THE EXTINCTION OF THE ISRAELITISH KINGDOM
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2 Kings 17:2. Did evil … but not as the kings of Israel—Scripture merely records the fact, does not explain wherein Hoshea sinned less. But even an abstention from wrong, which others wrought, is noticed by Jehovah, and kept in eternal memory.
2 Kings 17:3. Came up Shalmaneser, king of Assyria—Thirsting for conquest, he subdued the king of the ten tribes, and made him tributary. Shalmaneser’s reign followed Tiglath-pileser’s, who died B.C 727. From this Assyrian despot Hoshea after a few years, sought relief by alliance with So, king of Egypt (2 Kings 17:4). This name—סוא—becomes by punctuation Seveh, and is recognized as Shebek of the 25th dynasty. This Ethiopian monarch, lord of Upper Egypt, in the year B.C. 725 invaded Lower Egypt, and proved so mighty a conqueror that the small kingdoms which had groaned beneath the despotism or Assyria turned to him for defence and security.
HOMILETICS OF 2 Kings 17:1-6
THE UTTER DOWNFALL OF ISRAEL
I. Was effected notwithstanding the superior capacity and modified idolatry of the ruler.—Hoshea “did that which was evil, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him” (2 Kings 17:2). He did not enforce the edicts of Baal with such determined fanaticism as some of his predecessors. He allowed more liberty in religious worship, and while not approaching the true worship of Jehovah, he did not descend to the abominations of the lowest heathenism. Some have thought that the last king of Israel was the worst; but the history does not favour that view. He was a man of considerable military and political capacity. It is true he reached the throne by violence and bloodshed (chap. 2 Kings 15:30); but the people were weary of national abuses and of the imbecility of their kings, and welcomed the advent of any one who had the courage and vigour to rectify matters. Hoshea yearned for liberty, and his whole reign was spent in repeated efforts to cast off the foreign yoke, to excite a more enterprising national spirit, and to arrest the downward tendency of the kingdom. But no human power could now save Israel. The ablest generalship, the most consummate statesmanship, the cleverest combinations, were all in vain. It was a melancholy sight to see this man grappling with a falling kingdom, whose ruin he was powerless to prevent.
II. Was accomplished notwithstanding the most brave and desperate struggles for continued existence (2 Kings 17:4-5).—Hoshea saw the mistake that Menahem and Pckah had made in calling in the assistance of Assyria, and what had been the sad results to the country. He made a bold stand for national freedom. He refused to pay tribute, and prepared to withstand the fury of the great Assyrian power. It is a tribute to the superior diplomacy of Hosea that he succeeded in persuading So, the warrior king of Egypt, that it was their mutual safety to oppose Assyria; and though So was but a fickle colleague, he must have rendered considerable assistance until he was obliged to retire within his own kingdom and defend himself from the common enemy. The fact that Samaria held out for three years against the Assyrian army, with all its formidable appliances for siege and assault, indicates the obstinacy and desperation of the defence. They were the last frantic efforts of despair.
“It is remarkable,” says Ewald, “how strong a resemblance the fall of Samaria bears to the first and second destructions of Jerusalem, in the heroic resistance of its inhabitants.”
III. Was associated with scenes of humiliation and suffering (2 Kings 17:5-6). Israel was afflicted with all the terrible consequences of war—war carried on by an enemy who was determined to win. The horrors of the siege of Samaria may be inferred from Isaiah 28:1-4; Hosea 10:14; Hosea 13:16; Amos 6:9-14. Added to the chagrin of defeat, was the degradation of enforced captivity and estrangement—torn from the midst of loved and familiar scenes, and placed in a strange and distant country, subject to the sarcasms and, it may be, cruelty of its inhabitants. The people who had been delivered from Egyptian slavery by the strong arm of Jehovah are again relegated to bondage, because they had abandoned their Deliverer. The punishment for sin is ever attended with suffering and shame.
IV. Was inevitable, as the opportunity for reformation had passed unimproved.—Instruction had been despised, reproof unheeded, the best of prophets ignored, prosperity abused, and repeated overtures of mercy callously spurned. The time for compromise was passed, the opportunity of salvation was sinned away. Nothing remained but to allow the national infatuation to run its course and produce its inevitable results. The nation must reap what it had sown; it had sown the wind, and must reap the whirlwind. A certain king once caused a lamp to be lit in his palace, and a proclamation made throughout his dominion that every rebel who came and tendered his submission before the light burnt out should be forgiven, whatever the nature of his offence; but that those who refused to obey the summons within the required time should be put to death. The lamp of Israel’s opportunity had long been lit, and the conditions of submission made sufficiently public. When therefore the light became extinct, and Israel refused to return, the threatened punishment must inevitably follow. Shakespeare says truly of opportuity, “Who seeks, and will not take when once ’tis offered, shall never find it more.”
LESSONS:—
1. It is not in the power of any one man unaided to save a kingdom.
2. National sins involve national ruin.
3. Every nation, as every individual, has ample opportunities for reformation.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Kings 17:1-6. A doleful picture of national desolation.
1. Fanatical persistence in the evil that works its ruin (2 Kings 17:2).
2. Vainly seeking the protection of foreign powers (2 Kings 17:3-4).
3. The country overrun and impoverished by hosts of invading foes (2 Kings 17:5).
4. Struggling bravely, but uselessly, against superior numbers (2 Kings 17:5-6).
5. Draughted unresistingly into strange and distant lands (2 Kings 17:16).
6. An imprisoned king and scattered people.
—The last king of Israel. I. He did that which was evil, but not as the kings of Israel before him. Though he did not go so far in wickedness as the eighteen kings who preceded him, nevertheless, he did not walk in the way of salvation. Half-way conversion is no conversion. In order to bring back the nation from its wicked ways, he should have been himself devoted to the Lord with all his heart. When people are not fully in earnest in their conversion, then there is no cessation of corruption, whether it be the case of an individual or a state. II. He makes a covenant with the king of Egypt (2 Kings 17:4). By this he showed that his heart was not perfect with God. Egypt, the very power out of whose hand God had wonderfully rescued his people, was to help him against Assyria. But “cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm” (Jeremiah 17:5; Hosea 7:11-13). III. He loses his land and his people, and is cast into prison. By conspiracy and murder he had attained to the throne and to the highest pitch of human greatness, but his end was disgrace, misery, and lifelong imprisonment. Upon him who will not be humbled by small evils God sends great and heavy ones.—Lange.
2 Kings 17:2. Wickedness—
1. May be modified in its enormity.
2. Every modification observed and impartially recorded.
3. Modification does not alter its nature, or escape its punishment.
—It looks like the bitter irony of fate that this Hosea, who was to be the last king, was a better one than any of his predecessors. The words of the prophets who had uttered so many and such important truths concerning this kingdom during the last fifty years, many have exercised a powerful influence over him and instilled into him better principles. But they had always predicted its fall as certain; and now the irresistible force of history was to prove that no single man, whatever might be his position and superiority, could be strong enough to delay the ruin of the whole structure, if the right moment for its reformation had passed.—Ewald.
2 Kings 17:3. Payment of tribute.
1. A humiliating evidence of subjection (2 Kings 17:3).
2. Chafes the spirit of a liberty-loving people (2 Kings 17:4).
3. Brings disaster if ineffectually resisted (2 Kings 17:4).
2 Kings 17:5. As the end drew near, they gave themselves up to the frantio revellings of despair. At last the city was stormed. With the ferocity common to all the warfare of those times, the infants were hurled down the rocky sides of the hill on which the city stood, or destroyed in their mothers’ bosoms. Famine and pestilence completed the work of war. The stones of the ruined city were poured down into the rich valley below, and the foundations were laid bare. Palace and hovel alike fell; the statues were broken to pieces; the crown of pride, the glory of Ephraim, was trodden under foot.—Stanley.
2 Kings 17:6. The fall of Samaria and Damascus was, according to the prediction of the prophet, synchronous (Isaiah 7:7-9); and the devastation both of Syria and Israel was foretold at a time and in circumstances when no human sagacity could have anticipated it (Amos 1).—Jamieson.
—O terrible examples of vengeance upon that peculiar people whom God had chosen for Himself out of all the world! All the world were witnesses of the favours, of the miraculous deliverances and protections; all the world shall be witnesses of their just confusion. It is not in the power of slight errors to set off that infinite mercy. What was it, O God, what was it that caused Thee to cast off Thine inheritance? What but the same that made Thee cast the angels out of heaven—even their rebellious sins. Those sins dared to emulate the greatness of Thy mercies, no less than they forced the severity of Thy judgments.—Bp. Hall.