2 Kings · chapter 17 of 25
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2 Kings 17 narrates the fall of the northern kingdom: Hoshea, last king of Israel, rebels against Assyria, which besieges Samaria for three years and deports the Israelites. The narrator explains that it fell because the people sinned against the Lord, followed idols and despised the prophets. Assyria resettles the land with foreigners, who mix the fear of the Lord with their own gods.
This is one of the most important chapters of 2 Kings. After centuries of warnings, the northern kingdom comes to its end around 722 BC. The narrator pauses to explain the theological reason for the fall, and his explanation serves as a lens for reading the rest of the historical books: the ruin of Israel was not a political accident but the consequence of having abandoned the covenant with the Lord.
Hoshea, son of Elah, begins to reign in Samaria and reigns nine years. He does evil, though not like the kings before him. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, comes up against him and Hoshea becomes his servant and pays tribute. But Hoshea sends messengers to So, king of Egypt, and stops paying tribute. The king of Assyria seizes him and imprisons him, invades the land, besieges Samaria for three years and in the ninth year of Hoshea captures it. He carries Israel away to Assyria and settles them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
The narrator explains that this happened because the people of Israel sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them out of Egypt. They feared other gods, walked in the customs of the nations the Lord had driven out, built high places, pillars and Asherim, and served idols. The Lord warned them through all his prophets and seers to turn from their evil ways, but they stiffened their neck like their fathers, despised his statutes and his covenant, followed worthless things and became worthless. They made metal calves, worshiped Baal and the host of heaven, made their sons and daughters pass through the fire, practiced divination and sold themselves to do evil. So the Lord was angry and removed them from his sight. Judah also did not keep the commandments.
The king of Assyria brings people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settles them in the cities of Samaria. They do not fear the Lord, and the Lord sends lions among them. They ask that one of the exiled priests be sent back to teach them the worship of the god of the land, and he comes to Bethel. Each nation, however, makes its own gods. They fear the Lord but also serve their idols, and they do so to this day.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captures Samaria and carries Israel away. It is the end of the northern kingdom, about two centuries after the division of the kingdom.
This happened because the people of Israel sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt, and feared other gods. With this sentence the narrator gives the deeper reason: it was not a military defeat but a consequence of abandoning the covenant.
The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers to turn from their evil ways and keep his commandments. God did not destroy his people without repeated warning.
The Israelites did not listen and stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God. The fall is the fruit of hardness accumulated over generations, not of a single mistake.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Nine years. — 2 Kings 17:1
Answer: To So, king of Egypt, and he stopped paying tribute to Assyria. — 2 Kings 17:4
Answer: Three years. — 2 Kings 17:5
Answer: Because they sinned against the Lord, feared other gods and followed the customs of the nations. — 2 Kings 17:7-8
Answer: Through all his prophets and seers. — 2 Kings 17:13
Answer: Lions, which killed some of them. — 2 Kings 17:25
The chapter reminds us that abandoning God does not happen overnight but through a series of small concessions. Israel hardened little by little until it lost the land. In a small group you can talk about how to identify the things that slowly displace God from our center, and how to listen to those who warn us.
The resettled peoples, who feared the Lord and served their gods, show us the danger of a mixed faith. We can ask whether we give God a place beside other loyalties or follow him with all our heart. And the care with which the Lord warned his people is an invitation to respond today with repentance rather than indifference.
2 Kings 17 closes the story of the northern kingdom and leaves Judah as the sole heir of the promise to David. In chapter 18, King Hezekiah of Judah will face the Assyrian threat with a faith that contrasts with that of the kings of Israel.
Many Israelites were deported to Assyria, and others stayed in the land and mixed with the peoples Assyria brought in. The text does not say they vanished completely, and some northerners later joined Judah. There is no biblical evidence of lost tribes with a separate history.
The text of this chapter describes the origin of the mixed population of Samaria, which feared the Lord but also served its own gods. In the New Testament, the Jews viewed the Samaritans with suspicion, and Jesus treated them with compassion, as in the story of the woman at the well.
Because the narrator, writing after the fall of Judah, warns that Judah also did not keep the commandments and followed the customs of Israel. The chapter prepares the reader to understand that the same fate would reach Judah.