19Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. 20The LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel; he punished them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had banished them from his presence.
21When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them commit great sin. 22The people of Israel continued in all the sins that Jeroboam committed; they did not depart from them 23until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had foretold through all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.
Assyria Resettles Samaria
24The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria, and settled in its cities. 25When they first settled there, they did not worship the LORD; therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them. 26So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them; they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.” 27Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let himd go and live there, and teach them the law of the god of the land.” 28So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the LORD.
29But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived; 30the people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima; 31the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32They also worshiped the LORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. 33So they worshiped the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. 34To this day they continue to practice their former customs.
They do not worship the LORD and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. 35The LORD had made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not worship other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, 36but you shall worship the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm; you shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. 37The statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to observe. You shall not worship other gods; 38you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not worship other gods, 39but you shall worship the LORD your God; he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.” 40They would not listen, however, but they continued to practice their former custom.
41So these nations worshiped the LORD, but also served their carved images; to this day their children and their children’s children continue to do as their ancestors did.
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a Meaning of Heb uncertain
b Heb Asherim
c Heb Asherah
d Syr Vg: Heb them
17.1–6 Hoshea was the Israelite king upon whom the punishment for the sins of the Northern Kingdom finally fell. It is therefore odd that the narrator does not judge Hoshea as harshly as some of the other Northern kings and even omits the standard reference to walking in the ways of Jeroboam.
17.1 Here Hoshea ’s accession is synchronized with the reign of Ahaz of Judah, while in 15.30 the synchronization is with Jotham, a fact that may indicate a coregency in Judah. Hoshea ruled in Samaria ca. 732–724 BCE.
17.3 King Shalmaneser, Shalmaneser V, who ruled Assyria 727–722 BCE.
17.4 King So of Egypt, controversial; no Egyptian ruler by that name can be identified. Some scholars interpret the phrase as the place at which the messengers met the king of Egypt; others interpret So as a misunderstanding of an Egyptian royal title.
17.6 After a siege lasting more than two years, Samaria finally fell in 722/1 BCE to the new Assyrian king, Sargon II. The relocation of populations was a characteristic of Assyrian foreign policy during this period. Halah, a city northeast of Nineveh. Habor River, the modern Habur, a tributary of the Euphrates. River of Gozan, possibly also the Habur. The cities of the Medes lay to the east of Assyria.
17.7–23 These verses occupy a crucial position in the book of Kings. Coming as they do immediately after the account of the fall of the Northern Kingdom, they provide a theological framework for understanding Israel’s history from the narrator’s Deuteronomistic point of view. At the same time, they set up the history of the North as an object lesson for the kingdom of Judah and define the theological terms that will govern the continued existence of the Southern Kingdom and the Davidic dynasty. Although the narrative of Kings up to this point focuses almost entirely on the actions of Israel’s kings, here the narrator’s theological assessment concentrates instead on the sins of the people and the kings play only an incidental role in the Deuteronomistic explanation of the disaster.
17.7–8 The primary cause of the exile of Israel is the people’s worship of other gods, an act that violates Deuteronomy’s directive to worship only the Lord and to avoid the gods of Canaan (see Deut 6.4–15; 7.1–6).
17.9 The people…did things that were not right may indicate the narrator’s recognition that there have been relatively few illustrations of the people’s sins up to this point. High places. See note on 1 Kings 3.2. Their continued use violates the commands in Deut 12.2–4, which requires that the people worship only at the sanctuary of God’s choosing.
17.10 Pillars, sacred poles. See notes on 1 Kings 14.15; 14.23. These objects too should have been removed (Deut 7.5; 12.2–4).
17.13 Although a number of prophets are mentioned earlier in Kings, none of them are described as calling the people to repent. For later examples, see Jer 7.3, 5; 18.11; Ezek 33.11.
17.16 Two calves. See note on 1 Kings 12.28. Host of heaven, the sun, moon, and stars. Their worship is prohibited in Deut 4.19; 17.2–5.
17.17 Making sons and daughters pass through fire is banned, along with divination and augury, in Deut 18.9–14. On the sacrificing of children, see note on 16.3.
17.19–20 Probably the work of an exilic writer who knew Judah’s ultimate fate and sought to explain it the same way that the fall of Samaria was earlier explained.
17.21–23 Here the narrator finally returns to the theme of Jeroboam’s sin, which has provided the literary and theological structure for Israel’s history since the revolt of the Northern Kingdom (1 Kings 12.16–20).
17.24–41 An attempt to explain why the worship of the Lord existed along side of the worship of other gods in the territory that was once the home of the Israelites.
17.24 All of these cities were part of the Assyrian Empire, except for Babylon, on the Euphrates River, and Cuthah, in central Babylonia; their precise location is uncertain. In keeping with Assyrian practice, Samaria is now used to refer to the entire region and not just to the old capital city.
17.25 The lions are agents of divine judgment (see 1 Kings 13.24; 20.36). Apparently the Lord still lays claim to the land, even though the Israelites have been removed.
17.30–31 Nergal, a Babylonian underworld god associated with plague. Nibhaz and Tartak, Elamite gods. The remaining deities cannot be identified with any certainty.
2 KINGS 18
Hezekiah’s Reign over Judah
1In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah began to reig
n. 2He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi daughter of Zechariah. 3He did what was right in the sight of the LORD just as his ancestor David had done. 4He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole.a He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan. 5He trusted in the LORD the God of Israel; so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him, or among those who were before him. 6For he held fast to the LORD; he did not depart from following him but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses. 7The LORD was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. 8He attacked the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.
9In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against Samaria, besieged it, 10and at the end of three years, took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel, Samaria was taken. 11The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria, settled them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 12because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant—all that Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded; they neither listened nor obeyed.
Sennacherib Invades Judah
13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 14King Hezekiah of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear.” The king of Assyria demanded of King Hezekiah of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king’s house. 16At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the doorposts that King Hezekiah of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. 17The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. 18When they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.
19The Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you base this confidence of yours? 20Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? 21See, you are relying now on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. 22But if you say to me, ‘We rely on the LORD our God,’ is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’? 23Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 24How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 25Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.”
26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Aramaic language, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 27But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the people sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?”
28Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! 29Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. 30Do not let Hezekiah make you rely on the LORD by saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ 31Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat from your own vine and your own fig tree, and drink water from your own cistern, 32until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey, that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, The LORD will deliver us. 33Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered its land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 34Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 35Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
36But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” 37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
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a Heb Asherah
18.1–12 From the standpoint of the narrator, the reign of Hezekiah marks a high point in Judah’s history. He is the first king to walk completely in the ways of his ancestor David, and Hezekiah’s religious reforms win high praise from the historian. In fact, the stories about his deeds are so favorable that some modern scholars have concluded that 2 Kings once ended with an account of his rule.
18.1 Hezekiah reigned ca. 715–687/6 BCE.
18.4 Hezekiah was the first Judean king to remove the high places (see note on 1 Kings 3.2). Pillars, sacred pole. See notes on 1 Kings 14.15; 14.23. The bronze serpent attributed to Moses was a cultic object used in rituals to prevent or treat snakebite (Num 21.4–9). Serpents also played a wide variety of roles in the religions of the ancient Near East.
18.8 Gaza, a Philistine city near the Mediterranean coast that marked the traditional southern border of Canaan. Hezekiah seems to have tried to push his borders westward to recapture parts of the old Davidic empire.
18.9–12 Much of this material summarizes 17.5–8. See notes on 17.6; 17.7–8.
18.13–37 The beginning of an extended account of Sennacherib’s invasion of Palestine in 701 BCE. The account continues through 19.37 and is at least partially paralleled in 2 Chr 32; Isa 36–37. The narrative includes much traditional material and shows signs of having gone through a long editorial history.
18.13 Sennacherib ruled Assyria 705–681 BCE. His invasion was in retaliation for Hezekiah’s rebellion (v. 7).
18.14 Lachish. See note on 14.19. Talents. See note on 1 Kings 9.14.
18.17 Tartan, the second-ranking Assyrian officer after the king. The Rabsaris was often involved in leading the Assyrian army. The Rabshakeh was usually involved in running the royal court and the personal business of the king. Conduit…Fuller’s Field. The site where the two delegations met is mentioned again in Isa 7.3 and seems to have been an important part of Jerusalem’s water supply. The precise location is uncertain.
18.18 Eliakim, the overseer of royal estates and buildings. Shebnah kept the royal records but also had high administrative responsibilities. Joah, perhaps the royal herald.
18.21 Hezekiah had sought help from Egypt in his attempt to resist Assyria. This policy was firmly opposed by the prophet Isaiah (Isa 30.1–5).
18.22 In contrast to the view of the narrator, the Rabshakeh assumes that the altars and high places removed during Hezekiah’s religious reforms were legitimate places for
the worship of the Lord (v. 4). In fact, Hezekiah’s centralization of worship in Jerusalem is in accordance with the demands of Deut 12.
18.25 The Rabshakeh here appeals to Deuteronomistic theology, which tends to explain disaster as the result of sin.
18.26 The Judeans request that the negotiations be carried out in Aramaic, a West Semitic dialect related to Hebrew. By this time Aramaic had become the language of international diplomacy and trade, but was not well understood by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who spoke only the local dialect of Hebrew.
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