2 Kings 17:25 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Therefore the Lord sent lions among them— Josephus, in this part of the history, varies from the sacred text. For, instead of the increase of lions which destroyed the people, he tells us that they were visited with a dreadful plague, so that the place was in a manner depopulated by it. But allowing it to be lions, why should these new inhabitants be afflicted with these creatures for not fearing the Lord, when the Israelites, who feared the Lord as little as they, were never infested with any such thing? The Israelites, indeed, were addicted to idolatry, but then they did not deny the divine power and Providence; only they imagined that their idols were the intermediate causes whereby the blessings of the supreme God might be conveyed to them: whereas these new comers believed the idols they worshipped to be true gods, and had no conceptions higher. They had no notion of one eternal, almighty, and independent being: they took the God of Israel to be such a one as their own; a local god, whose care and power extended no further than to one particular nation or people; and therefore, to rectify their sentiments in this particular, he took this method to let them know that all the beasts of the forest were his, and that whenever he is incensed with a people, he wants no instruments to execute his wrath; the air, the earth, the elements, and creatures of any kind, can avenge him and punish them. See Leviticus 26:22. Jeremiah 15:3 and Calmet, and Scheuchzer on the place.