2 Kings 17:6-23

17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel ¹  to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes.

A Summary of Israel’s Sinful History

17:7 This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of ²  Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped ³  other gods; 17:8 they observed the practices ⁴  of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before Israel, and followed the example of the kings of Israel. ⁵  17:9 The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. ⁶  They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress. ⁷  17:10 They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. 17:11 They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry. ⁸  17:12 They worshiped ⁹  the disgusting idols ¹⁰  in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹¹ 

17:13 The Lord solemnly warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and all the seers, “Turn back from your evil ways; obey my commandments and rules that are recorded in the law. I ordered your ancestors to keep this law and sent my servants the prophets to remind you of its demands.” ¹²  17:14 But they did not pay attention and were as stubborn as their ancestors, ¹³  who had not trusted the Lord their God. 17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. ¹⁴  They paid allegiance to ¹⁵  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ¹⁶  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹⁷  17:16 They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God; they made two metal calves and an Asherah pole, bowed down to all the stars in the sky, ¹⁸  and worshiped ¹⁹  Baal. 17:17 They passed their sons and daughters through the fire, ²⁰  and practiced divination and omen reading. They committed themselves to doing evil in the sight of the Lord and made him angry. ²¹ 

17:18 So the Lord was furious ²²  with Israel and rejected them; ²³  only the tribe of Judah was left. 17:19 Judah also failed to keep the commandments of the Lord their God; they followed Israel’s example. ²⁴  17:20 So the Lord rejected all of Israel’s descendants; he humiliated ²⁵  them and handed them over to robbers, until he had thrown them from his presence. 17:21 He tore Israel away from David’s dynasty, and Jeroboam son of Nebat became their king. ²⁶  Jeroboam drove Israel away ²⁷  from the Lord and encouraged them to commit a serious sin. ²⁸  17:22 The Israelites followed in the sinful ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and did not repudiate ²⁹  them. 17:23 Finally ³⁰  the Lord rejected Israel ³¹  just as he had warned he would do ³²  through all his servants the prophets. Israel was deported from its land to Assyria and remains there to this very day.

2 Kings 18:9-12

18:9 In the fourth year of King Hezekiah’s reign (it was the seventh year of the reign of Israel’s King Hoshea, son of Elah), King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched ³³  up against Samaria ³⁴  and besieged it. 18:10 After three years he captured it (in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign); in the ninth year of King Hoshea’s reign over Israel Samaria was captured. 18:11 The king of Assyria deported the people of Israel ³⁵  to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes. 18:12 This happened because they did not obey ³⁶  the Lord their God and broke his agreement with them. ³⁷  They did not pay attention to and obey all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded. ³⁸ 

2 Kings 24:11

24:11 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city while his generals were besieging it.

Proverbs 12:10

12:10 A righteous person cares for ³⁹  the life of his animal,

but even the most compassionate acts ⁴⁰  of the wicked are cruel.

[17:6]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.

[17:7]  ² tn Heb “and from under the hand of.” The words “freed them” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[17:7]  ³ tn Heb “feared.”

[17:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “walked in the customs.”

[17:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “and [the practices of] the kings of Israel which they did.”

[17:9]  ⁶ tn The meaning of the verb וַיְחַפְּאוּ (vayÿkhappÿ’u), translated here “said,” is uncertain. Some relate it to the verbal root חָפַה (khafah), “to cover,” and translate “they did it in secret” (see BDB 341 s.v. חָפָא). However, the pagan practices specified in the following sentences were hardly done in secret. Others propose a meaning “ascribe, impute,” which makes good contextual sense but has little etymological support (see HALOT 339 s.v. חפא). In this case Israel claimed that the Lord authorized their pagan practices.

[17:9]  ⁷ sn That is, from the city’s perimeter to the central citadel.

[17:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “and they did evil things, angering the Lord.”

[17:12]  ⁹ tn Or “served.”

[17:12]  ¹⁰ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.

[17:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “about which the Lord had said to them, ‘You must not do this thing.’”

[17:13]  ¹² tn Heb “obey my commandments and rules according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets.”

[17:14]  ¹³ tn Heb and they stiffened their neck like the neck of their fathers.”

[17:15]  ¹⁴ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

[17:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[17:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[17:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

[17:16]  ¹⁸ tn The phrase כָל צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם (khol tsÿva’ hashamayim), traditionally translated “all the host of heaven,” refers to the heavenly lights, including stars and planets. In 1 Kgs 22:19 these heavenly bodies are pictured as members of the Lord’s royal court or assembly, but many other texts view them as the illegitimate objects of pagan and Israelite worship.

[17:16]  ¹⁹ tn Or “served.”

[17:17]  ²⁰ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.

[17:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “they sold themselves to doing what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering him.”

[17:18]  ²² tn Heb “very angry.”

[17:18]  ²³ tn Heb “turned them away from his face.”

[17:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “they walked in the practices of Israel which they did.”

[17:20]  ²⁵ tn Or “afflicted.”

[17:21]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king.”

[17:21]  ²⁷ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) assumes the verb is נָדָא (nada’), an alternate form of נָדָה (nadah), “push away.” The marginal reading (Qere) assumes the verb נָדָח (nadakh), “drive away.”

[17:21]  ²⁸ tn Heb “a great sin.”

[17:22]  ²⁹ tn Heb “turn away from.”

[17:23]  ³⁰ tn Heb “until.”

[17:23]  ³¹ tn Heb “the Lord turned Israel away from his face.”

[17:23]  ³² tn Heb “just as he said.”

[18:9]  ³³ tn Heb “went” (also in v. 13).

[18:9]  ³⁴ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[18:11]  ³⁵ tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.

[18:12]  ³⁶ tn Heb “listen to the voice of.”

[18:12]  ³⁷ tn Heb “his covenant.”

[18:12]  ³⁸ tn Heb “all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded, and they did not listen and they did not act.”

[12:10]  ³⁹ tn Heb “knows”; NLT “concerned for the welfare of.” The righteous take care of animals, not just people.

[12:10]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “but the mercies.” The additional words appear in the translation for the sake of clarification. The line can be interpreted in two ways: (1) when the wicked exhibit a kind act, they do it in a cruel way, or (2) even the kindest of their acts is cruel by all assessments, e.g., stuffing animals with food to fatten them for market – their “kindness” is driven by ulterior motives (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 129).