As we have seen with each king of the northern kingdom of Israel, the nation has been on a downward spiral ever since it split under King Solomon’s son Rehoboam. While the southern kingdom of Judah has had some good kings and some bad ones, not one king of Israel can be considered good with obedience to God. King Jehu is the only one who may be slightly considered as good, but only for part of his reign.
God kept delaying His judgment on the evil, idolatrous nation of Israel, but finally, under King Hoshea, their extra time ran out. King Hoshea is the last king of the northern kingdom of Israel.
King Hoshea’s reign even began in a tumultuous way. We read in 2 Kings 15:30: “Then Hoshea son of Elah conspired against Pekah son of Remaliah. He attacked and assassinated him, and then succeeded him as king in the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah.” Hoshea only became king because he killed King Pekah who had been on the throne.
The rest of King Hoshea’s story is found in 2 Kings 17:1-6. Previously, under King Pekah, the nation of Assyria invaded Israel, but the Assyrians did not fully take over at that time. While some previous kings made alliances with the Assyrians to keep the peace, King Hoshea was against that. When he took the throne, it was during a military purge that was pro-Assyria, but then he quickly changed his tune. However, King Hoshea’s efforts to go against the Assyrians were not successful.
Outwardly, King Hoshea had become a servant to the king of Assyria, but inwardly he did not pledge his allegiance to the Assyrians. The previous king of Assyria had died, and his son Shalmaneser took over in his place. Shalmaneser discovered that King Hoshea was not truly a loyal subject, and that was basically the end of King Hoshea’s reign – and the nation of Israel being an independent nation.
Because of Israel’s lack of loyalty to Assyria, they invaded and fought for 3 years. Then, “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria” (2 Kings 17:6a). While on the outside this appeared to be a political situation with Assyria, really this was God’s judgment on an evil people who had been disobeying him for a few centuries. King after king continued to be evil, even with God sending multiple prophets to try and get His people back on track. The people were so far gone from actually honoring God as the one true God that something drastic had to be done, and God used the nation of Assyria to accomplish that.
This true reason behind the exile can be found in 2 Kings 17:7-8: “All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.”
The whole section of 2 Kings 17:7-23 is a long discourse about why Israel was sent into exile. Israel continually did what was not right in God’s eyes. They built towers, high places, Asherah poles, and sacred stones to worship idols and the gods of pagan nations. They did all sorts of wicked things that made God angry. God clearly told them not to worship idols (Exodus 20:2-6), and yet they constantly did it anyway.
God sent multiple prophets to the nation – Ahijah, Jehu, Micaiah, Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea, Jonah, Micah, and Isaiah to name a few. What was the result? “But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the LORD their God. They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, ‘Do not do as they do’” (2 Kings 17:14-15).
Reading through this section, it seems that the more that’s recorded about the evils of the nation of Israel, the worse it gets. “They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, arousing his anger” (2 Kings 17:16-17).
The result of all of this was that God removed Israel from His presence. Even God’s mercy has a limit when His people continue to blatantly disobey Him again and again for a few hundred years. God rejected them and allowed them to be captured and taken into exile by the nation of Assyria. Now, this punishment was just for the northern kingdom of Israel, but the author points out that the southern kingdom of Judah should take note, as they were falling into idolatry as well.
A summary of the nation of Israel from the time the kingdom divided until the exile is given in 2 Kings 17:21-23: “When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the LORD and caused them to commit a great sin. The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the LORD removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.”
We can learn a lot about God’s character through His dealings with the nation of Israel during this time. God is a patient God; this was not a quick judgment, but it took over 200 years for God to finally get to the point where He allowed them to be overtaken. God is a persistent God; He kept giving warning after warning through many prophets to try and get the people to turn back to Him. God is a merciful God; even when sending the people into exile, He did not totally kill off the people but instead gave them harsh punishment. God is a loving God; He never stopped loving His people and trying to win them back, and even their punishment of exile was an act of love to get them to see who He really is and how much He loves them.
The God of the nation of Israel is still the same God we worship and serve today. He is still patient, persistent, merciful, and loving; but He also has the right to punish a nation that continually and blatantly rejects Him. Consider yourself warned!
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