2 Kings 14:26-27

2 Kings 14:26-27. The Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter Whereby he was moved to pity and help them, though they were an unworthy people. They that lived in those parts of their country, of which their enemies were masters, were miserably oppressed and enslaved, and could call nothing their own: the rest, we may suppose, were much empoverished by the frequent incursions which their enemies made upon them, to plunder them; and were continually frightened with their alarms; so that there was none shut up or left, but both towns and country were laid waste and stripped of their wealth, and no helper appeared. To this extremity they were reduced in many parts of the country in the beginning of Jeroboam’s reign, when God, in mere pity to them, heard the cry of their affliction, (for no mention is here made of the cry of their prayers,) and wrought this deliverance for them by the hand of Jeroboam. Reader, is thy case piteous? Then take comfort from the divine pity. He has bowels of mercy, and is full of compassion! For the Lord said not that he would blot out the name, &c. That is, not yet: he had not yet declared this, as afterward he did by the succeeding prophets, though not in these very words, Hosea 1:5-9. The decree was not yet gone forth for their utter destruction. If it be understood of the dispersion of the ten tribes, he did both say it and do it not long after: reprieves are not pardons. If of the utter extirpation of the name of Israel, he never said it, nor will ever do it: for that name still remains under heaven in the spiritual Israel, and will to the end of time.