God Judges • 2 Kings 17:7-20
By Emily Beth Crews
Two hundred years and nineteen kings after the reign of King Solomon — the last monarch to rule over the united nation of Israel — we read in 2 Kings 17:1-6 that the Northern Kingdom (also known by the name of its capital, Samaria) fell to the Assyrians.
Hoshea had become king, but “He did evil in the sight of the Lord” just as many of the Israelite kings before him (v.2). While Hoshea was king, Assyria besieged Samaria for three years and eventually conquered and dispersed the people to Assyria (v.6).
Why would God allow His people to fall at the hands of another army? The answer is because their own sin led them to judgment.
“It was not because the God of Israel was unable to help them, but because they had so forsaken God and ignored His guidance and correction that He finally stopped actively protecting them and let them rot and degrade according to their desire. In the following verses, the divine historian explains the fundamental reasons for the conquering and captivity of the Northern Kingdom. At the root, it was a problem with sin. It wasn’t geopolitical changes or social causes — it was sin.” (Enduring Word).
Looking back at Deuteronomy 28, we understand the Lord was keeping His promises to the people of Israel when He enacted judgment in 2 Kings 17: “If you indeed obey the Lord your God and careful to observe all his commandments… all these blessings will come to you in abundance if you obey the Lord your God” (Deut. 28:1-2).
The people had not obeyed, nor had they stayed faithful to the Lord in their devotion. They were now experiencing the fulfillment of another part of God’s covenant with them: “But if you ignore the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments… then all these curses will come upon you…” (Deut. 28:15).
“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” (Matthew Henry on Exodus 20:1-26).
The Lord is faithful to His character and a fulfiller of His Word (Deut. 7:9-11). He could no longer tolerate Israel’s sin. Therefore, His judgment was upon them.
Warned (2 Kings 17:7-13). The same people who had experienced God’s providence leading them out of the bondage of Pharaoh in Egypt were now living in open rebellion against the God who saved them. They rejected the Lord despite His generosity in giving them the Promised Land.
The Israelites “forsook the benevolence of God” (Lifeway). Their evil deeds “made the Lord angry” (v.11) as they lived in blatant sin against the commandments the Lord had given them.
The Lord warned them “through all His prophets and seers” to turn away from their sin and obey His commandments. Even though generations prior would experience “brief revivals, the population continued to degenerate into a culture that profaned the name of God” (Lifeway).
God extended His patience through generations of unfaithful Israelites. He also gave repeated warnings of what would befall them if they remained in their sin: “Their sin was first against law, but finally it was against patient love” (Morgan).
Rejected (2 Kings 17: 14-17). The Israelites remained in their sin, willfully choosing to disobey the Lord. They “hardened their necks” and were “stubborn” (v.14). They “refused to submit their neck to the yoke of God’s precepts; a metaphor from stubborn oxen, that make their necks hard, or stiff, and will not bow to the yoke” (Poole).
They continued to give their allegiance to idols and became “worthless to the Lord” (v.15). “The word here is hebel meaning ‘air,’ ‘delusion,’ or ‘vanity.’ The idea is that they became like the gods they worshipped. They bowed down to nothingness and became nothing” (Dilday).
Removed (2 Kings 17:18-20). The Lord was justifiably angry and ejected Israel from the Promised Land, leaving the only the tribe of Judah (v.18). Unfortunately, even the tribe of Judah failed to follow the Lord’s commandments and He also rejected them.
The Lord fulfilled His word from Deuteronomy 28 that there would be blessing for the Israelites’ faithfulness to Him and curses for their unfaithfulness. The Lord’s judgement on the Israelites was “an act of necessary justice. 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” (Henry).
For us today, we no longer bear the judgment of God in the same form as the Israelites living under the Old Covenant because of our New Covenant with God through Jesus Christ — the fulfillment of all the Law. Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17).
Jesus also mediates between God and us: “For there is one God and one intermediary between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, himself human” (1 Tim. 2:5). Jesus took on the curses of our disobedience when He died on the cross. The greatest consequence of our unrighteousness (sin) today is that it (sin) keeps us from close communion with an all-righteous God.
Emily Beth Crews currently resides in Montana but was born and raised in Mississippi. She is the daughter of regular contributor, Laura Lee Leathers.
