And the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
The Lord said not that he would blot out the name of Israel. Since the purposes of the divine covenant forbade as yet the overthrow of the kingdom of the ten tribes (see the notes at 2 Kings 13:23), God was pleased to show a token of mercy to Israel.
He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash. He was the last king by whom Yahweh sent deliverance to Israel; and He granted to this king a remarkable measure of national prosperity, enabling him to extend the borders of his kingdom even to the Euphrates and the Dead Sea (Sea of the Plain [ha-'Araabaah], the Arabah). The reign of this king, which was distinguished by so extraordinary a flow of prosperity, increased the religious apostasy, and by consequence the moral degeneracy of Israel. Under him, the corruption of manners became extreme, and laid the foundation for those public calamities which befell the kingdom soon after his demise, and quickly accomplished the destruction of the nation. In fact, as Hengstenberg well observes, 'the prosperity only confirmed the people still more in their security. Instead of being led to repentance by the unmerited mercy of God, they considered this prosperity as a reward of their apostasy, as the seal by which Yahweh-Baal confirmed the rectitude of their ways. The false prophets, too, did what was in their power to strengthen them in their delusion, while the true prophets preached to deaf ears' ('Christology,' 1:, p. 172). Hengstenberg refers in this last sentence to the emphatic warnings addressed to Jeroboam by Hosea and Amos. Although his whole reign was marked by signal successes, notwithstanding that apostasy, which was usually punished by war and loss of national independence, the wrath of God was denounced against Israel, as well as the future destruction of the house of Jeroboam by the two named prophets, whose writings sufficiently attest the faithful execution of their mission.