17:1 In the twelfth year of King Ahaz’s reign over Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king over Israel. He reigned in Samaria for nine years.
There is biblical and secular historical evidence which confirms King Hoshea’s reign.
17:2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not to the same degree as the Israelite kings who preceded him.
So far, every King of Israel has been declared evil by the Holy Spirit. King Hoshea was evil as well, but to a lesser degree. It seems that he tolerated the syncretism of the Egyptian calf god, but he did not practice it. It is important to note that the decay of Israel politically and spiritually was already beyond recovery.
17:3 King Shalmaneser of Assyria threatened him; Hoshea became his subject and paid him tribute.
Hoshea was the last king of Israel before the Assyrian captivity. Shalmenezer V sieged the well-fortified capital city of Samaria for three years, but died in the siege. His successor was Sargon II. He sacked the city and carried the Israelites away to various Assyrian cities. Sargon mentioned this historical event in his inscription from his palace. Assyrian tablets have confirmed ten different Hebrew kings, such as Omri, Ahab, Jehu, Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea, of Israel; and Uzziah, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh of Judah. All such records are fully consistent with the Biblical records.
17:4 The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was planning a revolt. Hoshea had sent messengers to King So of Egypt and had not sent his annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him.
King Hoshea entered into a treaty with Egypt against Assyria. It was against the Mosaic Law for Israel to make treaties with foreign nations. Israel was expected to place their trust in God rather than in treaties. When modern nations make a treaty with a foreign nation, then they are not trusting in God’s sovereignty to protect them.
17:5 The king of Assyria marched through the whole land. He attacked Samaria and besieged it for three years.
Assyria conquered all of Israel except for Samaria. Samaria possessed an internal water supply and a good storage of food, so they were able to withstand the siege for three years.
17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes.
Israel went into the Assyrian Captivity. The northern kingdom came to an end. According to Assyrian secular records, the Assyrians deported 27,290 inhabitants out of Israel and into distant lands. Assyrian often depopulated regions and relocated their captives. This captivity was a fulfillment of Moses' prophecy in Deuteronomy 28. Assyrian tablets have been excavated where Sargon II boasted of deporting captive people (including Israel) away from their native lands and repaving them with other peoples.
17:7 This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods;
Verses 7-23 record the 17 reasons for Israel’s captivity. The primary reasons for captivity was because Israel rejected Jehovah and worshiped demonic gods.
17:8 they observed the practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before Israel, and followed the example of the kings of Israel.
God vomited the Canaanites out of the land for their perverse practices. Israel had more light, but they began to do the same perverse acts and rituals of the Canaanites.
17:9 The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress.
Israel blasphemed God. They also taught false doctrine. The Mosaic Law required all of Israel to make offerings only at the temple. Instead, Israel built high places in the hills and worshiped Jehovah and other demonic gods.
17:10 They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
Israel worshiped images of the erect male anatomy on all of the high hills.
17:11 They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry.
Israel worshiped in the same way as that of the Canaanites.
17:12 They worshiped the disgusting idols in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command.
The “disgusting” idols were pornographic statues of various gods and goddesses, who were performing heterosexual and homosexual acts.
17:13 The Lord solemnly warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and all the seers, “Turn back from your evil ways; obey my commandments and rules that are recorded in the law. I ordered your ancestors to keep this law and sent my servants the prophets to remind you of its demands.”
Before God allowed Israel to go into the Assyrian Captivity, He warned them with many prophets.
17:14 But they did not pay attention and were as stubborn as their ancestors, who had not trusted the Lord their God.
Just as Israel refused to listen to Moses, the people of Israel prior to the Assyrian Captivity also refused to listen to God’s prophets.Their basic sin was unbelief. Today's contemporary culture is guilty of the same sin. Modern culture has ruled God out of the educational system, the government, and even out of many churches. As a result, God will judge modern nations just as He judged Israel. The Great Tribulation will be the next major judgment for rebellious and godless nations.
17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command.
Israel did not keep the Mosaic Covenant. They rejected Jehovah and worshiped demonic gods.
17:16 They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God; they made two metal calves and an Asherah pole, bowed down to all the stars in the sky, and worshiped Baal.
Israel did not keep the Mosaic Law. They worshiped the Egyptian calf god. They worshiped the astrological signs. They worshiped Baal. Baal was the fertility storm god whom Elijah proved to be powerless even in Baal’s own element.
17:17 They passed their sons and daughters through the fire, and practiced divination and omen reading. They committed themselves to doing evil in the sight of the Lord and made him angry.
Israel practiced human sacrifice, similar to that of the Moabites and their god Moloch. Divination was communication with demons. Omen reading was using demonic forces to predict the future.
17:18 So the Lord was furious with Israel and rejected them; only the tribe of Judah was left.
Israel rejected God, so God allowed them to be defeated and taken into the Assyrian Captivity. Only the tribe of Judah remained. The Benjaminites had already been assimilated into Judah. The Levites stayed in Jerusalem and served the Davidic dynasty as priests. Many of the believers from the other ten tribes left apostate Israel and joined with Judah. Therefore, Judah was the name of the remaining twelve tribes after the Assyrian Captivity.
There are no ten lost tribes of Israel. They did not merge into the British, the American Indians, or the Mormons. Many cults and isms like to claim that they were the chosen people who merged from the lost ten tribes of Israel.
17:19 Judah also failed to keep the commandments of the Lord their God; they followed Israel’s example.
Judah was seduced by the idolatry of Israel. Judah followed the example of Israel. They would fall in the same ways and for the same reasons to Babylon 100 years later. Judah would not profit from Israel’s experience.
20 So the Lord rejected all of Israel’s descendants; he humiliated them and handed them over to robbers, until he had thrown them from his presence.
Israel was chosen to become a separate Jewish state who would worship Jehovah in Jerusalem together with her sister nation of Judah. Instead, Israel rebelled and began worshiping demonic gods.
21 He tore Israel away from David’s dynasty, and Jeroboam son of Nebat became their king. Jeroboam drove Israel away from the Lord and encouraged them to commit a serious sin.
Jehovah tore Israel away from Davidic rule. Jeroboam was the first king of Israel who led them into slavery.
22 The Israelites followed in the sinful ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and did not repudiate them.
Jeroboam established syncretism in Israel. Syncretism led Israel into captivity.
23 Finally the Lord rejected Israel just as he had warned he would do through all his servants the prophets. Israel was deported from its land to Assyria and remains there to this very day.
The Mosaic Law and the prophets warned Israel of their captivity. Israel never returned to their land as a divided nation.
24 The king of Assyria brought foreigners from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.
The Assyrians deported the Israelites out of the land. They brought in other people from other nations to live in the land. They changed the name of Israel to “Samaria,” which was named after the capital of Israel.
Many of the Israelites intermarried with these other nations. The Samaritans became a race of mongrels. They were half-Jewish and half-pagans. During the days of Jesus, the Samaritans were hated and despised by the Jews. Jews would not even pass through their land. The woman at the well was a Samaritan woman who had her life changed by one conversation with Jesus. She pointed many other Samaritans to Jesus as being their Messiah as well as the Messiah of the Jews.
25 When they first moved in, they did not worship the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them and the lions were killing them.
Lions would get the attention of the people.
26 The king of Assyria was told, “The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land.”
The new people of Samaria saw the lions as a judgment from a territorial god. They asked the Assyrian king for help.
17:27 So the king of Assyria ordered, “Take back one of the priests whom you deported from there. He must settle there and teach them the requirements of the God of the land.”
The King of Assyria sent back an Israelite priest, but not a Levitical priest. All of the Levite priests were still in Judah. Judah would not be taken into captivity 100 years later.
17:28 So one of the priests whom they had deported from Samaria went back and settled in Bethel. He taught them how to worship the Lord.
The Israelite priests would teach syncretism, which was a combination of the worship of Jehovah and pagan gods. These Samaritans would grow up to become the liberal Sadducees. The Sadducees only believed in the first five books of the bible. There is no instance in Scripture of a Sadducee believing in Jesus.
17:29 But each of these nations made its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.
Samaria did not listen to the Israelite priests. They worshiped their own gods.
The northern kingdom finally came to an end. The land become a mixture of peoples. There was an increase in religious intermarriage. The ten tribes will never again form the northern kingdom. They are scattered all over the world now, but they are not lost. God knows each and every one of them. Their tribal identities will emerge during the Great Tribulation through the 144,000 Jewish witnesses.
17:30 The people from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the people from Cuth made Nergal, the people from Hamath made Ashima,
The new Samaritans continued to worship their own gods. Succoth Benoth means “tents of the daughters.” This most likely indicated a deity who was worshiped by sexual orgies. Nergal was perhaps the Assyrian god of war. Ashima was an idol in the form of a bald he-goat.
17:31 the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their sons in the fire as an offering to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
Nibhaz was a dog-like idol. Tartak was either a donkey or a celestial body. Adrammelech was perhaps the same as Molech, worshiped in the form of the sun, a mule or a peacock. Anammelech was a rabbit or a goat idol.
17:32 At the same time they worshiped the Lord. They appointed some of their own people to serve as priests in the shrines on the high places.
Many of the new Samaritans built high places and worshiped their pagan gods on the high hill.
17:33 They were worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their own gods in accordance with the practices of the nations from which they had been deported.
The new Samaritans continued the syncretism of Israel. They worshiped Jehovah along with their own national gods that they brought into the land.
17:34 To this very day they observe their earlier practices. They do not worship the Lord; they do not obey the rules, regulations, law, and commandments that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he renamed Israel.
During the Babylonian Captivity, the author recorded that the Samaritans were still involved in the syncretism religion in which Jeroboam established.
17:35 The Lord made an agreement with them and instructed them, “You must not worship other gods. Do not bow down to them, serve them, or offer sacrifices to them.
The Mosaic Law forbids the worship of other gods.
17:36 Instead you must worship the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt by his great power and military ability; bow down to him and offer sacrifices to him.
Only Jehovah was to be worshiped, because He chose Israel out of Egypt and made them a mighty nation.
17:37 You must carefully obey at all times the rules, regulations, law, and commandments he wrote down for you. You must not worship other gods.
The Mosaic Law was placed into writing and copied in detail for all to see.
17:38 You must never forget the agreement I made with you, and you must not worship other gods.
The Mosaic Law was conditional, meaning that Israel could receive blessings for keeping it and curses for disobeying it.
17:39 Instead you must worship the Lord your God; then he will rescue you from the power of all your enemies.”
If Israel worshiped Jehovah, then they would be rescued from powerful enemies, such as Assyria and Babylon.
17:40 But they pay no attention; instead they observe their earlier practices.
Israel did not listen to Jehovah. They worshiped demonic gods.
17:41 These nations are worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their idols; their sons and grandsons do just as their fathers have done, to this very day.
The new Samaritans were making the same mistakes as Israel before them.