29 And every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they dwelt.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands: They have a mouth, and they speak not; eyes have they, and they see not; They have ears, and they hear not; a nose have they, and they smell not; They have hands, and they handle not; feet have they, and they walk not; they give no sound through their throat. They that make them are like unto them, -- every one that confideth in them.
The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men's hands: They have a mouth, and they speak not; eyes have they, and they see not; They have ears, and they hear not; neither is there any breath in their mouth. They that make them are like unto them, -- every one that confideth in them.
They that form a graven image are all of them vanity, and their delectable things are of no profit; and they are their own witnesses: they see not, nor know; -- that they may be ashamed. Who hath formed a ùgod, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed; and the workmen are but men. Let them all be gathered together, let them stand up: they shall fear, they shall be ashamed together. The iron-smith [hath] a chisel, and he worketh in the coals, and he fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with his strong arm; -- but he is hungry, and his strength faileth; he hath not drunk water, and he is faint. The worker in wood stretcheth out a line; he marketh it out with red chalk; he formeth it with sharp tools, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of man: that it may remain in the house. When he heweth him down cedars, he taketh also a holm-oak and a terebinth -- he chooseth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth a pine, and the rain maketh [it] grow. And it shall be for a man to burn, and he taketh thereof, and warmeth himself; he kindleth it also, and baketh bread; he maketh also a ùgod, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh, he roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, he is warm, and saith, Aha, I am become warm, I have seen the fire. And with the remainder thereof he maketh a ùgod, his graven image; he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my ùgod. They have no knowledge, and understand not; for he hath plastered their eyes, that they may not see; and their hearts, that they may not understand. And none taketh it to heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire, and have also baked bread upon the coals thereof, I have roasted flesh, and eaten [it], and with the rest thereof shall I make an abomination? shall I bow down to a block of wood? He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?
For the statutes of the peoples are vanity; for [it is] a tree cut out of the forest, worked with a chisel by the hands of the artizan; they deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are as a palm-column of turned work, and they speak not; they are carried, for they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 2 Kings 17
Commentary on 2 Kings 17 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 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 by several colonies of his own subjects from Babylon and other 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 by word of mouth. Believing that he would adopt the best and simplest 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.