2 Kings 17:24

THE ASSYRIAN KING RESETTLES PALESTINE WITH VARIOUS PEOPLES FROM MANY PLACES

"And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. And so it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not Jehovah: therefore Jehovah sent lions among them, which killed some of them. Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which they had carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the law of the god of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the law of the god of the land."

The massive deportation of the population of Northern Israel was so extensive that even after the re-population of the area by the king of Assyria the lions became a great problem by killing the people.

The pagan notion held generally throughout the world of that era was that every locality had its own god, and the general idea was that in order to be blessed the people were required to worship "the god of the land." There was a kind of recognition in this that Jehovah was the `god of the land' from which Israel had been removed. Of course, such a limited recognition of Jehovah was worthless, because he is the One and Only True God of all creation. Any notion that God could be pleased by a mere recognition of him as `a god' among `many gods' was totally false.

The five places mentioned here from which captives were placed in the cities of Samaria were: (1) Babylon, which Tiglath-pileser had conquered; (2) Cuthah, "a city of Babylonia, the seat of the god Nergel;"[11] (3) Avva, "the same as Ivah (2 Kings 18:34), whose citizens worshipped the idols Nibhaz and Tartak (2 Kings 17:31); (4) Hamath, identified by J. G. G. Norman as "an important city on the Orontes river,"[12] and (5) Sepharvaim, a city "supposed to be in Syria, based on its being mentioned here with Hamath,"[13] We shall meet with the mention of these places again in the boastful speech of Rabshakeh.