CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2 Kings 17:24. King of Assyria brought men from Babylon, &c.—Had the land been depopulated there would have seemed promise of the exiles’ return; but under the royal direction Assyrian subjects came in and possessed the sacred soil, making it the home of foreigners. This king, called here מֶלֶך אַשּׁוּר is regarded by many expositors as Esarhaddon; but a doubt naturally springs from the fact that Esarhaddon did not come to the throne for some twenty-six years after Shalmanezer, who carried Israel into captivity. From Ezra 4:2 we gain information that Esarhaddon brought these colonists into Samaria.
2 Kings 17:27. Carry thither one of the priests The country was too thinly populated to subdue the growth of those beasts of prey by which the land had been infested prior to its occupancy by Israel (Judges 14:5; 1 Samuel 17:34, &c.); now they again multiplied and ravaged the country. Interpreting this as a judgment from God for the neglect of His worship, an exiled priest was sent back to the people to teach them Jehovah’s will. And from this event arose that mingled religion which became distinctive of the Samaritans; also the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, which acquired such historic importance.
2 Kings 17:30. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth—“Booths of the daughters,” i.e., tents of voluptuousness, where lust was sanctioned as a religious observance. Nergal—Identified in the British Museum inscriptions as Mars, the god of war. Ashima—a goat idol. Nibhaz—a dog. Tartak—an ass, or planet of ill omen. Adrammelech—Either Moloch the Assyrian sun-god; or, as others think, a mule or a peacock. Anammelech—An idol in form of a hare. Thus the Samaritans became a people of varied religious forms and vagaries, the true worship and knowledge of God being perverted by the rival heathenish fallacies and rites which the immigrants of Babylon had brought into the land. So even though Jehovah was in some way “feared” (2 Kings 17:32), idolatry was fostered, and they “served their graven images” through generations following (2 Kings 17:41).—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 2 Kings 17:24-41
RELIGIOUS COMPROMISE
I. That religious compromise is the offspring of human fear (2 Kings 17:24-28). The incursion and ravages of the lions and wild beasts that multiplied so rapidly in the Jordan Valley and the forests of Samaria filled the now scattered inhabitants with dread. Regarding their sufferings as an indication of the anger of some local deity, they were anxious to be instructed in “the manner of the god of the land.” Thus it came to pass that Jehovah was worshipped as one of many other deities. Fear—fear of consequences, fear of offending, fear of suffering—leads to the most calamitous compromises. “In morals,” says a certain writer, “what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.”
II. That religious compromise is ever productive of error and confusion (2 Kings 17:29-34). What a curious and pitiable jumble of creeds and deities we have here! It is an illustration of what must happen when man is left to himself. The key-note of the paragraph is 2 Kings 17:33—“They feared the Lord and served their own gods.” They sought to accomplish the impossible—to blend what can never be united, as there are certain metals that can never weld together, and certain fluids that can never coalesce. One part of the day the worshipper enters the temple of Jehovah, and at another part the temple of Succoth-Benoth. So confused and mixed a cultus could not but produce serious misconceptions of religion in the minds of both old and young. The haphazard mixture of glaring colours in the pattern offends the eye and vitiates the taste.
III. That religions compromise creates a class of inferior and incompetent teachers. “They made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests” (2 Kings 17:32). There is in the sinful human heart that which responds too readily to what is broad and vague in religious thought. Eccentricity of religious opinion has many imitators. It is an easy matter to procure teachers—and sometimes men gifted with no mean intellectual ability—who are willing to teach what is agreeable to believe and pleasant to practise. A false system of religion never lacks advocates, such as they are.
The sweet words
Of Christian promise, words that even yet
Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,
Are muttered o’er by men, whose tones proclaim
How flat and wearisome they feel their trade:
Bank scoffers some, but most too indolent
To redeem their falsehoods, or to know their truth.
Coleridge.
IV. That the claims of true religion admit of no compromise (2 Kings 17:35-41). In these verses the writer rehearses the terms of the covenant between Jehovah and His people, and shows that nothing short of full submission and obedience could be acceptable to God. Religion is a necessity of the soul. “The ivy cannot grow alone; it must twine around some support or other; if not the goodly oak, then the ragged thorn; round any dead stick whatever, rather than have no stay or support at all. It is even so with the heart and affections of man; if they do not twine around God, they must twine around some meaner thing.” True religion demands the absolute surrender of the whole man to God. When he begins to hesitate, to palter, to compromise, he begins to drift away from God. The Divine claims become an irksome bondage. He seeks to snap one fetter of obligation after another; but when he has snapped the last fetter, as he thinks—a belief in a personal God—he has still himself left. Which is preferable—the golden fetters of a righteous and impartial Ruler, or the tyranny of a Frankenstein monster, generated from the dreary swamps of a perverted self? It is dangerous to trifle with the absolute claims of true religion.
LESSONS:—
1. Compromise may be useful in settling external difficulties, but is inadmissible when it touches vital principles.
2. The man who compromises religious principle, loses caste with those to whom he yields, and loses strength in himself.
3. The claims of Jehovah should be reverently recognised and faithfully observed.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Kings 17:24-28. The religion of fear.
1. To be carefully distinguished from a spirit of reverential awe.
2. Is based on a natural dread of suffering and calamity (2 Kings 17:25).
3. Will pay court to any deity who promises protection and safety (2 Kings 17:26).
4. Readily listens to any teacher who professes to know anything about the deity who is dreaded (2 Kings 17:27-28).
2 Kings 17:25. Not the veriest Pagan can be excused for his ignorance of God. Even the most depraved nature might teach us to tremble at a Deity. The brute creatures are sent to revenge the quarrel of their Maker. Still hath God left himself champions in Israel. Lions tear the Assyrians in pieces, and put them in mind that, had it not been for wickedness, the land needed not to have changed masters. The great Lord of the world cannot want means to plague offenders. There is no security but in being at peace with God.—Bp. Hall.
2 Kings 17:26. These blind heathens that think every land hath a several god, yet hold that god worthy of worship; yet hold that worship must be grounded upon knowledge, the want of that knowledge punishable, the punishment of that want just and divine. How much worse than Assyrians are they who are ready to ascribe all calamities to nature, to chance!—who, acknowledging but one God, are yet careless to know and serve Him!—Ibid.
2 Kings 17:29-33. Polytheism.
1. Bewilders the worshipper by the multiplicity of gods (2 Kings 17:29-31).
2. Is not scrupulous as to the character of its priests (2 Kings 17:32).
3. Makes no distinction between the only true God and false deities (2 Kings 17:33).
4. Can never meet the deepest needs of man’s nature.
—A country cannot fall lower than it does when each man makes unto himself his own god. We are indeed beyond the danger of making to ourselves idols of wood and stone, silver and gold; but we are none the less disposed to form idols for ourselves out of our own imaginatons, and not to fear and worship the one true God as He has revealed Himself to us. That is the cultivated heathenism of the present day. Some make to themselves a god who dwells above the stars, and does not care much for the omissions or commissions of men upon earth. Others, one who can do anything but chastise and punish, or one in whose sight men forgive themselves their own sins; who does not recompense each according to his works; but forgives all without discrimination, and who opens heaven to all alike, no matter how they have lived upon earth.—Lange.
—What a prodigious mixture was here of religions—true with false, Jewish with Pagan, divine with devilish! Every division of these transplanted Assyrians had their several deities, high places, sacrifices. No beggar’s coat is more pieced than the religion of these inhabitants of Israel. I know not how their bodies sped for the lions; I am sure their souls fared the worse for this medley. Above all things God hates a mongrel devotion. If we be not all Israel, it were better to be all Ashur. It cannot so much displease God to be unknown or neglected, as to be consorted with idols.—Bp. Hall.
2 Kings 17:34-41. The sin of disobedience.
1. All the more grievous when it is the violation of solemn covenant.
2. When committed against a Being who has wrought out great deliverances and bestowed signal blessing.
3. When it is a breach of the plainest and oft-repeated commandments.
4. When it is perpetuated generation after generation.
5. Is an occasion of sorrowful regret to every lover of the Divine law.
2 Kings 17:34. Rightly they fear him not, because neither truly nor totally. Their religion was galimfrey, a mixture of true and false, which is as good as none; for God will not part stakes with the devil at any hand. Such a religion is a mere irreligion, because—
1. Contrary to God’s law which rejects heathen rites (2 Kings 17:34; 2 Kings 17:36-38; 2 Kings 17:40).
2. Contrary to God’s covenant, which heathens have nothing to do with (2 Kings 17:33; 2 Kings 17:38).—Trapp.
—Decay in religious matters, lack of unity of conviction in the highest and noblest affairs, prevents a nation from ever becoming great and strong. It is a sign of the most radical corruption Similarity of faith and community of worship form a strong uniting force, and are the conditions of true national unity. The existence of different creeds and professions by the side of one another is a source of national weakness. It is an error to try to produce this unity by force: it is a blessing only when it proceeds from a free conviction.—Lange.
2 Kings 17:41. Mongrel religion. This base union of fearing God and serving other gods is by no means obsolete. From generation to generation there have been mongrel religionists who have tried to please both God and the devil, and have been on both sides, or on either side, as their interest led them. Some of these wretched blunderers are always hovering around every congregation.
I. The nature of this mongrel religion.
1. These people were not infidels. Far from it. “They feared the Lord.” They did not deny the existence, or the power, or the rights of the great God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah. They had faith, though only enough to produce fear. It was better to dread God than to despise Him; better slavishly to fear than stupidly to forget.
2. They were willing to be taught. The man sent to teach them was a Bethelite, one who worshipped God under the symbol of an ox, which the Scripture calls a calf. He was a very slight improvement upon a heathen; but we must be glad even of small mercies.
3. They were willing to learn, yet they stuck to their old gods. Thus this mingle-mangle religion left the people practically where they were: whatever their fear might be, their customs and practices remained the same. Have you never met with persons of the same mongrel kind? They take delight in divine services, and yet are much at home with the God of this world. Some worship a deity as horrible as Moloch, whose name in the olden time was Bacchus—the god of the wine cup and the beer barrel. There are others who adore the goddess Venus, the queen of lust and uncleanness. Too often the god is Mammon, who is as degraded a deity as any of them.
II. The manner of the growth of this mongrel religion.
1. These people came to live where the people of God had lived. If the Sepharvites had stopped at Sepharvaim they would never have thought of fearing Jehovah; if the men of Babylon had continued to live in Babylon they would have been perfectly satisfied with Bel, or Succoth-Benoth. But when they were brought into Canaan they came under a different order of things. God would not allow them to go the whole length of idolatry in His land. It sometimes happens to utter worldlings that they are dropped into the midst of Christian people. A kind of fashion is set by the professors among whom they dwell, and they fall into it.
2. The Lord sent lions among them. Affliction is a wild beast by which God teaches men who act like wild beasts. This is the growth of mongrelists. First, they are among godly people, and they must, therefore, go a little that way; and next, they are afflicted, and they must now go further still. They argue that if the ills they feel do not reform them, they may expect worse. If God begins with lions, what will come next?
3. Notice that the root of this religion is fear. Their hearts go after their idols, but to Jehovah they yield nothing but dread. If sin were not followed with inconvenient consequences they would live in it as their element, as fishes swim in the sea. They are only kept under by the hangman’s whip or the jailer’s keys. They dread God, and this is but a gentler form of hating him.
4. They had a trimming teacher. The king of Assyria sent them a priest: he could not have sent them a prophet, but that was what they really wanted. He sent them a Bethelite, not a genuine servant of Jehovah, but one who worships, God by means of symbols; and this the Lord had expressly forbidden. I know of no surer way of a people’s perishing than by being led by one who does not speak out straight, and honestly denounce evil. If the preacher trims and twists to please all parties, can you expect his people to be honest? Those who are afraid to rebuke sin, or to probe the conscience, will have much to answer for.
III. The value of this mongrel religion.
1. It must evidently be feeble on both sides, because the man who serves Succoth-Benoth cannot do it thoroughly if all the while he fears Jehovah; and he who fears Jehovah cannot be sincere if he is worshipping Moloch. The one sucks out the life of the other. The man is lame on both feet, impotent in both directions. He is like the salt which has lost its savour, neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill.
2. It looked like an improvement. It had a look in the right direction. They feared the Lord only in a certain sense, but inasmuch as they also served other gods, it came to this, when summed up, that they did not fear God at all. The man who is religious and also immoral, to put it short, is irreligious. The value of this mixture is less than nothing. It is sin with a little varnish upon it. It is enmity to God with a brilliant colouring of formality.
3. These Samaritans in after years became the bitterest foes of God’s people. Read the Book of Nehemiah, and you will see that the most bitter opponents of that godly man were these mongrels. Their fear of God was such that they wanted to join with the Jews in building the Temple, and when they found that the Jews would not have them, they became their fiercest foes. No people do so much hurt as those who are like Jack-o’-both-sides. The mischief does not begin with the people of God, but with those who are with them, but not of them. As the clinging ivy will eat out the life of a tree around which it climbs, so will these impostors devour the church if they be left to their own devices.
4. How provoking this adulterated religion must be to God. It is even provoking to God’s ministers to be pestered with men whose hypocrisies weaken the force of his testimony. How provoking must it be to God Himself! True religion suffers for their falsehood.
IV. The continuance of this evil. “As did their fathers, so do they, unto this day.” I am almost obliged to believe in the final perseverance of hypocrites; for, really, when a man once screws himself up to play the double, and both to fear God and serve other gods, he is very apt to stick there. On the anvil of a false profession, Satan hammers out the most hardened of hard hearts.
V. The cure of this dreadful evil of mongrelism. He who in any way tries to serve God and His enemies, is a traitor to God. Suppose God were to treat us after the same double fashion; suppose he smiled to-day and cursed to-morrow. You want one course of conduct from God—mercy, tenderness, gentleness, forgiveness; but if you play fast and loose with Him, what is this but mocking Him? O thou great Father of our spirits, if we poor prodigals return to thee, shall we come driving all the swine in front of us, and bringing all the harlots and citizens of the far country at our heels, and introduce ourselves to thee by saying, “Father, we have sinned, and have come home to be forgiven,” and to go on sinning? It were infernal; I can say no less. Lastly, what shall I say of the Holy Spirit? If He does not dwell in our hearts we are lost; there is no hope for us unless He rules within us. None can hang between spiritual death and spiritual life, so as to be partly in one and partly in the other. Be one thing or the other.—C. H. Spurgeon.
—In time the idolatrous dross got purged out, and eventually the Samaritan system of belief and practice became as pure as that of the Jews, though less exact in some of its observances. In some respects it may have been purer, as the Samaritans would have nothing to do with the mass of oral traditions with which, before the birth of Christ, the Jewish system became disfigured and overladen.—Kitto.