2 Kings 17

2Ki 17:1-6.

HOSHEA'S

WICKED

REIGN.

1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, began Hoshea . . . to

reign--The statement in

2Ki 15:30

may be reconciled with the present passage in the following manner:

Hoshea conspired against Pekah in the twentieth year of the latter,

which was the eighteenth of Jotham's reign. It was two years before

Hoshea was acknowledged king of Israel, that is, in the fourth of Ahaz,

and twentieth of Jotham. In the twelfth year of Ahaz his reign began to

be tranquil and prosperous [CALMET].

2. he did evil . . . but not as the kings of Israel--Unlike his

predecessors from the time of Jeroboam, he neither established the

rites of Baal, nor compelled the people to adhere to the symbolic

worship of the calves.

[See on

2Ch 30:1.]

In these respects, Hoshea acted as became a constitutional king of

Israel. Yet, through the influence of the nineteen princes who had

swayed the scepter before him (all of whom had been zealous patrons of

idolatry, and many of whom had been also infamous for personal crimes),

the whole nation had become so completely demoralized that the

righteous judgment of an angry Providence impended over it.

3. Against him came up Shalmaneser--or Shalman

(Ho 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.

4. found conspiracy in Hoshea--After having paid tribute for several

years, Hoshea, determined on throwing off the Assyrian yoke, withheld

the stipulated tribute. Shalmaneser, incensed at this rebellion,

proclaimed war against Israel. This was in the sixth year of Hoshea's

reign.

he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt--the Sabaco of the classic

historians, a famous Ethiopian who, for fifty years, occupied the

Egyptian throne, and through whose aid Hoshea hoped to resist the

threatened attack of the Assyrian conqueror. But Shalmaneser,

marching against [Hoshea], scoured the whole country of Israel,

besieged the capital Samaria, and carried the principal inhabitants

into captivity in his own land, having taken the king himself, and

imprisoned him for life. This ancient policy of transplanting a

conquered people into a foreign land, was founded on the idea that,

among a mixed multitude, differing in language and religion, they would

be kept in better subjection, and have less opportunity of combining

together to recover their independence.

6. carried Israel away--that is, the remaining tribes

(see on

2Ki 15:29).

and placed them, &c.--This passage GESENIUS

renders thus, omitting

the particle by, which is printed in italics to show it is not in

the original: "and placed them in Halah, and on the Chabor, a river of

Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes."

Halah--the same as Calah

(Ge 10:11, 12),

in the region of the Laycus or Zab river, about a day's journey from

the ruins of Nineveh.

Chabor--is a river, and it is remarkable that there is a river

rising in the central highlands of Assyria which retains this name

Khabour unchanged to the present day.

Gozan--("pasture") or Zozan, are the highlands of Assyria, which

afford pasturage. The region in which the Chabor and the Zab rise, and

through which they flow, is peculiarly of this character. The

Nestorians repair to it with their numerous flocks, spending the summer

on the banks or in the highlands of the Chabor or the Zab. Considering

the high authority we possess for regarding Gozan and Zozan as one

name, there can be no doubt that this is the Gozan referred to in this

passage.

cities of the Medes--"villages," according to the Syriac and

Vulgate versions, or "mountains," according to the Septuagint. The Medish inhabitants of Gozan, having revolted, had been destroyed by

the kings of Assyria, and nothing was more natural than that they

should wish to place in it an industrious people, like the captive

Israelites, while it was well suited to their pastoral life

[GRANT, Nestorians].

2Ki 17:7-41.

SAMARIA

TAKEN, AND

ISRAEL FOR

THEIR

SINS

CARRIED

CAPTIVE.

7. For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned--There is here

given a very full and impressive vindication of the divine procedure in

punishing His highly privileged, but rebellious and apostate, people.

No wonder that amid so gross a perversion of the worship of the true

God, and the national propensity to do reverence to idols, the divine

patience was exhausted; and that the God whom they had forsaken

permitted them to go into captivity, that they might learn the

difference between His service and that of their despotic conquerors.

24-28. the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, etc.--This

was not Shalmaneser, but Esar-haddon

(Eze 4:2).

The places vacated by the captive Israelites he ordered to be occupied

provinces.

from Cuthah--the Chaldee form of Cush or Susiana, now Khusistan.

Ava--supposed to be Ahivaz, situated on the river Karuns,

which empties into the head of the Persian Gulf.

Hamath--on the Orontes.

Sepharvaim--Siphara, a city on the Euphrates above Babylon.

placed them in the cities of Samaria, &c.--It must not be supposed

that the Israelites were universally removed to a man. A remnant was

left, chiefly however of the poor and lower classes, with whom these

foreign colonists mingled; so that the prevailing character of society

about Samaria was heathen, not Israelite. For the Assyrian colonists

became masters of the land; and, forming partial intermarriages with

the remnant Jews, the inhabitants became a mongrel race, no longer a

people of Ephraim

(Isa 7:6).

These people, imperfectly instructed in the creed of the Jews, acquired

also a mongrel doctrine. Being too few to replenish the land, lions, by

which the land had been infested

(Jud 14:5;

1Sa 17:34;

1Ki 13:24; 20:36;

So 4:8),

multiplied and committed frequent ravages upon them. Recognizing in

these attacks a judgment from the God of the land, whom they had not

worshipped, they petitioned the Assyrian court to send them some Jewish

priests who might instruct them in the right way of serving Him. The

king, in compliance with their request, sent them one of the exiled

priests of Israel

[2Ki 17:27],

who established his headquarters at Beth-el, and taught them how they

should fear the Lord. It is not said that he took a copy of the

Pentateuch with him, out of which he might teach them. Oral

teaching was much better fitted for the superstitious people than

instruction out of a written book. He could teach them more effectually

method for them, it is unlikely that he took the written law with him,

and so gave origin to the Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch [DAVIDSON, Criticism]. Besides, it is evident from

his being one of the exiled priests, and from his settlement at

Beth-el, that he was not a Levite, but one of the calf-worshipping

priests. Consequently his instructions would be neither sound nor

efficient.

29. Howbeit every nation made gods of their own--These Assyrian

colonists, however, though instructed in the worship, and acknowledging

the being of the God of Israel, did not suppose Him to be the only God.

Like other heathens, they combined His worship with that of their own

gods; and as they formed a promiscuous society from different nations

or provinces, a variety of idols was acknowledged among them.

30. Succoth-benoth--that is, the "tents" or "booths of the daughters,"

similar to those in which the Babylonian damsels celebrated impure

rites

(Am 2:8).

Nergal--The Jewish writers say this idol was in the form of a cock, and

it is certain that a cock is often associated with a priest on the

Assyrian monuments [LAYARD].

But modern critics, looking to the

astrological character of Assyrian idolatry, generally consider Nergal

as the planet Mars, the god of war. The name of this idol formed part

of the appellation of two of the king of Babylon's princes

(Jer 39:3).

Ashima--an idol under the form of an entirely bald he-goat.

31. Nibhaz--under that of a dog--that Egyptian form of animal-worship

having prevailed in ancient Syria, as is evident from the image of a

large dog at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, or Dog river.

Tartak--According to the rabbis, it was in the form of an ass, but

others understand it as a planet of ill-omen, probably Saturn.

Adrammelech--supposed by some to be the same as Molech, and in

Assyrian mythology to stand for the sun. It was worshipped in the form

of a mule--others maintain in that of a peacock.

Anammelech--worshipped in the form of a hare; others say in that of

a goat.

34. Unto this day--the time of the Babylonian exile, when this book

was composed. Their religion was a strange medley or compound of the

service of God and the service of idols. Such was the first settlement

of the people, afterwards called Samaritans, who were sent from Assyria

to colonize the land, when the kingdom of Israel, after having

continued three hundred fifty-six years, was overthrown.