2 Kings 17
The fall of Israel is the end of a long story, not a sudden tragedy. The chapter opens with the last king of the north, Hoshea, who reigned in Samaria nine years and did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him (vv. 1-2). Caught between two great powers, he tried to play them against each other - paying tribute to Shalmaneser of Assyria while secretly sending messengers to So king of Egypt - and the gamble failed. Assyria found the conspiracy, shut Hoshea up in prison, and laid siege to Samaria. The king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years (v. 5). In the ninth year the city fell, and Israel was carried away into Assyria, scattered to Halah and Habor and the cities of the Medes (v. 6).3
Then the narrative stops the clock. Where the Book of Kings usually records a reign in a verse or two and moves on, here it pauses for the longest theological explanation in all of its pages. For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God… (v. 7). What follows is a careful indictment: they feared other gods, built high places in every city, set up images and groves under every green tree, served idols and Baal, and at last caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire. And running through the whole account is the patient counter-witness of God Himself: Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways (v. 13). The warning was not given once. It was repeated across generations - and across generations they hardened their necks, until the LORD removed them out of his sight.
The chapter does not end with the empty land. The king of Assyria resettles Samaria with peoples from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, who at first feared not the LORD - until lions came among them and they understood that the God of this land was not to be ignored. A captive priest is sent back to teach them the manner of the God of the land, and the result is a strange, divided religion that the chapter names without flinching: They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away (v. 33). This is judgment told honestly - but it is told by a narrator who also remembers the covenant the LORD made and the long patience He showed, and who leaves the door open, even here, to the God who delivers out of the hand of all your enemies those who will fear Him alone.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
2 Kings 17:1-6The Last King and the Fall of Samaria
1In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. 2And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him. 3Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents. 4And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. 5Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. 6In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
The chapter opens with the last king Israel would ever have. Hoshea did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him (v. 2). It is a strange, almost gentle notice - the text will not call him as bad as his predecessors. Yet that careful qualification only sharpens the tragedy of what follows: even a king who was not the worst of the line could not avert the fall, because the weight that brought Israel down was not the sin of one reign but the accumulated unfaithfulness of two centuries. Hoshea's political maneuvering tells the rest. Caught between the empire of Assyria to the east and Egypt to the south, he became Shalmaneser's vassal and paid tribute - then secretly sent messengers to So king of Egypt and withheld the tribute, hoping Egypt would shield him (vv. 3-4). It was the old, fatal habit of the kings: to look for safety in alliances and armies rather than in the LORD. The conspiracy was discovered, Hoshea was bound in prison, and the door was opened for the end.3
The siege is not swift. The king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years (v. 5). Three years is a long time to stand inside walls and watch an empire wait you out - long enough for the prophet's warnings to be remembered, long enough for a people to turn if they would. But the city did not turn, and in the ninth year of Hoshea it fell. The Assyrians did to Israel what they did to every conquered people: they emptied the land of its leaders and scattered them across the empire, planting them in places far from home where rebellion could not take root - Halah… Habor by the river of Gozan… the cities of the Medes (v. 6). The ten tribes of the north, the bulk of the people the LORD had brought up out of Egypt, were carried away. A kingdom that had stood for two hundred years was, in a single campaign season, simply gone from its own land.
2 Kings 17:7-23Why Israel Fell: Turn Ye From Your Evil Ways
7For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, 8And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made. 9And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 10And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree: 11And there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the heathen whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: 12For they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.
Here the narrator does what the Book of Kings almost never does: he stops the story and explains it. The little phrase For so it was (v. 7) opens the longest sustained theology in the whole book, and it begins not with the people's crimes but with God's kindness. They sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh. The charge is not first that Israel broke a rule; it is that she betrayed a rescuer. The God she turned from was the God who had carried her out of slavery and made her a people. And the turning is laid out concretely, not in the abstract: they feared other gods, walked in the customs of the very nations the LORD had driven out before them, and built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city (v. 9) - from the loneliest outpost to the fortified town, no corner of the land was left out. They did it secretly, the text says, and the word stings: they knew it was wrong, and did it anyway, half-hiding from the God they could not actually hide from.
The indictment piles up image upon image: images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree (v. 10), incense burned in all the high places as the dispossessed nations had done (v. 11), idols served in plain defiance of a plain command - whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing (v. 12). The repeated every is the point. This was not a stumble or a single shrine tucked away in a corner; it was the wholesale adoption of the religion of the land, hilltop after hilltop, tree after tree, until the worship of the nations had soaked into the ordinary fabric of Israel's life. And notice that the text never lets the idolatry stand as a mere matter of taste or culture. It calls it wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger. Israel had been set apart precisely to be unlike the nations around her, to bear witness to the one God who had redeemed her; instead she made herself indistinguishable from them. The tragedy is not that she worshiped poorly but that she forgot who she was.
13Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. 14Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God. 15And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them. 16And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. 18Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
At the center of the whole chapter stands its most important word: Yet. Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways (v. 13). For all the centuries of turning away, God did not fall silent. He kept sending witnesses - all the prophets… all the seers - and the message never changed: Turn. The judgment that finally fell was not the act of a God who had been watching for a chance to strike. It was the act of a God who had pleaded, again and again, across generations, to be heard. This is the heart of the chapter's honesty: the fall of Israel was deserved, and the indictment must not be softened into mere bad fortune; but it was also long delayed, met every step of the way by a patience that kept calling the people home. And against that patience the verdict lands: they would not hear. The problem was never that God had not spoken clearly enough. It was that they had decided not to listen.
The rest of the indictment turns very dark, and the text does not look away. Israel hardened their necks, refusing to bend; they rejected his statutes, and his covenant; they followed vanity, and became vain (vv. 14-15) - a haunting phrase that means they pursued empty things and were themselves emptied out, hollowed by what they worshiped, for we come to resemble what we serve. The catalog of idolatry reaches its floor in verse 17: they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, the unspeakable practice of child sacrifice borrowed from the nations, and they sold themselves to do evil. That last phrase is its own indictment - not driven, not deceived, but sold themselves, handing over their own freedom to evil as a man sells himself into slavery. And so the verdict in verse 18 falls with terrible weight: the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. The anger of God here is not a tyrant's temper; it is the settled response of holiness to a covenant trampled and a people who would offer even their children to idols. But hold this beside the Yet of verse 13. The God who at last removed them is the same God who, for two hundred years, sent prophet after prophet to keep them from this very end.
19Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. 20And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. 21For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin. 22For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; 23Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
Two final notes close the indictment, and both keep it from becoming self-righteous. First, the text turns the mirror south: Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made (v. 19). The southern kingdom is not held up as the innocent party who deserved to survive; she too had drifted into the same idolatries. That she remained, for now, was not her own merit but the LORD's longer patience - a reprieve, not an acquittal, and the same Book of Kings will record her exile in time. Second, the narrator traces the whole long ruin back to its root in Jeroboam, who rent Israel from the house of David and, to keep his people from worshiping at Jerusalem, set up the calves and made them sin a great sin (v. 21). For two centuries every northern king walked in that pattern and departed not from it (v. 22). The indictment, then, is not a verdict on a bloodline or a people as such - it is the long working-out of a covenant abandoned at the start and never recovered, until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets (v. 23). What the prophets had warned for generations finally, soberly, came to pass.
2 Kings 17:24-41They Feared the LORD, and Served Their Own Gods
24And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. 25And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them. 26Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land. 27Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. 28Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.
With Israel carried off, the land does not stay empty. The Assyrian policy was to shuffle conquered peoples like pieces on a board, and so the king brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim and planted them in the cities of Samaria (v. 24). These newcomers had no history with the God of Israel - at the beginning of their dwelling there… they feared not the LORD (v. 25) - and so they ran headlong into a discovery the displaced Israelites should have remembered: this land is not religiously neutral ground. The LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them. The settlers read the event rightly, even if shallowly: there is a God here, the God of the land, and He must be reckoned with. It is a sharp irony. The very reverence the foreigners were forced to acknowledge by fear was the reverence Israel had been freely given and had thrown away. Even in judgment, the chapter insists, the LORD does not let His land be treated as nothing.
The remedy the settlers seek is revealing. They send word to the king of Assyria, who arranges for one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria to come back and teach them the manner of the God of the land (vv. 27-28). On its face it is a sensible, even pious-looking solution - bring in someone who knows the proper rites and learn how to fear the LORD. But notice what is missing. There is no turning of the heart, no covenant, no love - only a managed arrangement to keep the lions away, a religion adopted as insurance against danger. The priest settles in Bethel, of all places: the old center of Jeroboam's calf-worship, the very fountainhead of the great sin the chapter has just finished tracing. Knowledge of the right forms is passed on; the thing the forms were meant to carry is not. And so the stage is set for the chapter's defining verdict - a people who will learn the motions of fearing the LORD while their hearts stay exactly where they were.
29Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. 30And the men of Babylon made Succothbenoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, 31And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32So they feared the LORD, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. 33They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence. 34Unto this day they do after the former manners: they fear not the LORD, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law and commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel;
Here is the chapter's portrait of a half-built faith, and it is unsparing. Howbeit every nation made gods of their own (v. 29) - the settlers learned to fear the LORD, and they kept right on making Succothbenoth and Nergal and Ashima and all the rest, even, in verse 31, burnt their children in fire to their own deities. They installed the worst available priests, of the lowest of them (v. 32), and set the whole thing up in the same high places Israel had built. The text refuses every comfortable label for this and chooses instead the bluntest possible summary: They feared the LORD, and served their own gods (v. 33). The two halves of that sentence ought not to be able to stand together, and that is exactly the point. This is not partial obedience on the way to full obedience; it is the LORD slotted in as one more god among the gods, given His rituals so the lions stay away while every other allegiance is left untouched. And verse 34 delivers the stinging final word on the arrangement: for all their religious activity, they fear not the LORD. A fear that leaves the heart divided, the text says, is in the end no fear of the LORD at all.
35With whom the LORD had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: 36But the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice. 37And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods. 38And the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget; neither shall ye fear other gods. 39But the LORD your God ye shall fear; and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. 40Howbeit they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner. 41So these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day.
The chapter ends by reaching all the way back to the covenant and reading out its terms, as if to set the verdict beside the law it broke. The LORD had made a covenant with His people and charged them plainly: Ye shall not fear other gods… But the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear (vv. 35-36). Four times in five verses the command beats like a drum - ye shall not fear other gods - and twice it is paired with the great gospel of the Old Testament, the exodus, the God of the outstretched arm who is also the God who shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies (v. 39). The covenant was never bare law; it was the binding of a rescued people to their Rescuer, and its first claim was simply this: He alone. Then verse 40 lands the whole chapter's indictment in a single line: Howbeit they did not hearken, but they did after their former manner. The same refusal that doomed Israel now runs on in the people who took her place, and verse 41 lets it harden into a way of life passed down the generations - they feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children. The divided heart was not a phase. Left unchanged, it became an inheritance. And that is precisely the need the chapter leaves ringing in the air: a heart so set that warning could not move it, that even fresh lessons could not reform, that nothing short of being remade could mend.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of 2 Kings 17 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for the verb ud (v. 13, the LORD who “testified” or solemnly warned again and again), for yare (vv. 7, 25, 28, 33-41, the “fear” that runs from reverence to mere dread), and for the recurring phrase mishpat elohei ha-aretz (vv. 26-27, “the manner of the God of the land”).
- 2 Kings 17 ↔ 2 Peter 3 · Matthew 6 · Ezekiel 36 · 2 Chronicles 36Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying 2 Kings 17 to the rest of Scripture - the LORD testifying by all the prophets, Turn ye (v. 13), read beside the God not willing that any should perish (2 Pet. 3:9); the divided worship of verse 33 beside ye cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. 6:24); and the heart that warning could not reform beside the promise of a new heart (Ezek. 36:26).
- 2 Kings 17 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on 2 Kings 17 - the historical setting of Hoshea's reign and his intrigue with Egypt (vv. 1-4), the Assyrian deportation policy behind verse 6, the long theological indictment of verses 7-23, and the resettled peoples and their blended worship in verses 24-41.
Where this echoes in Scripture
The Last King and the Fall of Samaria
- Hosea 13:16Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword.The prophet who labored in the north foretold the very fall verses 5-6 record - Samaria’s end as the fruit of rebellion.
- Isaiah 30:1-3that take counsel, but not of me... that walk to go down into Egypt... Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame.Hoshea’s gamble on Egypt (v. 4) named for what it was - counsel sought anywhere but from the LORD, and so a shame.
- Deuteronomy 28:36The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which thou and thy fathers have not known.The exile of verse 6 was written into the covenant long before - the warned-of end of persistent unfaithfulness.
- 2 Kings 18:11-12because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant.The same fall restated a chapter later, with the same verdict - the carrying-away as the wage of a broken covenant.
- Amos 5:27Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.Another voice God sent to the north (v. 13) - the captivity of verse 6 announced in advance.
Why Israel Fell: Turn Ye From Your Evil Ways
- 2 Peter 3:9The Lord is... longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.The patience behind the <em>Yet</em> of verse 13 - a God who warns and waits because He does not want the end to come.
- Proverbs 29:1He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.The exact pattern of verses 13-18 - the often-reproved neck that hardens, and the end that follows.
- Matthew 23:37how often would I have gathered thy children together... and ye would not!The grief beneath verse 13 spoken in person - the long, refused gathering that ends in tears, not vengeance.
- Nehemiah 9:30Yet many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear.A later prayer that retells verse 13 almost word for word - God testifying by His prophets, and a people who would not give ear.
- 1 Kings 12:28-30the king... made two calves of gold... And this thing became a sin.The <em>great sin</em> of Jeroboam traced in verses 21-22 - the calves that set the pattern Israel never left.
They Feared the LORD, and Served Their Own Gods
- Matthew 6:24No man can serve two masters... Ye cannot serve God and mammon.The impossibility behind verse 33 named in person - the divided heart that simply cannot hold.
- Ezekiel 36:26A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart.The cure for the need this chapter uncovers - a heart warning could not reform, made new from within.
- 1 Kings 18:21How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.Elijah’s challenge to the same divided worship verses 32-33 describe - the refusal to choose laid bare.
- Joshua 24:14-15fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth... choose you this day whom ye will serve.The undivided fear of verses 35-39 set out as a clear choice - the LORD alone, in sincerity and truth.
- Revelation 3:15-16thou art neither cold nor hot... So then because thou art lukewarm... I will spue thee out of my mouth.The risen Christ on the same half-heartedness as verse 33 - a divided devotion He will not abide.