2 Kings 17

Chap. XVII. Ver. 1—41. The wicked reign of Hoshea, who, conspiring against the king of Assyria, is dethroned, and Israel is carried captive into Babylon.—We now come to the affairs of Israel, and to the painful crisis of their captivity. Hoshea was a wicked prince, though not so much so as some of his predecessors. But it was his real or supposed conspiracy against Shalmaneser, that brought on his immediate ruin. He had sent presents to the king of Egypt, and withheld his usual tribute from the king of Assyria, which led the latter to conclude, that he had taken part with the former against him. On hearing this, therefore, Shalmaneser marched a powerful army into the land of Israel, dethroned and imprisoned Hoshea, and carried the people away captive.

By the mention of the king’s imprisonment before the siege of Samaria, it should seem probable that the king was seized out of his metropolis, and carried captive before any of his people. Samaria must indeed have been ably defended, as it stood a siege of three years before it could be taken; when taken, however, the inhabitants were carried away captive into the Assyrian empire, and colonies sent from different parts to supply their place. The Lord now sent lions among the new inhabitants, who lapsed on an evil worship practised by their predecessors: for it is evident they took the God of Israel to be a local deity, like their own idols; and thought it only necessary to perform the accustomed sacrifices, in order to secure his protection.

On making such a representation to the king of Assyria, he sends a Jewish priest to instruct them “how they should fear the Lord.” He did so; but whether he did not forewarn them against idolatry, — or whether they did not regard his doctrine, still every nation “made a god of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made.” As to these Israelites, who were chiefly the two tribes and a half carried away into captivity, for the very same crimes committed by the heathen, than whom they were so much the more culpable, as they had in their hands the revealed will of God. It is vain to inquire into the exact situation of the places here named, whither they were carried; and still more so, to look for any remainder of them now there existing.

Many doubtless returned after the captivity, and those who did not, were dispersed farther in the course of years; so that some remains of the ten tribes have been traced, with considerable probability, in Chaldea and Persia; among the Afghans in Cabulistan; in India, in Africa, and even in North America. (See Isaiah, and receives a favourable answer. The Assyrian army is destroyed, and Sennacherib is slain.—Hezekiah now clothed himself with sackcloth, and sent messengers in sackcloth also to Isaiah the prophet, who gave an answer of peace, which we find fulfilled in the same chapter. When Rab-shakeh returned back to Sennacherib, he found him at Libnah, whence he sent another message, by letter, to Hezekiah, no less menacing and blasphemous than his former one.

The answer was, (through the prophet,) “‘The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn.” The king of Assyria now heard a rumour that the king of Ethiopia (or rather Cush) was come out to war against him, and hastened home to meet him; after this, it is supposed, (for the narrative is not clear,) that he returned back with his whole host. Or “shoot an arrow there,” the Lord sent his angel, and smote 185,000 of his men in one night. Whether this was done by means of a pestilence, as in the case of David’s punishment for numbering the people, ((2 Samuel 24:15-16).) or, as “he maketh the winds his angels,” ((Psalms 104:4).) whether it was by means of the pestilential vapour called the simoom, we presume not to decide.

(See note.) But either way it was equally fatal, and equally from the hand of God; and the divine prediction closes with this sentence—“I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” He did so, and by the sword of his own sons. This chapter seems to want no farther elucidation, but we must not close it without remarking—“What an asylum hath the soul in prayer!” “Prayer moves the arm, that moves the universe.” There is no reason to be terrified at the threats of any mortal man, even though he wear a crown, while we can have access to “Him who dwelleth between the cherubim,” and have there an Advocate who gratuitously pleads our cause, and who never pleads in vain.

Notes on the verses

Chap. XVII. Ver. 1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz.—In ch. xv. 30. this is said to be “the twentieth year of Jotham,” which Calmet thus reconciles: “Hosea conspired against Pekah, the 20th year of the reign of this prince, which was the 18th of Jotham, king of Judah. Two years after this, that is, the 4th of Ahaz, and the 20th of Jotham, Hosea made himself master of a part of the kingdom, according to (2 Kings 15:30). Finally, the 12th [year] of [Ahaz], Hosea had peaceable possession of the whole kingdom, agreeably to (2 Kings 17:1).”

Ver. 6. In Habor, by the river of Gozan.—As no such river is to be found, Stackhouse reads, “He placed them in Halah, and by the river Habor, in Gozan,” &c. Habor, according to Calmet, is the same as Chebar, Eze. 1.1. 465.

Ver. 9. From the tower, &c.—The meaning is, from the smallest villages to the largest cities: the idolatry was universal.

Ver. 18. Out of his sight.—That is, from his immediate presence in the temple. See (Jonah 2:4).

Ver. 26. The manner of the God of the land.—That is, the manner in which he is accustomed to be worshipped.

Ver. 27, 28. One of the priests.—Most likely not one of the sons of Aaron, “as one of Jeroboam’s, which might, in great measure, tolerate their idolatry.”

Ver. 30. Sweeath-benoth.—Literally, “the tents of the daughters,” were probably tents in which young women, according to the testimony of Herodotus and Strabo, devoted themselves to the worship of the Babylonish goddess Mylitta, or Venus.

The Rabbins say, her emblem was a hen and chickens. Cuth.—Cuth is probably the Cush watered by the Gihon, or Araxes, now Aras, ((Genesis 2:13).) the ancient country of the Scythae where we meet with the Quitians. —Bagster.—Nergal.—The Solar light, whose emblem, according to the Rabbins, was the cock that “ushers in the dawn.” —Ashima, a demon; represented by the same authority as a goat, or a satyr. See 2 Kings iv, 23, 24.

Ver. 31. Nibhaz—The Anubis of the Egyptians, being the body of a man, with the head and feet of a dog.—Tartak.—The [figure] somewhat similar having the body of an ape with a dog’s head, standing upon [the] Hezekiah’s [final] reign. 4 He destroyeth idolatry, and prospereth. 9 Samaria is carried captive for their sins.

13 Sennacherib Sheer el udah is pacified by a tribute. 17 Rab-shakeh, sent 4 Sennacherib again, revileth Hezekiah, and by blasphemous persuasions soliciteth the people to revolt. Now it came to pass in the third year Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachar. 3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did. 4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

5 He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. 6 For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded. 7 And the Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he Williams’s Dictionary of Religions, in Yet, however we may have lost them, they are not lost to the eye of Providence, but will be easily re-collected, when “the set time to favour Zion” shall be come.