Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his servant, and tendered him presents.
An Assyrian army comes up against Israel. Hoshea's answer is not repentance but payment. He submits to Shalmaneser and buys peace with tribute. Commentators ask what it cost Israel to lean on the power God had raised up against her.
Hoshea's throne was never really his own. One writer gives two possible reasons for his shaky start.
It seems he had trouble tightening his hold on a kingdom that was now sinking fast. Or perhaps he had to get his right to rule approved by the powerful Assyrians. Either way, he ruled only as a vassal of the Assyrian king.
Becoming a vassal was not a one-off surrender. A vassal kept his throne by paying a stronger king, year after year. Hoshea copied an earlier king of Israel who had done the same — and he ignored what the prophets had said was coming.
His conduct toward Him was less godless than that of his predecessors. But he took no account of the judgments of God, by which all the prophets had foretold that Israel would be put under Assyria. Year after year king Hoshea had been sending gifts to the king of Assyria (v. 3). In this he followed one of his predecessors, Menahem, who by gifts had made himself a vassal of the Assyrian king Pul, so that Pul would establish the kingdom in his hands.
Shalmaneser's arrival was not bad luck. One writer traces it straight to Hoshea's own conduct.
But his evil deeds, whatever they were, quickly brought the Assyrian — "the rod of God's anger" — down on him and his wicked subjects… He had conspired against his weaker Israelite master. He tried the same thing, to his sorrow, with his powerful Gentile lord.
The title cuts both ways. Assyria is a tool in God's hand, and the tool is answerable too:
God used this power as His rod to chasten His people… It is as if God says to this mighty power: I am using you to chastise My straying people. But if you lift yourself up against Me, I must bring you down.
The verse just before ours calls Hoshea less evil than the kings before him. Commentators differ on how to read that. One takes it as no compliment:
Nothing in that last clause counts in Hoshea's favour. The Assyrian raiders had most likely already carried away the golden calves of Dan and Bethel… If he did not worship them, or other detestable things, it was not because he "abhorred idols."
Another reads the same clause as a sign that God measures each man exactly:
It is striking to see the Lord note that Hoshea did evil in His sight, but not like the kings of Israel before him. The Judge of all the earth always does right. He knows the heart, and He weighs it in the balances of the sanctuary.
Hoshea did not stay loyal to Assyria. He also turned to Egypt, and the prophets had already named that habit.
The prophet speaks of the king's two-faced, untrustworthy conduct: "Ephraim feeds on wind and pursues the east wind; all day long they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt" (Hosea 12:1), and again "Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria" (Hosea 7:11).
One writer puts the lesson bluntly, and it reaches past Hoshea:
Egypt gave Israel no help and only wounded them badly. Egypt was like a staff that breaks under the weight of the man leaning on it, and then pierces his hand. Whenever God's people turn to Egypt — a picture of the world — for help, and make godless alliances, they do so to their own hurt and shame.
- Sin first. Hoshea's evil deeds brought the Assyrian down on him. The invasion was a consequence, not an accident.
- Rod second. Commentators call Assyria "the rod of God's anger." God chastens His people with the empire, then brings the empire down if it lifts itself up against Him.
- Tribute third. Becoming a vassal meant gifts sent year after year, copying Menahem. Hoshea took no account of the judgments the prophets had foretold.
- Double-dealing fourth. A covenant with Assyria and oil sent to Egypt at the same time — the prophets called Ephraim a silly dove, calling to Egypt and going to Assyria.
- Ruin last. Egypt was a staff that breaks and pierces the hand. Turning to the world for help ends in hurt and shame.
But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and sent up no present to the king of Assyria as [he had done] from year to year. And the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.
Hoshea's reign ends with a secret message sent to Egypt, not with a battle. His Assyrian overlord found out, and that one move cost Hoshea his freedom and opened the way to the fall of Samaria.
Hoshea had come to the throne by plotting against his predecessor. One writer sees the same instinct turned on a far stronger master, with a very different result.
He who conspired against his weaker Israelite master attempted the same — to his sorrow — with his powerful Gentile lord.
One reference work names him as an Egyptian king, and traces where Hoshea's gifts to Egypt led.
The twenty-fifth dynasty was a foreign one, of Ethiopians who reigned in Nubia. Its first king, named Shabaka, or Sabaco, was the So of Scripture. Hoshea, king of Israel, tried to form an alliance with this king in order to break free from his allegiance to Assyria. He made presents to Egypt; but the scheme was not carried out. It led to the capture of Samaria and the captivity of the ten tribes.
A prophet had already described this double game: a covenant with Assyria, and oil sent down to Egypt.
The prophet mentions this two-faced, suspicious conduct of the king. "Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt" (Hosea 12:1). And again: "Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria" (Hosea 7:11). So, discovering Hoshea's conspiracy, Shalmaneser "shut him up and bound him in prison" (v. 4).
Another writer takes the dove further. The bird does not just lack sense; it flies toward the trap while looking for safety.
The Lord was their help and their rest, but they did not fly back to Him. Like a moth around a flame, they fluttered around Egypt and Assyria, trying to find deliverance there. They went from Egypt to Assyria and from Assyria back to Egypt. They never saw the net spread to destroy them — and that net was Assyria itself. In this net the Lord caught them. Their freedom would end and captivity would begin.
Turning to Egypt was an old habit that never once paid off. One writer names what Egypt really was, then turns the point on the reader.
Egypt has been a breaking staff to Israel; a staff of reed, which offered much but never kept its promises, bringing only ruin to all who trusted it. Going down to Egypt for help was the constant snare of the people of God. Yet God had rescued them from that land, and in that rescue they had seen His judgment on it. Yet they could turn back to it again and again. This is an inconsistency that none of us who knows himself can claim to be a stranger to! ... The lesson is as plain as it is basic. It is the lesson, "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"
Hoshea was less wicked than the kings before him, yet the line of kings closes with him. One writer reads his imprisonment as the point where hope for the kingdom ran out.
Hoshea, although less wicked than his predecessors, ends the list of kings whom the patience of God had borne with in Israel. God thought of His people; and now there was no more hope for them. They were not even a vessel fit to hold the election of God, to whom He made Himself known. Brought under subjection to the king of Assyria, Hoshea had sought help from Egypt. After the king of Assyria put him in prison, Samaria and all Israel could not hold out long.
- Habit. Hoshea plotted his way past a weaker king, then tried the same trick on a stronger one. The habit that won him a throne cost him his freedom.
- Bait. Egypt was a staff of reed. It promised much and kept nothing, yet God's people kept going down to it for help.
- Blindness. Israel flew between Egypt and Assyria like a dove without sense. It never saw that Assyria itself was the net.
- End. With Hoshea in prison, God's long patience with the northern kingdom closed. Samaria could not stand for long.
- Lesson. The prop they leaned on instead of God became the chain that held them. No one who knows himself is a stranger to that habit.
And the king of Assyria overran the whole land, and went up against Samaria, and besieged it three years.
Hoshea had secretly asked Egypt for help, and Assyria found out. Now the empire he tried to escape floods the whole land and shuts up his capital for three years.
The verse follows a report of Hoshea bound in prison, yet the siege it describes came first. One writer explains the order of events, and notes that Assyria's own monuments record the city's fall:
What follows, about the siege of Samaria, happened before Hoshea's imprisonment, though the account records it later. "Hoshea's imprisonment did not come before the capture of Samaria. The writer of Scripture first records what finally happened to Hoshea himself, then gives the details of the invasion as it affected Samaria and Israel" (Fausset)... Assyria's own monuments record this siege and capture of Samaria just as 2 Kings 17 tells it.
The siege outlasted the king who began it. One writer notes that the account credits the capture only to "the king of Assyria":
These inscriptions tell us that the siege of Samaria had lasted two years when Sargon replaced Shalmaneser. Sargon took Samaria in the first year of his reign. The record here does not name Sargon. But note that it does not credit the capture of Samaria to Shalmaneser either. Both passages, 2 Kings 17:6 and 18:10-11, speak only of the king of Assyria.
Politics explains part of the invasion. One writer points to what Hoshea ignored, and to the reason Scripture itself gives:
Hoshea did not take into account the judgments of God by which all the prophets had foretold Israel's subjection to Assyria... These political motives are not given to us in the Word. God's own motive is shown by a word in Chronicles: "So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile" (1 Chr. 5:26).
Hoshea's own conduct brought that army down on him:
But his evil doings, whatever they were, quickly brought the Assyrian, "the rod of God's anger," on him and his guilty subjects... He had conspired against his weaker Israelite master. He tried the same thing with his powerful Gentile lord, and it cost him dearly.
The prophets spoke of Israel "returning to Egypt." One writer explains what that phrase means:
"Return into the land of Egypt" does not have to mean fleeing there. It means looking there for help. Isaiah 31:1 says the same thing: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help."
Hoshea tried to hold on to both Assyria and Egypt. One writer draws the lesson for us:
His Assyrian overlord now imprisoned him and overran the land with his armies, besieging Samaria for three years till it fell. He had found treachery in Hoshea. Instead of paying his normal tribute, Hoshea had sent envoys to the king of Egypt to ask for help. Our Lord Jesus says clearly that no one can serve two masters — an important lesson for us to learn, too.
The invasion was not sudden. One writer shows what God's long patience with this kingdom was for, and when it ended:
God's patience bore long with the rebellion of His people, and He took pity on their affliction (see 2 Kings 17). That patience lasted as long as it could still be a testimony to the real character of the God who showed it. It never denied His holiness and righteousness. It never gave approval to sin. So God could still bless the people and keep a true testimony to what He is — a testimony even the nations could see. In a word, His patience lasted "until there was no remedy."
The three years closed a kingdom. One writer marks how final this judgment was:
This was a sweeping judgment of God against His people Israel, and the ten tribes have never returned to their land since that time... Only a miraculous act of God at the end of the Tribulation will bring His people Israel back to their land.
The last king's name carried a promise his reign never kept:
Hoshea (deliverance) proved anything but that to his people. One alone will bring deliverance to the ten tribes.
- Cause — the army at the gate ended a long story. Scripture gives the reason: God stirred up the spirit of the king of Assyria.
- Patience — God bore with this kingdom while His patience could still witness to His holiness — "until there was no remedy."
- Double-dealing — Hoshea served Assyria and courted Egypt at once. To the prophets, asking Egypt for help was "returning" there. No one can serve two masters.
- Record — the account tells the siege out of order, and it never names the king who finished it. Assyria's own monuments record the same events.
- Deliverance — a king named "deliverance" delivered no one. The ten tribes have never come back. One alone will bring them home.
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
This verse closes the story of the northern kingdom with a bare list of place names. Behind the list lies the end of a nation — ten tribes taken from their land — and the question the chapter answers: who moved Israel, and will they ever come back?
The fall was no surprise. One writer shows what Hoshea overlooked, and who stood behind the invading army:
Hoshea took no account of the judgments of God, by which all the prophets had foretold that Israel would be brought under Assyria… The Word does not give us the political reasons, but a word in Chronicles shows us the divine reason: "And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser … and he carried them away" (1 Chr. 5:26).
Hoshea is the last name in Israel's line of kings, and the chapter jails him before Samaria falls. Two things explain the verse here: the order of the telling, and the record kept outside the Bible:
Hoshea was the last of the nineteen kings who ruled — or rather misruled — Israel… "Hoshea's imprisonment did not come before the capture of Samaria. The sacred writer first records the eventual fate of Hoshea himself, then gives the details of the invasion as it affected Samaria and Israel" (Fausset)… The monuments of Assyria record this siege and capture of Samaria just as 2 Kings 17 tells it.
The verse credits the capture to "the king of Assyria." The siege lasted three years, and the throne changed hands before it ended:
…it was not Shalmaneser in person who took the city, for we are told, "And at the end of three years they took it" (2 Kings 18:10). During this interval Sargon (Isa. 20:1) had succeeded Shalmaneser, or at least was at the head of the army during a short gap between reigns.
The verse opens with a date and ends with four place names. A Bible dictionary fills in both:
Scripture gives a more definite date for the captivity of the rest of Israel. It was in the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, and the sixth year of Hezekiah, that the Assyrians took Samaria after a three years' siege: this would be 722 B.C. The captives were carried to Halah and Habor by the river of Gozan (the same names appear in 1 Chr. 5:26, with Hara added there). These places are supposed to be in the north of Assyria. But in the passage in Kings the words "and in the cities of the Medes" are added. That region lies much further east. There they would be far removed from their fellow Israelites in Assyria and from Judah, who were afterwards carried to Babylon.
Earlier deportations took parts of the nation. This one took what was left:
This was a sweeping judgment of God against His people Israel. The ten tribes have never been restored to their land since that time… Now that God has allowed this great scattering of the ten tribes, only a miraculous intervention of God at the end of the Tribulation will bring His people Israel back to their land.
The verse names the towns. It records no return, and that silence has kept people searching:
No one knows clearly or certainly where the ten tribes are; nor does it seem to be anyone's business to search it out beforehand. We may leave them in the obscurity where God has put them. If we believe His word, we know that He has preserved the scattered remnant of the two tribes. Just as surely, He will bring the descendants of the ten out of their hiding place.
This verse states the fact. The verses that follow give the reason, and God put that reason on record for readers far beyond Israel:
While God has no obligation to explain to us why He does what He does, in His Word He often does so. As He concludes the story of the ten-tribe kingdom, God gives us a detailed list of particulars in 2 Kings 17:7-23 as to why He brought an end to this kingdom. God has placed it in His Word for our warning and instruction. We do well to examine it. Romans 11:20-21 tells us: "Do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you."
- Cause — Scripture leaves the politics unstated. Chronicles gives the real reason: God stirred up the spirit of the Assyrian kings.
- Record — The account is not in strict order. Hoshea's fate comes first, then the invasion; Assyria's own monuments confirm the siege and fall of Samaria.
- Scattering — Assyria placed the captives in the north and in the far eastern cities of the Medes, cut off from each other and from Judah.
- Consequence — The ten tribes have never come back. Only a direct act of God will bring them home.
- Warning — God did not just record this judgment. He explained it, so that later readers would not presume on His patience.
And so it was, because the children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods;
The fall of Samaria has just been recorded, and at this point the account stops to explain itself. Verse 7 opens God's own answer to the obvious question: why did a nation He rescued end up deported to Assyria?
The account could have ended with the conquest. Instead the next seventeen verses set out the case. One commentator explains why:
While God has no obligation to explain to us why He does what He does, in His Word He often does so. As He closes the story of the ten-tribe kingdom, God gives us a detailed list of particulars in 2 Kings 17:7-23. They say why He brought this kingdom to an end. God has placed it in His Word for our warning and instruction. We do well to examine it. Romans 11:20-21 tells us: "Do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you."
The verse names who Israel sinned against, and what He had done for them:
Verse 7 now reminds Israel that God had kindly brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of Pharaoh's bondage. Yet from that time on they kept on sinning against the Lord, and they feared other gods.
That clause about Egypt is not background detail. It is the ground of the charge:
Here we see what the moral claim on their heartfelt obedience rests on. It rests on the revealed character of God, and on His wonderful acts for them. In a word, they were bound to obey — bound by every argument that could possibly work on the heart, the conscience, and the understanding. The One who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, with a mighty hand and outstretched arm... surely He was entitled to their whole-hearted obedience.
Sin here begins as forgetting. The God who rescued them dropped out of their thinking:
When Israel came out of Egypt they had a deep sense of the Lord's care and protection. "Thus says the LORD: What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless? They did not say, 'Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt?'" (Jeremiah 2:5-6). What a touching plea for the Lord to bring before His people. Had He changed since that day? No, there was no change on His side. They had lost His presence, and they had no sense of the loss.
"Feared other gods" was not a late development under the kings of Samaria. One writer traces it back much further:
They are reminded when and where their idolatry began — in the wilderness... They had not got rid of the gods of Egypt then. They brought these worthless things with them into the wilderness. Now this is charged against them... No doubt that sin was more glaring at the end; the dark stream was always gathering more water... Yet God always goes back to the source. At last He declares that the final blow came because of the first departure.
What made it intolerable was the nature of the God they left:
God is a jealous God who cannot tolerate rivals of any kind for the affections of His people.
The chapter is as much about God's patience as about Israel's failure. The verdict hinges on one connecting word — and Israel's story does not end there:
The last mention of the ten tribes in Scripture is that instructive chapter, 2 Kings 17. It sets before us God's patience and forbearance on the one hand, and their sins and follies on the other. Their sins and idolatry were the cause of all the calamities that came upon them. The word "therefore" in verse 18 sums it all up and shows this plainly. It was God who stirred up the spirit of the kings of Assyria, and so they were deported. Zechariah 10:10 names one of the places from which they will be brought back in a future day.
Israel's idolatry can look like a dead issue. One writer answers that:
Today we do not think of this, because idolatry has passed away. Still, it has its lesson for us. The idol-feasts, with their open immorality, are not around us today. But there are still idols to keep away from, and sinful desires to turn from. We have light and knowledge now. Some things displace God. Some present Him as different from what He is known to be, as revealed in Christ. Some change His truth. None of these can be followed without some form of moral failure.
- Rescue. The charge opens with Egypt. Rescue created the duty: God's saving acts are the ground of His claim on their obedience.
- Forgetting. Sin began with forgetting. They stopped asking where their Rescuer was, and lost His presence without feeling the loss.
- Rivals. "Feared other gods" is the heart of the case, and God tolerates no rivals for the affections of His people.
- Source. Judgment traced the stream back to its spring. The final blow came because of the first departure, though the sin grew darker as it flowed.
- Therefore. God waited long before the verdict. He wrote the reasons down to warn us: if He did not spare the natural branches, do not be proud, but fear.
and they walked in the statutes of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
Assyria has just carried the ten tribes away. God now pauses the story to list His reasons, and verse 8 names two of them.
God owes no one an explanation for what He does. Here He gives one anyway.
While God has no obligation to explain to us why He does what He does, yet in His Word He often does so. In 2 Kings 17:7-23 He closes the story of the ten-tribe kingdom. There He gives us a detailed list of the reasons why He brought this kingdom to an end. God has placed it in His Word for our warning and instruction. We do well to examine it. Romans 11:20-21 tells us: "So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you."
The verse names two sets of customs. One came from outside, from the peoples God had already driven out. The other came from inside — the religion Israel's own kings set up, starting with Jeroboam and his calves at Dan and Bethel.
From verses 7 to 18 of our chapter God shows what He had done for Israel. He had brought them out of Egypt and led them into Canaan (v. 7). He then speaks of what they had done. First of all they acted "secretly" against the Lord. They walked according to the idolatry of the nations which God had driven out before them. They also walked in the statutes that the kings of Israel, beginning with Jeroboam I, had set up to found and maintain their national religion of the calves of Dan and Bethel.
God had driven those nations out for these very practices. Israel then took up the customs that had already emptied the land once. One commentator weighs what that means when God's own people do it.
Israel were not to make themselves unclean in any of these things, as the nations of Canaan did in all of them — the nations He drove out before Israel. How much guiltier, then, would Israel be! The very land was made unclean. So He punished it for that iniquity. The earth vomited out its inhabitants. Israel must beware, then, not only for themselves but for any foreigner living among them, in case the land should vomit them out as well, as it had the nations that lived there before Israel. Such evil was intolerable in His eyes, and even more offensive in His own people than in anyone else. The Jews soon forgot that truth, as Christendom did later.
Another writer names who now proves that God's righteousness is the same toward everyone.
The land they were going to was casting out its inhabitants for these sins. And the warning to them was plain: if they practiced such things, it would cast them out too. God's righteousness is equal to all His creatures and Israel, now cast out of their land, are witnesses to it.
The second half of the charge is about invented worship. Jeroboam did not abolish religion. He redesigned it, down to picking his own month for a festival.
This "feast" of Jeroboam's copied the feast of tabernacles, which God had commanded Israel to keep in the seventh month. The eighth was the month Jeroboam "had devised of his own heart" — a heart always "deceitful" and "desperately wicked." And how many practices and customs in Christendom have been "devised" of men's own hearts which have no foundation in Scripture! Many seem to think that in spiritual things it is quite all right for "every man" to do "that which is right in his own eyes," instead of "Thus says the Lord."... It is the thoughts of God's heart, not mine, that I am to heed and put into practice.
The chapter ends a long history. One writer points out how much of it is really over.
Now God Himself sums up this long history of Israel. It begins in Exodus and ends in our chapter. Not that it is over for good. It is over only as far as this people and its kings are concerned, viewed as responsible. The heart of the prophet Hosea, moved with divine compassion, announces Israel's future restoration.
- Borrowed. Israel copied the customs of the very nations God had driven out for those same practices.
- Invented. They added customs their own kings made up — worship "devised of his own heart," with no foundation in Scripture.
- Equal. God's righteousness is the same toward all. The land that spat out the Canaanites would spit out Israel too.
- Heavier. Such evil was intolerable to God anywhere, and more offensive in His own people than in anyone else.
- Recorded. God wrote down the reasons for our warning. He closed the account of Israel's responsibility, not His purpose to restore them.
And the children of Israel did secretly against Jehovah their God things that were not right; and they built them high places in all their cities, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city.
Here God explains why Assyria carried the northern kingdom away, and the list of charges opens with sins done in secret, not with open revolt. The second charge is public: shrines built across the whole land, from the smallest lookout post to the walled city.
after_note: DELETE
One writer links both halves of the verse: the hiding, and who the new shrines were really for:
Adding to their disobedience, they did secretly things they knew were not right against the Lord (v.9). Were they so dense they did not consider that the Lord sets "our secret sins in the light of His presence"? (Ps. 90:8). But unbelief does not give God credit for being who He is. They also built for themselves (not for God) high places in all their cities. These high places were for professed worship, but God had told them their worship must be in the place that He would choose — Jerusalem.
Secrecy only delays exposure. God's word to David through the prophet Nathan shows the pattern:
It is not necessarily only in the day of judgment that this takes place: the Lord may deal with it now. "You did it secretly," says God through Nathan to David, "but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun."
A high place was a site of worship that people chose for themselves. Why did God reject every one of them?
The Canaanite nations seem to have had a custom of setting up places of worship for their false gods on various heights. They chose these sites according to their own Satan-controlled desires... The Israelites were to destroy all the high places of the heathen, and so show their horror at their wicked ways. But human nature is no better in those who are near to God than in those far from Him. The time soon came when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some were for idol worship, and some for the worship of the Lord. But all the high places were offensive in His sight, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They were the expression of self-will, of hearts not subject to His commandments.
Part of their pull was atmosphere, not conviction:
Departure from God took its outward form in Israel by making "high places" for themselves. It was simply a heathen habit, playing on the imagination with a worship that has no heart in it... So on the mountain tops a man could imagine himself nearer to God than in the valleys. The depths of groves and forests helped too. Along with the beauty of nature, they made him think he was nearer to the God of nature than he really was.
The phrase measures how far the rot had spread: no settlement too small, no stronghold too important. One writer sets out the order of the charges:
God shows what He had done for Israel: He delivered them from Egypt and brought them into Canaan. He then speaks of what they had done. First of all they acted "secretly" against the Lord, following the idolatry of the nations that God had driven out before them... They had also set up high places and male and female idols everywhere — in their fortified cities and even as far as the watchman's tower. In this they went to greater excess than Judah.
None of this happened overnight. Many godly Israelites tolerated the high places, where the offerings still went to the Lord:
True, people offered the sacrifices and incense to the Lord. But Scripture said Jerusalem was "the place where people ought to worship." Many godly Israelites probably counted this departure unimportant. It only paved the way for greater and more serious breaches of the law. God's people are only safe as they hold carefully and closely to the very letter of the word of God. The slightest digressions are often the prelude to wide and grave departures from obedience to God's will as revealed in His Word.
God has provided a centre for His people's worship. One writer says what it means to bypass it:
To ignore this Centre that God has provided, and to turn to human thoughts, is really to worship in the high places. It means choosing places and ways of worship that the word of God does not provide for. There is no question that many do this in all sincerity. God meets His people in grace according to the measure of their faith.
- Secretly. The charge begins with what no one else could see. God sets secret sins in the light of His presence, and brings the hidden deeds out before all.
- For themselves. Israel built the high places for themselves, not for God. Worship followed preference, not His word.
- Self-will. Shrines to idols and shrines named for the Lord offended Him alike. Each one expressed a heart not subject to His commandments.
- Everywhere. From watchtower to fortified city, a quiet compromise grew into a nationwide system. Small digressions are often the prelude to wide departures.
- Today. Swap the centre God has given for a place and way of our own, and that, in principle, is worshipping in the high places. Many do it sincerely. It is still self-will.
And they set them up columns and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree;
This verse sits in the list of charges that explains why Assyria carried the northern kingdom of Israel away. It names what the people built, and where. Two questions follow: what were these objects, and why did God count them as the ruin of a nation?
The verse names two things: standing pillars and Asherim. Older translations call the second one "groves," but they were not clumps of trees. The verse rules that out: these objects stood under the trees.
asherah, asherath. The word 'grove' suggests a row of trees. But that cannot be the meaning, since groves were set up 'under every green tree.' 1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10. … the groves were made of wood, as we learn from the fact that they were cut down and burned. Judges 6:25-26; 2 Kings 23:14-15. … They constantly appear together with idols and images, and Judges 3:7 speaks of them being served along with the Baals.
The verse says they set these things up for themselves. Israel would have given a religious reason for them.
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on high hills and under green trees. They would no doubt say that these things were to remind them of God. But God had forbidden such things. Using them always lowered God in their estimation, so that the things themselves eventually became the objects of their worship.
The locations were not accidental. Height and shade work on the imagination. People mistake that feeling for nearness to God.
So on the mountain-tops man could imagine himself nearer to God than in the valleys. The deep groves and forests helped too. With the beauty of nature, they made him think he was nearer to the God of nature than he truly was. There is indeed a witness to God in all these things: who would wish to deny it? … Still, this is just where man so often makes the fatal mistake. He puts what is only natural in place of what is spiritual, and so deceives himself.
Even high places meant to honour the Lord offended Him. Motive was not the point.
The Lord would choose His own centre, and His people had to come there with their burnt offerings and sacrifices… The time soon came, alas, when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were for idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of Jehovah. But all the high places offended Him, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They expressed a self-will that invents its own ways. They came from hearts not subject to His commandments.
"Every high hill" and "every green tree" describe the good land God had given them. Israel turned the very signs of its fertility into shrines, until the map itself recorded their guilt.
Fresh privileges would be only fresh opportunity for evil. God had now brought them into a land of high hills, with trees that showed its richness. These became their places of idol worship. There they lifted up offerings that provoked Him, while claiming the offerings were for Him… So everywhere, across the countryside and the city alike, they had written out their sentence.
The prophets had a name for this, and it explains how the chapter ends.
"High places" for idol worship had dotted the whole land. In the shade of every green tree the people practised the vile customs of the surrounding nations. In spirit and in fact, these unholy, unclean rites deserved the name of harlotry that the prophets so often give them. What could God do with such a nation but put them away?
The same pull is still at work today. Notice too what God required Israel to do with these places.
The nations did this in high places, in mountains and hills and in lovely wooded areas. Many people today think the same way. They tell us they need no gathering of saints to the name of the Lord Jesus to worship, but feel closer to God outside, enjoying the beauties of nature. But Israel had to destroy this worship completely. They were to break down the pillars, burn the wooden images and cut down the carved images. No trace of these things was to be left.
- Objects. The "groves" were wooden images, not trees. They stood under the trees, beside sacred pillars, and always in company with idols.
- Ownership. Israel built them for themselves. The stated aim was to remember God, but the reminders became the objects of worship.
- Substitute. Hills and shade made men feel nearer to God than they were. Putting nature in place of what is spiritual is self-deception.
- Self-will. Even high places meant for the Lord offended Him. God had already chosen where offerings belonged; these came from self-will.
- Sentence. Israel wrote out her own verdict across every hill and tree of the land God gave her. So God put the nation away.
and there they burned incense on all the high places, as did the nations that Jehovah had carried away from before them, and they wrought wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger;
2 Kings 17 lists the charges that sent the northern tribes into exile in Assyria. This verse names the sin at the centre of them: worship in places God never chose, copied from the nations He had already removed from that land. How can religious activity itself provoke God's anger?
Wrong worship rarely begins by openly rejecting God. One commentator draws out both the excuse Israel would have made and the outcome it always produced:
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on high hills and under green trees. They would no doubt say that these things were to remind them of God. But God had forbidden such things. Using them always lowered God in their eyes, so that in the end the things themselves became the objects of their worship. They burned incense (which speaks of worship) in the high places "like the nations" whom God had driven out for such evil. And they did wicked things that provoked the anger of the Lord.
Not every high place was built for idols. Some were meant for the worship of the Lord Himself. It made no difference to God's verdict:
It seems to have been the custom of the nations of Canaan to set up places of worship for their false gods on various heights, which they chose to suit their own Satan-controlled desires. Jehovah told His people about the ways of these nations, and forbade them to imitate them. His Word alone must govern them in everything to do with worship, as in everything else. Jehovah would choose His own centre, and His people must come there with their burnt offerings and sacrifices. The Israelites were to destroy all the high places of these nations, and so show their horror at their wicked ways. But flesh is no better in those who are near to God than in those who are far from Him. The time soon came, sadly, when Israel chose high places for themselves. Some of these were for idolatrous worship, and some for the worship of Jehovah. But all the high places offended Him, whatever the motives of those who set them up. They were the expression of self-will in the creature, of hearts not subject to His commandments.
One king of Judah set up places of worship all over his land. A writer reads the motive behind that convenience:
He despised God's centre, Jerusalem, so he made centres all through Judah. Many locations made their worship more convenient. Satan likes to make people feel at ease, with no exercise of heart and conscience to know and to obey the Word of God. So he has religions of every kind to cater to the fleshly desires of everyone. But such things provoked the Lord to anger.
This verse sets Israel beside the nations God drove out before them. The comparison counts against Israel, not for them:
Israel was not to become unclean in any of these things. The nations of Canaan did all these things, and He cast them out before Israel. How much guiltier, then, would Israel be! The very land was made unclean... For such evil was intolerable in His eyes, and yet more offensive in His own people than in any other; a truth soon forgotten among the Jews, and later in Christendom. It is by receiving the good that is from God, His word and above all His Christ, that souls are kept from evil.
God's anger here was not sudden. One writer points to this very chapter, and explains why His patience lasted so long and why it had a limit:
The patience of God bore long with the rebellion of His people, and He took pity on their affliction (see 2 Kings 17). It lasted as long as this patience could be a testimony to the real character of the God who showed it. Such patience did not deny holiness and righteousness, nor give a sanction to sin. So it was still possible to bless the people without sacrificing all true testimony to what God is, even in the eyes of the nations; in a word, "until there was no remedy."
The end came, and the loss proved lasting. Another writer traces what followed the Assyrian invasion:
"In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria..." Read the whole chapter, which gives the account of this. These tribes have never been restored.
- Place, not just praise. Incense speaks of worship. But worship offered where God never appointed it stands among the wicked things that provoked Him.
- Self-will. Every high place offended God, even one meant for Him, because it expressed a heart not subject to His commandments.
- Convenience. Scattered centres made worship easy and left heart and conscience untested. Religion was shaped to suit people, not to obey God.
- Copying. Israel copied the nations God had already removed for these very practices. The same evil is more offensive in His own people than in anyone else.
- Patience with a limit. God bore long with them while His patience could still testify to who He is. When there was no remedy, Assyria carried the ten tribes away, and they were never restored.
and they served idols, as to which Jehovah had said to them, Ye shall not do this thing.
One sentence sums up Israel's ruin: they served idols, and God had already told them not to. So the verse raises a hard question. How does a people who heard God's own voice end up serving things that cannot speak?
The force of the verse lies in the words "the LORD had said to them." This was not a grey area. One writer notes how little excuse this nation had, given what they had seen and heard at the start.
The sons of Israel of all men had the least excuse for idolatry. They heard His voice out of the middle of the fire. They begged for a mediator in case they should die. They saw no form. And they heard Him condemn the pagan practice of representing Him by any likeness of a creature in heaven above, on earth beneath, or in the waters below. He could not be the true God if He allowed people to bow down to another god. Real service must belong to Him alone.
So what were these idols? One writer looks at the objects themselves, and at what they do to the people who bow to them.
What were they, these idol-images? Simply matter — silver and gold — shaped by men's hands! It has a mouth and eyes. We say that both of these "speak," and each is in its own way a "witness" for the man himself, a pointer to what is in the heart. But the idol gives its worshipper no response by word or look. In fact, it senses nothing. It does not hear the voice that cries to it. It does not notice the smell of incense or of sacrifice. It can stretch out no hand to help. Its foot will not move to bring relief. Not even a murmur of sound is in the idle throat. What can these senseless gods do but drag the men who bow before them down into beings as senseless? And this is the just penalty on those who can forsake God to follow their own inventions.
Nobody in Israel announced that they were abandoning God. They had reasons for the objects they set up.
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on high hills and under green trees. They would no doubt say that these things were there to remind them of God. But God had forbidden such things. Using them always lowered God in their eyes, until the things themselves became the objects of their worship.
Idols are nothing, so why does God treat them so seriously? One writer weighs how lightly people take them, and how God takes them.
In every age, nothing shows the gap between God's word and men's thoughts so clearly as this: people treat idols and strange gods lightly, and God hates that, above all in His own people. It may not be any deliberate plan to give up His worship. It may only be what they count a small thing — going along with idolatry now and then while still professing His name. But God refuses any such unholy compromise outright. He does so quite apart from a further danger: those who allow it may revolt from Him completely. It strikes at His majesty, at holiness and truth, and is intolerable in His eyes.
Idolatry did not end with carved wood and stone. One writer defines it far more widely.
You do not have to bow down to a block of wood or a stone to be an idolater. Whatever commands the heart is an idol. Giving the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the one who gives it is an idolater.
One writer calls this hidden idol an "image of jealousy."
And this image of jealousy is still what threatens us all. It stands, as it were, at the very entrance when we would come near to God Himself. And it need not be a visible or open image to do this. What we are really doing is trying to have a god that fits our own thoughts. Such a god always stands against the true God. What a warning that is for us.
This verse sits inside a long review of Israel's history. That review is not the last word.
Now God Himself sums up this long history of Israel which begins in Exodus and ends in our chapter. It is not over for good. It is over only for this people and its kings, viewed as responsible.
- Said — God had spoken plainly; Israel, of all people, had heard His voice and could not plead ignorance.
- Served — what they served could not hear, see, help or speak, and it dragged its worshippers down to its own level.
- Slipped — Israel called the pillars and images reminders of God, yet they lowered Him in the mind until they replaced Him.
- Spreads — anything that commands the heart is an idol, even a god shaped to fit our own thoughts.
- Stops — the history closes for Israel as a responsible nation. It does not close for good.
And Jehovah testified against Israel and against Judah, by all the prophets, all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through my servants the prophets.
Chapter 17 lists why God let the northern kingdom fall, and one line in that list defends God Himself. He had warned both Israel and Judah, sending prophet after prophet with the same call: turn from evil and keep His commands.
A stream of prophets was itself a symptom. Their arrival showed how far both kingdoms had already drifted.
Israel was now nearing its bitter end, with Judah's ruin in full view. The fact that God raised up prophets proved that the end was near, because prophecy only comes in when people depart from God. When things run smooth and fair, there is no revelation of this kind, and morally it is not needed. In days of comparative faithfulness, what we get is a setting out of privilege and duty. But God's people may despise the privilege and leave the duty undone. When their guilt is obvious and judgment must follow, prophecy comes. It tells of God judging the evil, yet also of mercy and even better blessing for the obedient remnant.
The verse calls the prophets God's servants. That title, used strictly, belongs to a narrow group of messengers.
Both Testaments use the term "bondmen" in a narrow and restricted sense. It described the prophets of old (Amos 3:7; Dan. 9:6; 2 Kings 17:13), and also the apostles and others of reputation in the Church (Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:7, see Greek).
The verse sends them back to the law given to their fathers. But the call to turn is something the law by itself could not give.
The prophets' ministry was very different from the law considered on its own. The law left no room for repentance. It demanded obedience. When it did not get obedience, it had nothing to announce or give but condemnation and the curse. The Lord required obedience — steady, unbroken obedience. He was not asking for repentance and a return to obedience. But God sent the prophets to propose, as it were, new terms... It was a further test — a milder one — to prove whether it was in the heart or will of man to turn to God, and serve and obey Him.
The verse names not one prophet but all of them. God did not warn once, and that patience ran on to the sending of His Son.
In His goodness, God has kept renewing His testimony. In His patience He has sent His prophets, rising up early to send them, as it is said, until there was no remedy (see Jer. 7). Last of all He sent His own Son. The result, as we have already said, is that all the righteous blood, from Abel to Zacharias, came upon one generation. They filled up the measure of their fathers' wickedness by rejecting God's last witness.
Nineveh was a foreign city with far less light than Israel had. It heard God's word and turned.
When the people of Nineveh heard God's word, they believed it and put on sackcloth. Their king led the way, calling for a fast and for sackcloth, and he added, "let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands" (Jonah 3:8). Then we read, "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it" (Jonah 3:10). How very sad it is to see God's people Israel refuse His offers of mercy. They were just as evil as the Ninevites, but with less excuse, since they had more light. They would not turn from their evil ways.
God did not have to explain Himself. He did it anyway, and He put the reasons in His Word for later readers.
While God has no obligation to explain to us why He does what He does, in His Word He often does so. As He closes the story of the ten-tribe kingdom, God gives us a detailed list in 2 Kings 17:7-23. It sets out why He brought this kingdom to an end. God has placed it in His Word for our warning and instruction. We do well to examine it. Romans 11:20-21 tells us: "Do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you."
- Warning sent. Prophet after prophet was a sign of drift, not health. Prophecy only comes in when people depart from God.
- Warning owned. God called the men who carried it His own bondmen — the same title He later gave to apostles.
- Warning merciful. The law demanded obedience and could offer nothing else. The prophets came with new terms — a milder test of whether man's heart would turn to God.
- Warning repeated. God kept renewing His testimony and sending prophets until there was no remedy. Last of all He sent His Son.
- Warning recorded. Nineveh turned with far less light; Israel had more and refused. God put the reasons in His Word so that later readers would fear, not presume.
But they would not hear, and hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God.
This verse explains why Israel fell. God kept sending prophets, but stiff necks and unbelieving hearts — the same as in their fathers — shut the message out.
Moses used the same phrase when he spoke to Israel. One writer explains what it means, and what would have to change:
So he tells them to circumcise the foreskin of their heart — that is, to cut off the selfish, fleshly desires of their heart. They are to "be stiff-necked no longer." Being stiff-necked refers to the stubbornness of wanting our own way.
Stiffening the neck was not one bad decision. It was Israel's answer to every appeal. The same writer shows what it cost them:
Over and over again they refused every appeal of the Lord. They stiffened their necks in stubborn rebellion against His authority (v.14). So, having given up any respect for God Himself, they were free to reject His statutes and the covenant He had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They wanted freedom to do their own will, and followed the folly of other nations. They did not realise that such freedom was only painful bondage to sin (v.15).
The verse names the reason the fathers behaved as they did: they did not believe the LORD their God. One commentator, writing on the Gospels, links the words "unbelief" and "disobedience":
This is not the blatant breaking of the law through human tradition, but unbelief — the source of all disobedience. In the language the Holy Spirit uses, unbelief and disobedience differ only by a shade. The first is the root; the second is the fruit… All their disobedience toward God flowed from unbelief of Him, and so from a wrong view of their own moral condition.
The comparison to "their fathers" is not flattery of the past. It is the charge that nothing had changed:
The history that follows shows that the children were like their fathers. The flesh learns nothing from its own failure, or from the failure of past generations. It never changes.
One writer asks what a son owes to the memory of his father's fall:
Suppose a child grows up knowing his father's dishonour, and hears of his disgrace and punishment. Would not that sin look especially hateful to him, if he had any right feeling? His father's evil ways would always stand before him as a public example. But suppose the son treats it lightly, and uses it as encouragement to walk the same path. Is it not just that a still more severe punishment should fall on that son?
Verse 14 stands against the background of verse 13, where God sends prophet after prophet. Judgment came only after the warnings had run out:
They served idols even though the Lord had warned them not to do such things. He testified against them when they did so. He sent many prophets to command them to turn from their wicked ways and keep God's commandments (vv.12-13).
Another writer follows what happened to those messages as judgment came closer:
We can trace the patience and goodness of God as displayed in them… But a time came when there was no remedy. Israel would not hear; God's people would have none of His reproofs. As that time drew near, the prophetic messages grew more frequent. They warned the people of the coming judgments, but they also told them of the future and final blessing.
A stiff neck can be one person's problem too. One writer applies a proverb about it to Ahab, a king who heard God's word and only sulked:
Such is the attitude of foolish unbelief. Ahab is a sad witness to the truth of Proverbs 29:1, "He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing."
- Root. Unbelief came first; disobedience was its fruit. Israel did not just break rules — they did not believe the God who gave them.
- Neck. A stiff neck is the stubbornness of wanting your own way. The cure is a heart with its selfish desires cut away.
- Inheritance. The children matched their fathers. Human nature learns nothing from past failure, and a son who copies it is more guilty, not less.
- Patience. God testified, warned, and sent prophet after prophet. Judgment came at the end of the pleading, not at the start.
- Limit. Refusal has an end point. The one who is often reproved and still stiffens his neck breaks beyond healing. God warns us now so that we do not repeat the story.
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant which he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified unto them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and [went] after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them.
This verse reads like a coroner's report on a nation. The ten tribes threw away what God gave them, chased what was empty, and copied the nations God had told them to avoid.
The order matters. The collapse began with a refusal of God's authority. Everything else followed from that.
Again and again they refused every appeal of the Lord. They stiffened their necks in stubborn rebellion against His authority (v.14). They had given up any respect for God Himself. So they were quite free to reject His statutes and His covenant that He had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They wanted freedom to do their own will, following the folly of other nations. They did not realise that this freedom was only painful bondage to sin (v.15).
The freedom they reached for turned out to be a chain. Statutes, covenant, warnings — all three went once they refused God Himself.
An older translation reads "they followed vanity, and became vain." Worship shapes the worshipper: worthless objects make worthless people.
What were they, these idol-images? Simply matter — silver and gold — shaped by human hands! Mouth and eyes are all there... But the idol gives its worshipper no response by word or look. He is aware of nothing: the voice that cries to him he does not hear, the smell of incense or of sacrifice he does not notice. He can stretch out no hand to help, no foot of his will move to bring relief, not even a murmur of sound is in that idle throat. What can these senseless gods do but degrade the men who bow before them into beings just as senseless? And this is the fair penalty on those who can forsake God to follow what are plainly their own inventions.
Israel did not stop worshipping when they left God. No one does. Something always rushes in to fill the empty place.
People are made so that they must worship. If they do not worship the true God, they will inevitably worship some false god. I say "inevitably" for a reason. Some claim not to believe in any God at all. Even these turn out to be worshippers of something or other that stands towards them in the place of God.
The last clause is the sharpest, because God had forbidden this one thing. Israel was meant to show the nations what God is like. Instead they copied those nations, and the nations learned nothing.
How little the nations of the earth learned about God and His word from the way Israel acted! Instead, His name was blasphemed continually because of their ways. They should have held the high and holy and happy ground of loving obedience to God's commandments. Instead they sank to the level of the nations around them. They adopted their habits, worshipped their gods, and walked in their ways. So those nations never saw the lofty wisdom, purity, and moral glory of God's statutes. They saw only the weakness, folly, and moral degradation of a people who boasted of holding the very words that condemned them.
God later put the same charge to His people as a question.
When Israel came out of Egypt they had a deep sense of the Lord's care and protection. "Thus says the LORD: 'What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?'" (Jeremiah 2:5). What a moving plea for the Lord to lay before His people. Had He changed since that day? No, there was no change on His side. They had lost His presence, and they were unaware of the loss.
A nation can trade God for nothing and never feel the moment it happens.
God did not have to explain why this kingdom fell. He explained anyway, and He put the reasons on record.
While God has no obligation to explain to us why He does what He does, in His Word He often does so. As He closes the story of the ten-tribe kingdom, God gives us a detailed list of particulars in 2 Kings 17:7-23 as to why He brought this kingdom to an end. God has placed it in His Word for our warning and instruction. We do well to examine it. Romans 11:20-21 tells us: "Do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you."
- Rejection. It starts with refusing God's authority. Once respect for Him goes, His statutes, His covenant and His warnings are easy to discard.
- Emptiness. They chose nothings. A nothing cannot help. It can only drag its worshippers down to its own level.
- Inevitability. No one stops worshipping. Drop the true God and something else takes His place, whether or not you call it a god.
- Imitation. Copying the nations was not a private failure. It robbed those nations of the one witness God had placed among them.
- Warning. God spelled out His reasons on purpose. He kept the record of Israel's fall as a warning to everyone standing today: do not be proud, but fear.
And they forsook all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and made them molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of the heavens, and served Baal;
God's summary of why Israel's northern kingdom went into exile in Assyria reaches its low point here. Why does leaving God's word never leave an empty space, and how can worship that still uses God's name be real idolatry?
The verse names what they gave up before it lists what they took on. One commentator asks what was left to fill the gap, then traces how the evil spread:
Leaving the commandments of God, what else could they find as a substitute? Only the worship of idols. So verse 16 refers back to the great sin of Jeroboam in making two golden calves... and making these the centres of Israel's worship. But once a thing like this is done, the evil does not stop there. They then began to worship all the host of heaven, having "many gods and many lords" (1 Cor. 8:5), and Baal became a favourite idol.
The calves were not offered as rival gods. One dictionary explains why an image meant to stand for the true God is the more deceptive form of idolatry:
This form of idolatry is more plausible than disowning God altogether and setting up an idol instead. But it is just as truly idolatry, and God punished it in a way no one could miss. The same worship existed in Egypt with the bull Apis, said to represent the god Osiris. This may have given the Israelites the idea of making a calf. Jeroboam repeated the same sin, because he was afraid his people would go up to Jerusalem to worship: he set up two calves, one in Bethel and one in Dan, and proclaimed, "Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (1 Kings 12:28-33). Idolatry did not stop there with Israel, for they went on to worship "all the host of heaven, and served Baal." 2 Kings 17:16.
One writer points back to Sinai, and answers an excuse still made today:
Jeroboam repeated the sin of Aaron and the people of Israel at the foot of Sinai, where God had already spoken the solemn words: "You shall have no other gods before me." It has been argued that Jeroboam was really worshipping Jehovah, but with the aid of visible images. This is urged today to excuse blatant idolatry. The Bible does not support this. It says plainly: "This thing became a sin." God does not need an image for people to worship Him. In fact, the very idea is condemned throughout Scripture.
Older translations call the next item in the verse a grove. One dictionary shows that the word does not mean trees at all:
The word "grove" naturally suggests a row of trees. But that cannot be the meaning, since groves were set up "under every green tree"... The groves were made of wood, as we learn from them being cut down and burnt... They are regularly linked with idols and images, and Judges 3:7 speaks of them being served along with the Baals.
The verse lists the host of heaven and Baal side by side. One writer ties both to the sky, and ties the Asherah in with them:
The "groves" so often mentioned in the history of Ahab and Elijah were really statues of Ashtoreth. Baal seems to have represented the sun, and Ashtoreth the moon. In God's charge against the Northern Kingdom, as the people went into captivity in Assyria, we read that they "made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal" (2 Kings 17:16). Note how "all the host of heaven" is here linked with Baal. In Jer. 7:18 Ashtoreth is called "the queen of heaven." From Job 31:26-27 we gather that honouring the sun and moon was the earliest form of idolatry.
The calves were not a passing phase. One writer traces the exile itself back to them:
The idolatry of Jeroboam stayed with Israel until they went into captivity, and was an outstanding cause of it. As it is written: "Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them commit great sin... they did not depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight... So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day" (2 Kings 17:21–23).
- Left. The sin starts with what they dropped: God's commandments. Everything else in the verse fills that gap.
- Substituted. The calves were sold as worship of the God who brought Israel out of Egypt. Commentators call that a more plausible idolatry than open denial — and just as real.
- Spread. Once they allowed images, the list grew: a carved Asherah, then the whole host of heaven, then Baal. No idolatry stays where it started.
- Skyward. Baal and the host of heaven stand together because both go back to sun and moon. Writers call that the earliest idolatry of all.
- Swept away. Jeroboam's calves stayed with Israel to the end. Scripture names them as an outstanding cause of the exile.
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 Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.
The ESV says Israel burned their children as offerings. Older translations say they made them "pass through the fire," and some have read that as a rite the children survived. Other passages rule it out.
The motive makes it worse. Parents offered their children as an act of worship.
This evil worship led to other abuses. Parents made their sons and daughters pass through the fire and offered them as sacrifices. They thought that such horrible evil would gain favour with God or with their gods (v.17).
The second charge names two practices that travel with idolatry. One curses people; the other flatters them.
Witchcraft and soothsaying went along with such abuses. People used witchcraft to call down curses on others. Soothsaying is predicting the future in order to soothe people. This is how evil spirits claim to predict the future: they make people feel good. The false prophets did this when they tried to make Ahab comfortable about going to fight for Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 22:12). Only Michaiah prophesied the truth, that Ahab would die in his attempt to gain Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 22:17).
God had warned Israel in the plainest terms long before. He had also told them why the land was theirs at all.
The third charge is the sharpest. Evil did not overtake them; they traded themselves away for it.
Israel "sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord," that is, they in effect sold themselves as slaves to satanic power.
The word behind it carries that force, and it reaches further than Israel's history.
It is the condition of us all, though we may discover it only when the light of the gospel shines upon our fallen state.
God did not act on the first offence, or the hundredth. The verse belongs to a list compiled over centuries.
Though the Lord bore patiently with Israel for years, yet the day finally came when He removed them from their land, leaving only the tribe of Judah at that time (v.18). Yet Judah is mentioned also as having failed to keep the commandments of the Lord, following too in the way of Israel. So the writing was on the wall for Judah also, but the godliness of some of their kings delayed the captivity of Judah for some years.
God did remove Israel as a nation. But being out of sight is not the same as being forgotten.
Finally He removed Israel out of His sight as a nation. Yet His all-knowing love knows where each person is. And nothing will frustrate His purposes, which are secure in Christ.
- Sacrifice — Israel burned their own children as offerings, hoping to win a god's favour.
- Sorcery — Curses and soothing predictions came in with it. Both are how evil spirits work, as with the prophets who flattered Ahab.
- Scripture — God had already named and banned every one of these practices. They were the reason the earlier nations lost the land.
- Slavery — To sell yourself to do evil is to sell yourself into slavery. Paul uses the same word of himself, and it is the condition of us all until the gospel exposes it.
- Sentence — God removed Israel from His sight as a nation. Even then He knows where each person is, and His purposes stand secure in Christ.
Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight there remained but the tribe of Judah only.
The northern kingdom's story ends in one sentence: God's anger, Israel put out of His sight, only Judah left. Behind that short verdict lie centuries of patience and a long list of charges — and a question: is being put out of God's sight the last word?
The verse reads like a sudden outburst. Commentators trace it instead to a long patience that ran out — and even then, Judah was not touched at once.
The Lord bore patiently with Israel for years. Yet the day came when He removed them from their land, leaving only the tribe of Judah at that time (v.18). Judah, too, had failed to keep the commandments of the Lord, following in the way of Israel. So the writing was on the wall for Judah too. But the godliness of some of their kings delayed Judah's captivity for some years.
God's case against Israel is set out in the verses just before this one. What condemned them was not one act but a refusal to listen to the prophets.
The Lord had testified against Israel and against Judah by all the prophets. Had they listened to these? No. They had abandoned the commandments of the covenant and given themselves up to a terrible falling away from God. Verses 14 to 17 describe it in every part. Finally, in His anger God removed them from before His face, and "None was left but the tribe of Judah only." That was no doubt for a short time, yet God still recognised Judah, as Hosea said: "Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit; but Judah still walks with God, and with the holy things of truth" (Hosea 11:12).
The people also invented worship for themselves, and defended it with the best of intentions.
They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on high hills and under green trees. They would no doubt say that these things were to remind them of God. But God had forbidden such things. Using them always lowered God in their eyes, until the things themselves became the objects of their worship.
Being put out of God's sight meant being put out of the land. Nothing in the years since has reversed it.
The king of Assyria besieged Samaria for three years, finally taking it and all Israel, and moved the captives to areas in Assyria, to Halah and the cities of the Medes. This was a sweeping judgment of God against His people Israel, and the ten tribes have never returned to their land since that time… God has now allowed this great dispersion of the ten tribes. Only a miraculous act of God at the end of the Tribulation will bring His people Israel back to their land.
Judah alone was left, and that sounds like a rescue. Commentators read it instead as a spotlight on the survivor, who watched judgment fall next door and learned nothing from it.
They had proved themselves rebellious to the royal house that God Himself had chosen for them. They completed that rebellion by falling away from God altogether. After they ignored His warnings, He swept away the ten tribes of Israel first, as a most solemn lesson to those who remained. But Judah was deaf and blind to what God was pointing out through guilty Israel.
The delay changed nothing. Judah got another 130 years and ended in the same place — though that loss is not the end of God's plan.
Judah learned no lesson from the ruin of their brothers. For 130 years more the Lord bore with their evil ways, and then gave them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar… On the ground of responsibility everything is lost. But grace will yet more than restore what Solomon and Israel so foolishly threw away.
Israel's long history closes at this verse. What closes, one writer insists, is a chapter — this people tested on their own responsibility — not God's purpose for them.
Not that it is ended for good. It is ended only as far as this people and its kings are concerned, viewed as responsible. The heart of the prophet Hosea, moved with divine compassion, announces Israel's future restoration. Hosea writes: "My heart is turned within me, my compassion is stirred. I will not carry out the fierceness of my anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God, and not man."
- Patience — The anger came last, not first. God bore with Israel for years and warned them by every prophet.
- Provocation — They invented their own worship and called it a reminder of God. In the end they worshipped the reminders, and God sank in their eyes.
- Removal — Out of His sight meant out of the land. The ten tribes have never returned; only a future act of God will bring them back.
- Remnant — Judah was left, and God still recognised it. But Judah learned nothing from its neighbour's ruin, and followed it into captivity 130 years later.
- Restoration — What closes here is Israel's history under test, not God's purpose. Grace will restore more than they threw away.