They walked in the statutes of the idolatrous kings of Israel (Kg2 17:8), in all the sins of Jeroboam, Kg2 17:22. When their kings assumed a power to alter and add to the divine institutions they submitted to them, and thought the command of their kings would bear them out in disobedience to the command of their God. (4.) They built themselves high places in all their cities, Kg2 17:9. If in any place there was but the tower of the watchmen (a country tower that had no walls, but only a tower to shelter the watch in time of danger), or but a lodge for shepherds, it must be honoured with a high place, and that with an altar. If there was a fenced city, it must be further fortified with a high place. Having forsaken God's only place, they knew no end of high places, in which every man followed his own fancy and directed his devotion to what god he pleased. Sacred things were hereby profaned and laid common, when their altars were as heaps in the furrows of the field, Hos 12:11. (5.) They set them up images and groves - Asherim (even wooden images, so some think the term, which we translate groves, should be rendered) or Ashtaroth (so others) - directed contrary to the second commandment, Kg2 17:10. They served idols (Kg2 17:12), the works of their own hands and creatures of their own fancy, though God had warned them particularly not to do this thing. (6.) They burnt incense in all the high places, to the honour of strange gods, for it was to the dishonour of the true God, Kg2 17:11. (7.) They followed vanity. Idols are called so, because they could do neither good nor evil, but were the most insignificant things that could be; those that worshipped them were like unto them, and so they became vain and good for nothing (Kg2 17:16), vain in their devotions, which were brutish and ridiculous, and so became vain in their whole conversation. (8.) Besides the molten images, even the two calves, they worshipped all the host of heaven - the sun, moon, and stars: for it is not meant of the heavenly host of angels; they could not rise so far above sensible things as to think of them. And, withal, they served Baal, the deified heroes of the Gentiles, Kg2 17:16. (9.) They caused their children to pass through the fire, in token of their dedicating them to their idols. (10.) They used divinations and enchantments, that they might receive directions from the gods to whom they paid their devotions.
III. What means God used with them, to bring them off from their idolatries, and to how little purpose. He testified against them, showed them their sins and warned them of the fatal consequences of them by all the prophets and all the seers (for so the prophets had been formerly called), and pressed them to turn from their evil ways, Kg2 17:13. We have read of prophets, more or less, in every reign. Though they had forsaken God's family of priests, he did not leave them without a succession of prophets, who made it their business to teach them the good knowledge of the Lord, but all in vain (Kg2 17:14); they would not hear, but hardened their necks, persisted in their idolatries, and were like their fathers, that would not bow their necks to God's yoke, because they did not believe in him, did not receive his truths, nor would venture upon his promises: it seems to refer to their fathers in the wilderness; the same sin that kept them out of Canaan turned these out, and that was unbelief.
IV. How God punished them for their sins. He was very angry with them (Kg2 17:18); for, in the matter of his worship, he is a jealous God, and resents nothing more deeply than giving that honour to any creature which is due to himself only. He afflicted them (Kg2 17:20) and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, in the days of the judges and of Saul, and afterwards in the days of most of their kings, to see if they would be awakened by the judgments of God to consider and amend their ways; but, when all these corrections did not prevail to drive out the folly, God first rent Israel from the house of David, under which they might have been happy. As Judah was hereby weakened, so Israel was hereby corrupted; for they made a man king who drove them from following the Lord and caused them to sin a great sin, Kg2 17:21. This was a national judgment, and the punishment of their former idolatries; and, at length, he removed them quite out of his sight (Kg2 17:18, Kg2 17:23), without giving them any hopes of a return out of their captivity.
Lastly, Here is a complaint against Judah in the midst of all (Kg2 17:19): Also Judah kept not the commandments of God; though they were not as yet quite so bad as Israel, yet they walked in the statutes of Israel; and this aggravated the sin of Israel, that they communicated the infection of it to Judah; see Eze 23:11. Those that bring sin into a country or family bring a plague into it and will have to answer for all the mischief that follows.
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 vv3–23 Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria,.... Which…
Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria,.... Which some take to be the same with Tiglathpileser, see Ch1 5:26 but he rather seems to be his son; his name was to be found, as Josephus (w) relates, in the archives of the Tyrians, against whom he had an expedition; his name is Salmanassar in Metasthenes (x), who says he reigned seventeen years:
and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents, to depart from him; he became tributary to him, and agreed to pay him a yearly tax.
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(w) Antiqu. l. 9. c. 14. sect. 2. (x) De Judicio Temp. fol. 221. 2.
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 vv3, 6, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21 Shalmaneser - The son, or successor of Tiglath-pileser. The…
Shalmaneser - The son, or successor of Tiglath-pileser. The ancient Hebrew writers made him the same with Sennacherib, who eight years after this time, invaded the kingdom of Judah; it being very frequent in the Eastern parts, for one man to be called by several names. Josephus affirms, that he met with his name in the annals of the Tyrians, which were extant in his days. He came against him, either because he denied the tribute which he had promised to pay; or that he might make him tributary.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 17, 18 Verse 3. Shalmaneser] This was the son and successor…
Verse 3. Shalmaneser] This was the son and successor of Tiglath-pileser. He is called Shalman by Hosea, Ho 10:14, and Enemessar, in the book of Tobit, 1:2.
Gave him presents.] Became tributary to him.
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 vv3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 2Ki 17:3. Against him came up Shalmaneser — The…
2Ki 17:3. Against him came up Shalmaneser — The son or successor of Tiglath-pileser. The ancient Hebrew writers made him the same with Sennacherib, who, eight years after this time, invaded the kingdom of Judah; it being very frequent, in the eastern parts, for one man to be called by several names. Josephus affirms, that he met with his name in the annals of the Tyrians, which were extant in his days. He came against him, either because he denied the tribute which he had promised to pay, or that he might make him tributary. And Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents — Swore fealty to him, and engaged to pay him tribute. Thus the destruction came gradually, and they were, for some time, made tributaries, before they were made captives to the king of Assyria. And if the lesser judgment had prevailed to humble and reform them, the greater would have been prevented.
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 vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23 Of Shalmaneser, the successor of Tiglath-pileser in the Assyrian…
Of Shalmaneser, the successor of Tiglath-pileser in the Assyrian Canon, we know little from Assyrian sources, since his records have been mutilated by his successors, the Sargonids, who were of a wholly different family. The archives of Tyre mention him as contemporary with, and warring against, a Tyrian king named Elulaeus. The expedition, referred to here, was probably in the first year of Shalmaneser (727 B.C.). Its main object was the reduction of Phoenicia, which had re-asserted its independence, but (except Tyre) was once more completely reduced. Shalmaneser probably passed on from Phoenicia into Galilee, where he attacked and took Beth-arbel (Arbela of Josephus, now Irbid), treating it with great severity Hos 10:14, in order to alarm Hoshea, who immediately submitted, and became tributary (see the marginal rendering and 1Ki 4:21 note). Shalmaneser then returned into Assyria.
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 vv3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23 Salmanasar, who is called Salman, or Salomo; (Osee x.…
Salmanasar, who is called Salman, or Salomo; (Osee x. 14.) and Enemassar, in the Greek of Toby[Tobias]. The Tyrians relate that he took many of their towns, but that Tyre sustained a siege of five years. (Josephus, [Antiquities?] ix. 14.)
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 vv3, 4, 6, 7 Against him came up Shalmaneser--or Shalman (Hos 10:14), the…
Against him came up Shalmaneser--or Shalman (Hos 10:14), the same as the Sargon of Isaiah [Isa 20:1]. Very recently the name of this Assyrian king has been traced on the Ninevite monuments, as concerned in an expedition against a king of Samaria, whose name, though mutilated, COLONEL RAWLINSON reads as Hoshea.
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 vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23 3. Shalmaneser — This Assyrian king and warrior seems…
3. Shalmaneser — This Assyrian king and warrior seems to have been the regular and undisputed successor of Tiglath-pileser, and was therefore, probably, his son. The monuments bearing his records have been so mutilated by his successors that they shed very little light on his history. Josephus states, on the authority of Menander, that the name of this king was inscribed in the archives of Tyre, and that during the reign of one Eluleus he overran all Phenicia. But after his departure old Tyre rebelled, and the king of Assyria returned, and warred for five years against the city, but though he was assisted by many Phenicians, the Tyrians were more than a match for him, and his siege was unsuccessful. These wars with Phenicia were probably contemporaneous with those against Samaria.
Hoshea became his servant — Became a vassal king, rendering presents, or tribute, to Shalmaneser as the great king. Some think that Hoshea had refused or neglected to pay tribute to Assyria, and this was the reason of Shalmaneser’s invasion; others think that this coming up of the Assyrian king was merely an expedition of conquest, growing out of the ambition of the new sovereign, and not from any provocation of Hoshea.
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 vv3–23 3. Shalmaneser king of Assyria] This king according to…
3. Shalmaneser king of Assyria] This king according to the Assyrian monuments succeeded Tiglath-pileser, and was succeeded by Sargon. His reign lasted from b.c. 727–722.
and Hoshea became his servant] Probably it was in this way that Hoshea made himself strong enough to attack Pekah, and to mount the throne. The wars of Israel in the days of Pekah must have weakened the kingdom excessively, and made external help a necessity for any one who came to the throne.
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and gave [R.V. brought] him presents] The word for ‘presents’ is that which came to be used for the ‘meal-offering’ of the Israelites. It is used euphemistically here for a gift which, though given with the appearance of free will, was no doubt compulsory, and of the nature of tribute.
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 vv3–23 (3) Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria.—Shalmaneser…
(3) Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria.—Shalmaneser IV. (Shalmânu-ushshir, “Shalman be gracious!”), the successor of Tiglath Pileser II., and predecessor of Sargon, reigned 727-722 B.C. No annals of his reign have come down to us in the cuneiform inscriptions, but a fragment of the Eponyra-list notes foreign expeditions for the three successive years 725-723 B.C. This agrees with what Menander states (Josephus, Ant. ix. 14, 2), according to whom Shalmaneser made an expedition against Tyre (and no doubt Israel, as the ally of Tyre), which lasted five years—i.e., was continued beyond Shalmaneser’s reign into that of Sargon. Nothing is known of the death of Shalmaneser.
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 vv3–23 Against him came up Shal-maneser King of Assyria. Shalmaneser"s…
Against him came up Shal-maneser King of Assyria. Shalmaneser"s succession to Tiglath-pileser on the throne of Assyria, once doubted, is now rendered certain by the Eponym Canon, which makes him ascend the throne in B.C. 727, and cease to reign in B.C. 722. It is uncertain whether he was Tiglath-pileser"s son or a usurper. The name, Shalmaneser (Sali-manu-uzur) was an old royal name in Assyria, and signified "Shalman protects" (compare the names Nabu-kudur-uzur, Nergal-asar-uzur, Nabu-pal-uzur, etc.). And Hoshea became his servant. Hoshea had been placed on the throne by Tiglath-pileser ("Eponym Canon," pp. 123, 124, lines 17, 18), and had paid him tribute (ibid., lines 18, 19). We must suppose that on Tiglath-pileser"s death, in B.C. 727, he had revolted, and resumed his independence. Shalmaneser. having become king, probably came up against Hoshea in the same year, and forced him to resume his position of Assyrian tributary. This may have been the time when Shalman spoiled Beth-Arbel in the day of battle" (Dos. 10:14), defeating Hoshea near that place (Arbela, now Irbid, in Galilee), and taking it. And gave him presents; or, rendered him tribute, as in the margin of the Authorized Version.
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 vv6, 7, 9, 15, 21 In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of…
2Ki_17:6-8
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria.
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Captivity of Israel
The seeds of Israels captivity were sown by Solomon. The introduction of foreign wives into the royal family was the first step toward Israels fall. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, cuts the die that stamps the face of all the subsequent religious history of Israel With the fourth dynasty, that of Omri, a new religious period begins. Omris greatness and foreign popularity secured for his son Ahab alliance with the royal house of Zidon. With all the energy and fire of her strong character, Jezebel persecuted and destroyed the prophets of Jehovah, and transplanted into Israel the sensual worship of Baal and the Asherah. But the rise of the dynasty of Jehu was the fall not only of Omris house, but of Phoenician Baal-worship also. From a political point of view, Israel had seen some prosperous times. Omri had secured a large domain, and probably a rich revenue. Ahab was less fortunate in his political relations. An invasion of the great Assyrian army forced a coalition of all the petty western nations for self-defence. In an inscription of Shalmanezer
II. is an account of a battle between him and these peoples, which took place near the ancient city of Karkar. Among the enemies vanquished we find twelve hundred chariots, twelve hundred horsemen, twenty thousand men of Hadadezer of Damascus; two thousand chariots, iron thousand men, of Ahab of Israel. In another inscription of the same monarch there is mention of Jehu, the son of Omri! as one of his tributaries. Here Omri appears as the ancestor of Jehu. The anarchy that cursed Israel during its later history seems to have been instigated largely by the monarchs of the East. In one of Tiglath-pilesers inscriptions, where he gives an account of his subjection of the land of Omri, he says: Pekah their king I put to death, and I appointed Hoshea to the sovereignty over them. The Bible record, 2Ki_15:30, simply mentions the conspirator, murderer, and successor. The inscriptions tell us who stood behind, shifted the scenes, and directed the actors. Tiglath-pileser was absolute ruler of Palestine. Israels power was broken, its army reduced, its land partially depopulated.
I. The capture of Samaria. Hoshea seems to have been faithful to his Assyrian lord as long as the latter lived. But at the death of Tiglath-pileser and the accession of his successor, Shalmanezer IV., there was probably, as whenever rulers changed at Nineveh, a widespread revolt among their tributaries in the distant provinces. Hoshea, though religiously superior to his predecessors, despairs of the situation under the tyrants of the East, and appeals to So (Sabako), of Egypt, for relief. He withholds his accustomed tribute, thus openly defying the armies of the great king. His appeal to Egypt seems to have won for him only the enmity of the new king of Assyria. Shalmanezer then came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years. He threshed the land right and left, taking captive and devastating, until he had driven the unsubmissive within the walls of Samaria.
II. Causes of the captivity of Israel. After narrating the catastrophe of Samaria and the disposition of its population, the writer enumerates the causes of the same. The Israelites practised secretly the idolatry of their neighbours, building high places throughout the land, upon which they burnt incense to Canaanitish deities. Obelisks of Baal and the Asherim were set on every high hill and under every green tree. These Phoenician deities were symbols of the generative powers of Nature. They were the objects of the most degrading and licentious forms of worship. They appealed directly to the sensual impulses, and thus easily corrupted and led astray Israel.
III. Significance of the captivity. The ten tribes revolted against Solomons successor in order to avoid political oppression. But their anarchistic method of choosing rulers made them for a hundred and fifty years the victims of the most arbitrary kings. By their disregard of political obligations and treachery toward their conquerors, these self-willed monarchs ultimately brought upon their people the just rewards of national rebellion--captivity and servitude. Jehovah had permitted them to exist as a part of his chosen people, but they were under the same conditions as Judah; their continuance depended on their faithfulness to his commands. When all law and testimony were ignored, and Jehovah was insulted and defied, then mercy gave place to justice, prosperity to disaster, blessings to cursings, and peace to captivity. This catastrophe is the strongest kind of corroboration to the truth of the warnings of the prophets. They besought and entreated Israel to turn from all evil ways. They warned and threatened, they accused and condemned them by the word of Jehovah. The threatened fate at length came to pass. With steadfast purpose, Jehovah brought upon his enemies the just fruits of their evil deeds. God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Disregard of His words, commands, warnings, and threats is just as blameworthy in His sight to-day as two thousand five hundred years ago. Godless living is still the bane of national life. Let each one of us, by the grace of God, so live that the golden text of the lesson may never be true of us,--Because you have forsaken Jehovah, He hath also forsaken you. (Ira M. Price.)
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 v7 2Ki_17:9. Children of Israel did secretly things not right…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2Ki_17:9. Children of Israel did secretly things not right against the Lord—The word חפא has been rendered variously, as secret blasphemy, acts of treachery, dissimulating words; but its meaning, to cover, cloke, when taken with דְּבָרִים, may be accepted as they hid or concealed Jehovah from attention and homage by idolatrous intrusions, so that He was ignored.
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2Ki_17:17. Worshipped all the hosts of heaven—The idol Astarte represented the moon, and Moloch (or Baal) the sun; and between these they arrayed for worship “all the hosts of heaven.” This was an addition to their objects of idolatrous reverence, and appears as a new feature of Israelitish worship. This astral homage came in upon Israel through the Assyrian alliances by Pekah and Ahaz, for star worship was distinctively an Assyrian importation.
2Ki_17:18. Removed Israel out of His sight—After 256 years of separate existence from Judah, the kingdom of the ten tribes thus ignominiously ended, its nationality perished. On this kingdom of Israel lay the twofold sin: first, of revolting from loyal tribes of Judah and Benjamin, thus violating the unity of God’s chosen nation; and, next, of revolting against Jehovah and His worship, thus debasing the sacred distinction for which God called then to be His people; therefore Israel became not useless only, but an affront to Jehovah, and was consigned to just retribution.
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.
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_17:7-32
IDOLATRY THE DESTRUCTIVE FORCE IN NATIONAL LIFE
FROM the lengthy review embraced by this paragraph we again obtain a glimpse into the moral purpose of the historian of kings. In the writer’s estimation everything is to be subordinated to the setting forth of the Divine purpose in raising up the Hebrew people, and the miseries that came upon them for the violation of their part of the covenant. The rise and fall of dynasties, the conduct of great battles, the advance of the nation in commercial prosperity and civilization, the notice of contemporary nations, are all dismissed with the briefest reference; but whatever affects the theocratic aspect of the history is described with significant fullness of detail. The downfall of Israel was a catastrophe so momentous that the historian pauses in the midst of his narrative to enlarge upon its moral aspects. One of the most impressive lessons we learn in this review is that Idolatry is the great destructive force in national life. Observe—
I. That idolatry demoralises the national spirit.
1. It weakens the sense of moral obligation to obey the Divine law (2Ki_17:12). When Israel was rescued out of Egyptian bondage, they became God’s covenant people, and pledged themselves to obey Him. The fact of this great and signal deliverance stands at the head of the covenant law (Exo_20:2), and is always cited as the chief and fundamental act of the Divine favour (Lev_11:45; Jos_24:17; 1Ki_8:51; Psa_81:10; Jer_2:6). The discipline of the wildnerness and the awful displays of the Divine power and majesty, were intended to divest them of the remnants of heatheuism that still clung to them, and to instruct them in the knowledge and worship of the only True God. Every relapse into idolatry was a loss of moral stamina, weakened the bonds of obligation, and made obedience more difficult. We have need to be on our guard every moment against the seductive lures of idolatry—all the more dangerous because there is so much in us ever ready to respond to its bewitching overtures. We have need, in moments of temptation, to cultivate towards our Heavenly Father the artless simplicity of the child who, in a state of alarm, ran to his parent, and cried, “Mother, my goodness grows weak—help me!”
2. It leads its votaries into the lowest depths of wickedness (2Ki_17:7-11; 2Ki_17:15-17). In these verses we have the genesis and career of the idolater graphically portrayed. Distaste and neglect of the Divine statutes and commandments—a preference and love for other gods—secret indulgence, unblushing publicity—enforcing by statute on others what he had at tirst but timidly practised himself; a more complete wrenching away from his allegiance to Jehovah; a defiant, menacing attitude assumed; utter rejection of God; reckless and unreserved abandonment to his self-chosen deities; “selling himself to do evil”; infatuated devotion to the most revolting practices; the end, desolation and ruin.
II. That idolatry hardens its victims against the most faithful warnings and appeals (2Ki_17:13-14). Israel was not allowed to drift to her fate unchecked and unwarned; the most gifted prophets of the Hebrew school were sent to instruct and admonish the people. Doubtless some gave heed to their teachers, and mourned over the infatuation of their countrymen. But the bulk of the nation, following the lead of those high in authority, shut their ears to instruction, disdained reproof, and persevered in their sins. It is illustrative of the subtle, dangerous power of idolatry, that it renders its votaries so oblivious to the truth and so impervious to its strokes. The action of water, which, in an early stage, will soften a given substance when continued incessantly, only petrifies it the more; so is it with the moral influence of truth: the nature that was once easily melted is now defiant and obdurate.
III. That idolatry involves the nation in decay and ruin (2Ki_17:18-23). In these verses the writer takes pains to show that their idolatry was the parent of every other sin that weakened and degraded the national character. The heroism and compact union which rendered them invincible in days when Jehovah was honoured and worshipped no longer existed, and they became an easy prey to the spoiler. The Knights of St. John of Malta, in the early period of the order, were remarkable for their devout Christian spirit as well as for bravery and prowess. In 1565 they defended the island against 30,000 Turks. When, after incredible acts of heroism and endurance on both sides, the fortress of St. Elmo fell, the Turkish commander, looking from its ruined bastions across the harbour at the lofty ramparts of St. Angelo, exclaimed, “What will not the parent cost us when the child has been gained at so fearful a price!” He was obliged to raise the seige, and of the 30,000 Turks scarcely 10,000 found their way back to Constantinople. What was invincible to warfare in the 16th century yielded too easily to bribery and corruption in the 18th. The gold of Napoleon accomplished what the combined forces of Turkey had failed to do; and as Napoleon entered the gates of Malta, General Caffarelli remarked to him, glancing at the massive defences, “It is fortunate we have some one to admit us, for we should never have got in of ourselves.” So greatly had the knights of 1798 degenerated from the brave defenders of St. Elmo in 1565. The nation, as the individual, is strong only as it is genuinely religious: decay in piety means decay in all that gives greatness and permanence to a nation.
LESSONS:—
1. Whatever lowers the national moral tone is a calamity.
2. Idolatry is an audacious attempt to live without God in everything.
3. The nation that persistently ignores God will come to naught—it produces in itself the elements that shall destroy it.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ki_17:7-23. A review of the moral causes of national decay.—
1. Civil dissension and revolt (2Ki_17:21-23).
2. Flagrant abandonment of God (2Ki_17:15-16).
3. Voluntary choice and practice of grossest idolatry (2Ki_17:8-12).
4. Habitual neglect of prophetic warning and instruction (2Ki_17:13-14).
—Their iniquity was their ruin. Out of Hosea and Amos their sins may be gathered; and especially their abominable idolatry, contempt of God’s prophets, and abuse of His benefits. Of the ruin of the Greek empire the historian assigns these for the chief causes: First, the innovation and change of their ancient religion, whereof ensued a world of woes; then covetousness, coloured with the name of good husbandry, the utter destruction of the chief strength of the empire; next envy, the ruin of the great; false suspect, the looser of friends; ambition, honour’s overthrow; distrust, the great mind’s torment; and foreign aid, the empire’s unfaithful porter, opening the gate even to the enemy himself.—Trapp.
—Here where the kingdom of the ten tribes comes to an end and disappears for ever from history, was the place for casting a glance back upon its development and history. This the writer does from the old Testament standpoint, according to which God chose the people of Israel to be His own peculiar people, made a covenant with it, and took it under His special guidance and direction for the welfare and salvation of all nations. The breach of the covenant by the Northern Kingdom is in his view the first, the peculiar, and the only cause of its final fall, and this fall is the judgment of the holy and just God. If he had not known that this covenant law, in the form in which he was familiar with it, had existed long before the division of the kingdom, he could not have declared so distinctly and decidedly that the fall of the kingdom of the ten tribes was a Divine judgment upon it for its apostacy from that law.—Lange.
—Would that men, when they read such passages, would stop and think, and would enter upon a comparison between the peoples of God at that time and of this, and would thus make application of the lesson of history. The people of Israel were hardly as wicked as the Christians of to-day. The responsibility of to-day is far greater, for they were called to righteousness under the old law, we under the Gospel of free grace. The people of the Ten Tribes did not reject belief in God at first; but, contrary to the law of this God, they made to themselves an image of Him. This was the beginning of their downfall, the germ of their ruin. This led from error to error. They commenced with an image of Jehovah; they finished with the frightful sacrifices of Moloch. He who has once abandoned the centre of revealed truth, sinks inevitably deeper and deeper, either into unbelief or into superstition, so that he finally comes to consider darkness light, and folly wisdom. So it was in Israel, so it is now in Christendom. He who abandons the central truth of Christianity—Christ, the Son of God—is in the way of losing God. A nation which no longer respects the Word of God, but makes a religion for itself, according to its own good pleasure, will sooner or later come to ruin.—Ibid.
2Ki_17:9-12. The progressive development of evil.—
1. Begins in secret.
2. Gradually gains the mastery over conscientious scruples.
3. Soon acquires a shameless effrontery in public.
4. Becomes universally established by popular usage and example.
5. Reckless of consequences, to either God or man, cares not how deeply God is grieved or man is injured.
2Ki_17:9. They hid, or covered, or cloaked over what they did; but in vain; for God is all eye, and to Him dark things appear, dumb things answer, silence itself maketh confession.—Trapp.
2Ki_17:12. But they did it the rather; taking occasion by the law, that their sin might appear to be exceeding sinful (Rom_7:13). Such is the canker of our vile natures, that the more God forbids a thing, the more we bid for it.—Ibid.
2Ki_17:13. The obduracy of impenitence.—
1. Is coldly indifferent alike to warning or entreaty (2Ki_17:13).
2. Is intensified by persistent unbelief (2Ki_17:14).
3. Is confirmed in its defiant attitude by the character of its daily worship (2Ki_17:15).
4. Utterly rejects every vestige of Divine authority and guidance (2Ki_17:16).
5. Voluntarily abandons itself to the most debasing practices (2Ki_17:17).
6. Inevitably incurs the Divine displeasure (2Ki_17:18).
2Ki_17:13. Neither were these slips of frailty, or ignorant mistakings, but wilful crimes, obstinate impieties, in spite of the doctrines, reproofs, menaces, and miraculous convictions of the holy prophets. Thy destruction is of thyself, O Israel! What could the just hand of the Almighty do less than consume a nation so incorrigibly flagitious—a nation so unthankful for mercies, so impatient of remedies, so incapable of repentance. What nation under heaven can now challenge an indefeasible interest in God, when Israel itself is cast off? He that spared not the natural olive, shall He spare the wild?—Bp. Hall.
2Ki_17:16. “And worshipped all the host of heaven.” It is not easy to determine the exact form which the worship of the heavenly bodies took in the various nations of Western Asia. The purest form of star worship was that of the Assyrio-Persian Magism; it admitted of no images of the Deity, and in its adoration of the heavenly bodies it drew its deepest inspiration from the thought of their perfect beauty. This was the cultus to which Job felt himself tempted when he “beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness” (Job_31:26, compared with Deu_4:19). A second mode of regarding the stars was that of the Phœnicians, by whom they were looked upon as the originators of the growth and decay of nature—the embodiment of the creative and regenerative principle; and from this view there was readily developed a further symbolism, which led ere long to the grossest idolatries. The third great system of astral worship was that whose leading tendency was to dwell rather on the contemplation of the eternal unchangeableness of the heavenly bodies, as contrasted with the chances and changes of this transitory life. This was the form most common among the Chaldeans, and naturally produced the astrology for which they were famous. It is not always possible to determine which form of the worship of the host of heaven was that which presented itself as a temptation to the children of Israel. On the whole, we may assume it to have been the second, not only from the connection in which it is mentioned, but also from the circumstances of the case.—Wilkins’ Phoenicia and Israel.
2Ki_17:17. “And they sold themselves to to do evil in the sight of the Lord.” The responsibility of the sinner.
1. Is grounded in his freedom of volition.
2. Is abused by every act of iniquity he voluntarily commits.
3. Cannot be destroyed by the most frantic efforts of self-forgetfulness and sin.
4. Will one day make him terribly conscious how deeply he has offended God.
2Ki_17:18. The kingdom of Israel had nineteen kings, and not one of them was truly pious. Wonder not at the wrath, but at the patience of God in that He endured their evil ways for many hundred years, and at their ingratitude that they did not allow themselves, by His long-suffering, to be brought to repentance. Is it any better now-a-days?—Lange.
—Speaking humanly, the state was past redemption; the utter corruption and impenitence of the people are attested by the denunciations of Hosea, and confirmed by their scornful rejection of Hezekiah’s call to repentance and union. Even the king was only some shades better than his predecessors; and it was no partial reform that could save and renew the state. Viewing the case from the higher ground taken throughout the Scripture history—the inseparable connection between national prosperity or adversity, and religious obedience or rebellion—we cannot say that it was too late for Israel to be saved; as Sodom would have been, if five righteous men had been found in her; as Nineveh was, when her people repented at the preaching of Jonah. They had only forty days of grace; Heshea and his people had three years. Had the king of Israel made common cause with Hezekiah, and thrown himself upon the protection of Jehovah, we have a right to believe that the times of David might have returned. But Hoshea took the very course denounced by the law of Moses—reliance upon Egypt. His sudden destruction is compared by the prophet Hosea to the disappearance of foam upon the water.—Dr. Smith’s Student Scripture History.
2Ki_17:20-23. A God-forsaken people.
1. The fruit of obstinate and continued disobedience (2Ki_17:22).
2. Become a prey to suffering and spoliation (2Ki_17:20).
3. Cannot but observe the contrast between the goodness and patience of God, and the cruelty of their despotic conquerors (2Ki_17:21; 2Ki_17:23).
4. May be restored, if the Divine favour be sought in penitence and humble submission.
2Ki_17:23. The ultimate fate of the Ten Tribes of Israel. The main body of the inhabitants were transplanted to the remotest provinces of the Assyrian empire. After this it is difficult to discover any distinct trace of the Northern tribes. Some returned with their countrymen of the Southern kingdom. In the New Testament there is special mention of the tribe of Asher, and the ten tribes generally are on three emphatic occasions ranked with others (Jas_1:1; Act_26:7; Rev_7:5-8). The immense Jewish population which made Babylonia a second Palestine was in part derived from them; and the Jewish customs that have been discovered in the Nestorian Christians, with the traditions of the sect itself, may indicate at any rate a mixture of Jewish descent. That they are concealed in some unknown region of the earth is a fable with no foundation either in history or prophecy.—Stanley.
—There has been a wide-spread belief among modern Christians that the Ten Tribes, having never returned to their native country, must still exist somewhere in a collected body. Travellers have thought to discover them in Malabar, in Kashmir, in China, in Turkistan, in Afghanistan, in the Kurdish mountains, in Arabia, in Germany, in North America. Books have been written advocating this or that identification, and the notion has thus obtained extensive currency that somewhere or other in the world the descendants of the Ten Tribes must exist, and that when found they might be recognized as such by careful and diligent enquiry. It seems to have been forgotten that, in the first place, they were scattered over a wide extent of country (Hurran, Chaleitis, Gozan, or Mygdonia and Media) by the original conquerors; that, secondly, in the numerous conquests and changes of populations which are known to have taken place in these regions they would naturally become more scattered; that, thirdly, a considerable number of them probably returned with the Jews under Zerubbabel and Ezra (Ezr_6:17; Ezr_8:35; 1Ch_9:3); that, fourthly, those who remained behind would naturally either mingle with the heathen among whom they lived, or become united with the Jews of the dispersion; and that, fifthly, if there had been anywhere in this part of Asia at the time of Alexander’s conquests, or of the Roman expeditions against Parthia and Persia, a community of the peculiar character supposed, it is most improbable that no Greek or Roman historian or geographer should have mentioned it. Against these arguments there is nothing to be set but a statement of Josephus, in the first century of our era, that the Ten Tribes still existed beyond the Euphrates in his day (he does not say in a collective form); and a similar declaration of Jerome in the fifth. Neither writer has any personal acquaintance with the countries, or speaks from his own knowledge. Both may be regarded as relating rather what they supposed must be, than what they knew actually was the case. Again, neither may mean more than that among the Hebrews of the dispersion (Act_2:9) in Parthia, Media, Elam, and Mesopotamia were many Israelites. On the whole, therefore, it would seem probable
(1) That the Ten Tribes never formed a community in their exile, but were scattered from the first; and
(2) That their descendants either blended with the heathen and were absorbed, or returned to Palestine with Zerubbabel and Ezra, or became inseparably united with the dispersed Jews in Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries. No discovery, therefore, of the Ten Tribes is to be expected, nor can any works written to prove their identity with any existing race or body of persons be regarded as anything more than ingenious exercitations.—Speaker’s Comm.
—Esdras has a vision of the Ten Tribes separating themselves from the heathen and migrating to a distant land, never before inhabited by men (2Es_13:40-47). Perhaps this vision of Esdras was the starting point of all the speculations about the “Lost Tribes,” for they have been lost and found in nearly every part of Asia, Europe, and North America. But vague traditional tales and ingenious speculations are of little weight to counter-balance the abundant testimony of Scripture on the subject, which may be stated as follows:—
1. A considerable portion of the Israelitish population never went into the Assyrian exile. The first deportations were by Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, and in all probability were composed of fewer captives than Sargon carried away after the capture of Samaria and the fall of the Northern Kingdom. Sargon’s inscription, which would not be likely to make too low an estimate, mentions 27, 280 captives; but the Northern Kingdom must surely have had a population far exceeding these numbers. Multitudes were of course slain in the siege of Samaria and in previous wars; but supposing the captives to be ten times the number given, what became of all the rest of Israel, which in David’s time numbered 800,000 warriors, which implied a population of many millions (2Sa_24:9). Only the cities of Samaria seem to have been depopulated, so that in other and remoter districts of the kingdom a larger majority of the populaton seem to have been left to care for the land. Thus the Kingdom of the Ten Tribes ceased to exist; but numerically the mass of the people ware left in their ancient homes. Certain it is that they were not all carried into exile.
2. The captives were not allowed to settle in one district. Perhaps a majority were placed in Halah and along the Habor; but others, and how large a proportion does not appear, were scattered abroad in various cities of Media. This fact of their being scattered throughout various parts of the vast Assyrian empire argues against the notion of their continuing their tribal distinctions, and especially of their perpetuating the Ten Tribes as an organized community.
3. There is reason to believe that ofter the fall of Samaria the old enmity between Judah and Israel began to cease. In the reign of Hezekiah numbers of the tribes of Israel accepted the public invitation to celebrate the Passover at Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 30); and at the close of the Passover “all Israel that were present went out” and destroyed all the signs of idolatry “out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh” (2Ch_31:1). The like thing was done by Josiah (2Ki_23:19; 2Ch_29:7; 2Ch_35:8). Such a coming together in their now oppressed land would rapidly efface from Judah and Israel their ancient bitterness and jealousy. The better portion of all the people would see and obey the manifest will of Jehovah, and the rest, having no bond of union, would gradually die and fade away.
4. The prophets, with one voice, represent both Judah and Israel returning together from their exile. More than a century after the fall of Samaria, Judah also was led into exile, and Jeremiah, who flourished at that time, began at once to comfort them with prophecies of a restoration. (Compare Jer_3:18; Jer_30:3; Jer_33:7; Jer_1:4; Eze_37:21-22; Isa_11:11-13; Isa_14:1; Hos_1:11; Mic_2:12). So we may believe that the chastisement of the exile not only cleansed all Israel from idolatry, but also utterly crushed out the tribal feuds and jealousies. Some of these prophecies are doubtless Messianic, but all have more or less to show that in their exile Judah and Israel became united in all their higher sympathies and hopes, and were thus prepared, whenever opportunity offered, to return together to the land of their fathers.
5. Finally: All we know of the subsequent history of Israel tends to show that in the lands of their exile, and elsewhere, Judah and Israel became largely intermingled. It is likely many of the exiles from Judah were settled in cities and districts already occupied by descendants of those Israelites from the cities of Samaria, who had been carried off by the Assyrian kings more than a century before. Since the captivity the common name for all Israelites, wherever scattered abroad, is Jews. With the fall of Samaria, “the kingdom of the house of Israel” had no longer an existence, but was largely absorbed by Judah; and therefore it is not to be wondered at that no express mention is made of descendants of the Ten Tribes returning along with Judah from exile. But there were vast multitudes of Judah and Israel that never accepted the offer to return to the father-land. They are spoken of as “scattered abroad” in the Persian empire (Est_3:8). They are referred to on the day of Pentecost as “out of every nation under heaven” (Act_2:5-10). Josephus speaks of the great numbers of Jews who, in his time, dwelt in Babylon, Mesopotamia, and beyond the Euphrates (Antiq. xv. 22; iii. 1; xviii. 9, 1). Paul speaks of “our Twelve Tribes” Act_26:7); and James addressed his Epistle “to the Twelve Tribes scattered abroad.” From all this we infer, that after the Babylonish exile, the old dominion of “Judah and Israel” became lost—all the scattered tribes became intermixed, no one region held any one tribe, or any definite number of tribes—the name of Jews was applied to them all; the Ten Tribes, as a distinct nation, had long ceased to exist, and the whole body of Israelites throughout the world became amalgamated into one people, recognizing themselves as the descendants and representatives of the twelve ancient tribes.—Whedon.
—Respecting the fate of the captives we have had the statement of their transplantation to certain districts of Assyria and Media, where we almost lose sight of them. Nor is this surprising. The gradual contraction of the limits of the Samaritan kingdom suggests, what the inscription of Sargon confirms, that the numbers carried captive at last were far less considerable than is commonly supposed. Their absorption in the surrounding population would be aided by their long addiction to the practices of idolatry; and the loss of reverence for their religion involved absence of care for the records of their national existence. As they furnished no confessors and martyrs, like Daniel and “the three children,” so neither did they preserve the genealogies on which Judah based the order of the restored commonwealth. But yet their traces are not utterly lost. The fact that a priest was found among them, to teach the Samaritans to fear Jehovah, proves that they maintained some form of worship in His name. The Book of Tobit preserves the record of domestic piety among captives of the tribe of Naphthali. After the great captivity of Judah, it is most interesting to see how continually Ezekiel addresses the captives by the name of Israel. The prophetic symbol of the rod of Judah and “the rod of the children of Israel his companions” being joined into one, in order to their restoration as one nation, as Isaiah also had predicted, seems to imply that all that was worth preserving in Israel became amalgamated with Judah, and either shared in the restoration, or became a part of the “dispersion” who were content to remain behind, and who spread the knowledge of the true God throughout the East. The edict of Cyrus, addressed to the servants of Jehovah, God of Israel, would find a response beyond the tribe of Judah, and though none of the Ten Tribes appear, as such, among the returned exiles, there is room for many of their families in the number of those who could not prove their pedigrees. As for the rest, according to the very images of the prophet,
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
They are gone, and FOR EVER.
The very wildness of the speculations of those who have sought them at the foot of the Himalayas and on the coast of Malabar, among the Nestorians of Abyssinia and the Indians of North America, proves sufficiently the hopelessness of the attempt. Have, then, the promises of God concerning their restoration failed? No! They were represented, as we have seen, in the return of Judah; and for the rest, though they are lost to us, “the Lord knoweth them that are His.” When God shall reveal out of every nation those who have “feared God and wrought righteousness,” all the tribes of believers in Israel will be owned, in some special manner, as His people. That this restoration will not be temporal, but spiritual, seems to be the plain teaching of St. Paul in the passage which forms the great New Testament authority on the whole subject (Romans 9-11).—Dr. Smith’s Student Scripture History.
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 v6 2 Kings
2 Kings
A KINGDOM’S EPITAPH
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2Ki 17:6 - 2Ki 17:18.
The brevity of the account of the fall of Samaria in 2Ki 17:6 contrasts with the long enumeration of the sins which caused it, in the rest of this passage. Modern critics assume that 2Ki 17:7 - 2Ki 17:23 are ‘an interpolation by the Deuteronomic writer,’ apparently for no reason but because they trace Israel’s fall to its cause in idolatry. But surely the bare notice in 2Ki 17:6, immediately followed by 2Ki 17:24, cannot have been all that the original historian had to say about so tragic an end of so large a part of the people of God. The whole purpose of the Old Testament history is not to chronicle events, but to declare God’s dealings, and the fall of a kingdom was of little moment, except as revealing the righteousness of God.
The main part of this passage, then, is the exposition of the causes of the national ruin. It is a post mortem inquiry into the diseases that killed a kingdom. At first sight, these verses seem a mere heaping together, not without some repetition, of one or two charges; but, more closely looked at, they disclose a very striking progress of thought. In the centre stands 2Ki 17:13, telling of the mission of the prophets. Before it, 2Ki 17:7 - 2Ki 17:12, narrate Israel’s sin, which culminates in provoking the Lord to anger {2Ki 17:11}. After it, the sins are reiterated with noticeable increase of emphasis, and again culminate in provoking the Lord to anger {2Ki 17:17}. So we have two degrees of guilt-one before and one after the prophets’ messages; and two kindlings of God’s anger-one which led to the sending of the prophets, and one which led to the destruction of Israel. The lessons that flow from this obvious progress of thought are plain.
I. The less culpable apostasy before the prophets’ warnings. The first words of 2Ki 17:7, rendered as in the Revised Version, give the purpose of all that follows; namely, to declare the causes of the calamity just told. Note that the first characteristic of Israel’s sin was ungrateful departure from God. There is a world of pathos and meaning in that ‘their God,’ which is enhanced by the allusion to the Egyptian deliverance. All sins are attempts to break the chain which binds us to God-a chain woven of a thousand linked benefits. All practically deny His possession of us, and ours of Him, and display the short memory which ingratitude has. All have that other feature hinted at here-the contrast, so absurd if it were not so sad, between the worth and power of the God who is left and the other gods who are preferred. The essential meanness and folly of Israel are repeated by every heart departing from the living God.
The double origin of the idolatry is next set forth. It was in part imported and in part home-made. We have little conception of the strength of faith and courage which were needed to keep the Jews from becoming idolaters, surrounded as they were by such. But the same are needed to-day to keep us from learning the ways of the world and getting a snare to our souls. Now, as ever, walking with God means walking in the opposite direction from the crowd, and that requires some firm nerve. The home-made idolatry is gibbeted as being according to ‘the statutes of the kings.’ What right had they to prescribe their subjects’ religion? The influence of influential people, especially if exerted against the service of God, is hard to resist; but it is no excuse for sin that it is fashionable.
The blindness of Israel to the consequences of their sin is hinted in the reference to the fate of the nations whom they imitated. They had been cast out; would not their copyists learn the lesson? We, too, have examples enough of what godless lives come to, if we had the sense to profit by them. The God who cast out the vile Canaanites and all the rest of the wicked crew before the sons of the desert has not changed, and will treat Israel as He did them, if Israel come down to their level. Outward privileges make idolatry or any sin more sinful, and its punishment more severe.
Another characteristic of Israel’s sin is its being done ‘secretly.’ Of the various meanings proposed for that word {2Ki 17:9} the best seems to be that it refers to the attempt to combine the worship of God and of idols, of which the calf worship is an instance. Elijah had long ago taunted the people with trying ‘to hobble on both knees,’ or on ‘two opinions’ at once; and here the charge is of covering idolatry with a cloak of Jehovah worship. A varnish of religion is convenient and cheap, and often effectual in deceiving ourselves as well as others; but ‘as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ whatever his cloak may be; and the thing which we count most precious and long most for is our god, whatever our professions of orthodox religion.
The idolatry is then described, in rapid touches, as universal. Wherever there was a solitary watchman’s tower among the pastures there was a high place, and they were reared in every city. Images and Asherim deformed every hill-top and stood under every spreading tree. Everywhere incense loaded the heavy air with its foul fragrance. The old scenes of unnamable abomination, which had been so terribly avenged, seemed to have come back, and to cry aloud for another purging by fire and sword.
The terrible upshot of all was ‘to provoke the Lord to anger.’ The New Testament is as emphatic as the Old in asserting that there is the capacity of anger in the God whose name is love, and that sin calls it forth. The special characteristic of sin, by which it thus attracts that lightning, is that it is disobedience. As in the first sin, so in all others, God has said, ‘Ye shall not do this thing’; and we say, ‘Do it we will.’ What can the end of that be but the anger of the Lord? ‘Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.’
II. 2Ki 17:13 gives the pleading of Jehovah. The mission of the prophets was God’s reply to Israel’s rebellion, and was equally the sign of His anger and of His love. The more sin abounds, the more does God multiply means to draw back to Himself. The deafer the ears, the louder the beseeching voice of His grieved and yet pitying love. His anger clothes itself in more stringent appeals and clearer revelations of Himself before it takes its slaughtering weapons in hand. The darker the background of sin, the brighter the beams of His light show against it. Man’s sin is made the occasion for a more glorious display of God’s character and heart. It is on the storm-cloud that the sun paints the rainbow. Each successive stage in man’s departure from God evoked a corresponding increase in the divine effort to attract him back, till ‘last of all He sent unto them His Son.’ In nature, attraction diminishes as distance increases; in the realms of grace, it grows with distance. The one desire of God’s heart is that sinners would return from their evil ways, and He presses on them the solemn thought of the abundant intimations of His will which have been given from of old, and are pealed again into all ears by living voices. His law for us is not merely an old story spoken centuries ago, but is vocal in our consciences to-day, and fresh as when Sinai flamed and thundered above the camp, and the trumpet thrilled each heart.
III. The heavier sin that followed the divine pleading. That divine voice leaves no man as it finds him. If it does not sway him to obedience, it deepens his guilt, and makes him more obstinate. Like some perverse ox in the yoke, he stiffens his neck, and stands the very picture of brute obduracy. There is an awful alternative involved in our hearing of God’s message, which never returns to Him void, but ever does something to the hearer, either softening or hardening, either scaling the eyes or adding another film on them, either being the ‘savour of life unto life or of death unto death.’ The mission of the prophets changed forgetfulness of God’s ‘statutes’ into ‘rejection’ of them, and made idolatry self-conscious rebellion. Alas, that men should make what is meant to be a bond to unite them to God into a wedge to part them farther from Him! But how constantly that is the effect of the gospel, and for the same reason as in Israel-that they ‘did not believe in the Lord their God’!
The miserable result on the sinners’ own natures is described with pregnant brevity in 2Ki 17:15. ‘They followed vanity, and became vain.’ The worshipper became like the thing worshipped, as is always the case. The idol is vanity, utter emptiness and nonentity; and whoever worships nothingness will become in his own inmost life as empty and vain as it is. That is the retribution attendant on all trust in, and longing after, the trifles of earth, that we come down to the level of what we set our hearts upon. We see the effects of that principle in the moral degradation of idolaters. Gods lustful, cruel, capricious, make men like themselves. We see it working upwards in Christianity, in which God becomes man that men may become like God, and of which the whole law is put into one precept, which is sure to be kept, in the measure of the reality of a man’s religion. ‘Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.’
In 2Ki 17:16 - 2Ki 17:17 the details of the idolatry follow the general statement, as in 2Ki 17:9 - 2Ki 17:12, but with additions and with increased severity of tone. We hear now of calves and star worship, and Baal, and burning children to Moloch, and divination and enchantment. The catalogue is enlarged, and there is added to it the terrible declaration that Israel had ‘sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord.’ The same thing was said by Elijah to Ahab-a noble instance of courage. The sinner who steels himself against the divine remonstrance, does not merely go on in his old sins, but adds new ones. Begin with the calves, and fancy that you are worshipping Jehovah, and you will end with Baal and Moloch. Refuse to hear God’s pleadings, and you will sell your freedom, and become the lowest and only real kind of slave-the bondsman of evil. When that point of entire abandonment to sin, which Paul calls being ‘sold under sin,’ is reached, as it may be reached, at all events by a nation, and corruption has struck too deep to be cast out, once again the anger of the Lord is provoked; but this time it comes in a different guise. The armies of the Assyrians, not the prophets, are its messengers now. Israel had made itself like the nations whom God had used it to destroy, and now it shall be destroyed as they were.
To be swept out of His sight is the fate of obstinate rejection of His commandments and pleadings. Israel made itself the slave of evil, and was made the captive of Assyria. Self-willed freedom, which does as it likes, and heeds not God, ends in bondage, and is itself bondage. God’s anger against sin speaks pleadingly to us all, saying, ‘Do not this abominable thing that I hate.’ Well for us if we hearken to His voice when ‘His anger is kindled but a little.’ If we do not yield to Him, and cast away our idols, we shall become vain as they. Our evil will be more fatal, and our obstinacy more criminal, because He called, and we refused. ‘Who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth?’ These captives, dragging their weary limbs, with despair in their hearts, across the desert to a land of bondage, were but shadows, in the visible region of things, of the far more doleful and dreary fate that sooner or later must fall on those who would none of God’s counsel, and despised all His reproof, but cling to their idol till they and it are destroyed together.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v7 Cf. Deu 28:15-68. From this captivity the ten tribes…
sinned
Cf. Deu 28:15-68. From this captivity the ten tribes have never been restored to Palestine. A remnant of Judah returned under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and individuals out of the ten tribes (called, after the division of Solomon’s kingdom, "Israel" in the historical books and Prophets, also "Ephraim" by the latter) went back, but the national restoration is yet to be fulfilled. See Palestinian Covenant, (See Scofield "Deu 30:3"), Kingdom, 2Sa 7:8-17.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21 This is the name of a man. (See: How…
So
This is the name of a man. (See: How to Translate Names)
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year by year
"every year"
shut him up and bound him in prison
"put Hoshea in prison"
besieged it
put troops around the city in order to force it to surrender
carried Israel away to Assyria
The name "Israel" is metonymy for the people living there. AT: "took the Israelite people to Assyria" (See: Metonymy)
Halah ... Habor River ... Gozan
These are the names of locations. (See: How to Translate Names)
Medes
This is the name of a people group. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
send
messenger
Egypt
prison
siege
Medes
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 vv3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18, 21 17:3-4 King Shalmaneser V succeeded his father Tiglath-pileser III…
17:3-4 King Shalmaneser V succeeded his father Tiglath-pileser III in 726 BC. Hoshea may have reasoned that this leadership change would allow Israel to become independent of Assyrian vassalage. But his withholding of the annual tribute simply invited Shalmaneser’s reprisal. • by asking King So of Egypt: Some scholars understand the name So as an abbreviation of Pharaoh Osorkon IV (730–715 BC). Others equate So with Pharaoh Piankhy (747–716 BC), viewing the biblical name So as a Hebraic rendering of one of the names in Piankhy’s titulary. Still others suggest that So refers to the city of Sais, the capital of Pharaoh Tefnakht (727–720 BC). Whatever the identity of this king, it is clear that Hoshea’s hope for help from Egypt was misplaced.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.