The chapter details the final fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. King Hoshea's rebellion against Assyria led to Samaria's three-year siege and Israel's subsequent captivity. This judgment was a direct consequence of Israel's persistent idolatry and rejection of the LORD's commandments, despite prophetic warnings. New inhabitants were then settled in Samaria, who developed a syncretistic religion, fearing the LORD while also serving their own gods.
The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute 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.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
It was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods,
The children of Israel did secretly 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 fortified city;
and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the nations whom the LORD carried away before them; and they worked wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger;
Yet the LORD testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn 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.”
They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them.
They abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal.
They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
For he tore Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin.
until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he spoke by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.
The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and lived in the cities of it.
So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn’t fear the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations which you have carried away, and placed in the cities of Samaria, don’t know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they kill them, because they don’t know the law of the god of the land.”
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the law of the god of the land.”
However 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 in which they lived.
To this day they do what they did before: they don’t fear the LORD, neither do they follow their statutes, or their ordinances, or the law or the commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel;
with whom the LORD had made a covenant, and commanded them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them;
but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, and you shall bow yourselves to him, and you shall sacrifice to him.
The statutes and the ordinances, and the law and the commandment, which he wrote for you, you shall observe to do forever more. You shall not fear other gods.
So these nations feared the LORD, and served their engraved images. Their children likewise, and their children’s children, as their fathers did, so they do to this day.
Study Notes for 2 Kings 17
Verse 1
Hoshea was the last king of the Northern Kingdom (Israel). His reign was marked by political instability and increasing subservience to the rising power of Assyria.
Verse 2
Hoshea’s evil was relative; he was likely less aggressive in promoting Baalism than kings like Ahab, perhaps due to Assyrian dominance limiting internal religious policy, but he still failed to worship Yahweh exclusively.
Verse 3
Shalmaneser V (727–722 BCE) initiated the final campaign against Israel. The requirement of 'presents' (tribute) indicates Israel’s status as a vassal state to the Assyrian Empire.
Verse 4
Seeking alliance with Egypt (likely Pharaoh Osorkon IV, referred to here as So) and withholding tribute constituted high treason against Assyria, an act often condemned by prophets like Isaiah.
Verse 6
The conquest occurred in 722 BCE. While Shalmaneser V began the siege, his successor Sargon II often claimed credit for the capture and subsequent deportation, which was a standard Assyrian strategy to prevent future rebellion.
Verse 7
This verse marks a crucial shift from historical narrative to theological interpretation. The exile is explicitly framed as divine judgment for covenant violation, specifically forgetting the deliverance from Egypt.
Verse 9
The 'high places' (Bamot) were unauthorized worship sites, often mixing Yahweh worship with Canaanite fertility rites, which were spread throughout the land, symbolizing pervasive apostasy.
Verse 13
This emphasizes God’s justice and patience; judgment was not arbitrary but followed repeated, clear warnings delivered through generations of prophets calling Israel back to the Mosaic Law.
Verse 15
To 'follow vanity and become vain' links the worship of worthless idols (vanity) directly to the moral and spiritual emptiness (becoming vain) of the worshiper, illustrating the corrupting power of idolatry.
Verse 16
The mention of the 'two calves' explicitly recalls the foundational sin initiated by Jeroboam I at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12), justifying the removal of his dynasty’s kingdom.
Verse 17
Causing children to pass through the fire refers to child sacrifice, associated with the god Molech, representing the most severe form of religious apostasy and moral depravity.
Verse 18
This verse underlines the completeness of the judgment on the Northern Kingdom. Only the Southern Kingdom (Judah) remained, though Judah’s own faithfulness was also precarious (v. 19).
Verse 19
The historian includes this warning about Judah to show that the principles of divine judgment are universal, foreshadowing Judah’s own eventual exile (586 BCE) if they continued in the sins of Israel.
Verse 21
The political schism initiated by Jeroboam I (931 BCE) is identified here as the foundational theological sin that led the entire Northern Kingdom into persistent idolatry and eventual destruction.
Verse 24
The Assyrian policy of deporting conquered populations and replacing them with foreign settlers led to a mixed, non-Israelite population in the central region, which eventually became known as Samaria.
Verse 25
The text interprets the attack by lions as divine judgment for the foreigners' failure to acknowledge Yahweh, the 'God of the land,' according to common ancient Near Eastern belief that local deities controlled their territories.
Verse 28
The returned priest settles in Bethel, a site historically associated with unauthorized Yahwistic worship (Jeroboam's calves). This compromise ensured that the instruction given was already corrupted and syncretistic.
Verse 31
The Sepharvites practiced child sacrifice, a horrific pagan ritual similar to that practiced by the former Israelites (v. 17), highlighting the persistent evil that continued in the land.
Verse 33
This verse defines syncretism: they 'feared the LORD' (acknowledged Yahweh as a powerful local deity) but simultaneously 'served their own gods,' violating the core command of exclusive worship.
Verse 34
'Unto this day' provides a chronological marker, indicating that the mixed religious practices persisted into the time of writing, explaining the complex origins of the later Samaritans.
Verse 36
The historian contrasts the fear of foreign gods with the proper fear and worship owed exclusively to Yahweh, the God who demonstrated singular power through the Exodus deliverance.
Verse 41
This final summary confirms that the syncretistic religion established by the settlers became hereditary, continuing the pattern of compromised and mixed worship that Yahweh had condemned in Israel itself.
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