Chapter 17
In Israel, Hoshea becomes King, four years before Ahaz dies. He is a different kind of bad king. (2025 - But it does not tell us what was different about his "badness". It just says he was different than those who went before him. What an odd characterization. Here is an interesting thing...he was a different kind of evil, and it was during his reign that God finally cast Israel out of his sight, as he had said he would during Jereboam's day. All the kings from Jereboam through Pekah (?) did as Jereboam the son of Nebat did. And the punishment was delayed. But when this new kind of evil showed up, God sent Assyria to finally carry out his sentence. Isn't that interesting.) By this time, Assyria has a new King also. One of the notes at this site, https://biblehub.com/topical/s/shalmaneser.htm, says we do not know if Shalmanesar was the son of Tiglath-Pilesar or a usurper.
Shalmanesar invades Israel, wins, and requires that Hoshea pay tribute to him from that point forward. Hoshea eventually rebels against this tribute and conspires with So, King of Egypt, and stops paying Shalmanesar. Shalmanesar King of Assyria finds out Hoshea is talking to So, King of Egypt. He puts Hoshea in prison and in anger invades Israel. He gets to Samaria and besieges it for three years. He defeats them and carries them all away as slaves and scatters them across Assyria and the land of the Medes. This is the end of Israel, of the Northern Kingdom, and it has lasted until the present time. All because of her first King, Jeroboam I, and the two golden calves he required the north to worship instead of in the Temple in Jerusalem.
There is a long accounting of the sins of Israel against God, and of all the chances He gave them to repent.
2021 - This is a good history of all that the people did, and kept doing, despite all God did to correct them. This is free will in action if ever there was free will. Defiance and stubbornness in the face of wisdom. It s a good history chapter.
Vs 18 says none was left but the tribe of Judah. I have seen this before. But what about Benjamin? Didn't Benjamin stay with Judah?
Assyria sends their own settlers to Samaria and they move in. God sends lions to kill them because they do not worship him. Assyria decides they need to worship the God of Israel to stop this. A priest is sent back to instruct them with some success. But they also worship the gods they left behind. Succoth-benoth and so on. A study could be made of all these false gods. It is these resettled Assyrians that become the Samaritans of Jesus' time. It is because of where they came from that the people of Judah and Jerusalem despised them. Even though these new settlers were doing a much better job of worshiping God than the 10 tribes had done. I can't help but be reminded of the English resettlement of Northern Ireland with Scottish Presbyterians. Could this be where the idea came from?
Despite the priest that was sent back to teach the new settlers how to worship the God of Israel, they still worshiped the gods of the lands from which they'd been moved. These verses:
2025 - 33 So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. [2Ki 17:33 ESV]
This almost sounds like it was ok to worship those other gods so long as they also worshiped God. But the next verse lays that idea to rest:
34 To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. [2Ki 17:34 ESV]
2025 - The rule is, was, and always will be, no other gods, no images, not nothing. Only God. To only believe, and not fear, gets you no credit at all.
And also this last verse of 17:
41 So these nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children's children--as their fathers did, so they do to this day. [2Ki 17:41 ESV]
Samaria is a bit of a mixed bag. They worship God, but not exclusively as required, and they violate many of His most profound commandments. Judah hated them, and this sequence - this national identity they have as settlers or more likely captives and former slaves from Assyria - should be kept in mind in the New Testament. Isn't it interesting that the Messiah would spend the majority of his life and ministry in these "occupied" territories instead of in Judah itself? This implies that even the "split loyalties" of the Samaritans were more acceptable to God than the completely legalistic and ritual-only worship of Judah.
2023 - So in this chapter we see the end of Israel, the removal of all the Israelites and the resettlement of Israel with captured peoples from Assyria. The reasons are outlined, and they are quite simple. It was because they did not keep the covenant that their fathers had made. These new people didn't get it right either, nor did their children, or their children's children. That is, failing to worship God is a generational failing. It gets passed on. Each generation is responsible for teaching the next. And look at us in this country. Even the "good" ones among us have rebellion in their houses.