2 Kings 17:18 - Exposition

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel ; rather, that then the Lord was very angry , etc . We have here the apodosis of the long sentence beginning with 2 Kings 17:7 and continuing to the end of 2 Kings 17:17 . When all that is enumerated in these verses had taken place, then the Lord was moved to anger against Israel, then matters had reached a crisis, the cup of their iniquity was full, and God's wrath, long restrained, descended on them. And removed them out of his sight. Removal out of God's sight is loss of his favor and of his care. "The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous" ( Psalms 34:15 )—he "knoweth their way," "watcheth ever them" ( Jeremiah 31:28 ), "careth for them" ( Psalms 146:8 ); but "the countenance of the Lord is against them [averted from them] who do evil" ( Psalms 34:16 ). He will not look upon them nor hear them. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only. The "tribe of Judah" stands for the kingdom of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin (see 1 Kings 11:31-36 ; 1 Kings 12:23 ; ' 2 Chronicles 17:14-18 ), into which the greater part of Dan and Simeon had also been absorbed. This became now, exclusively, God's "peculiar people," the object of his love and of his care. The writer, it must be remembered, belongs to the period of the Captivity, and is not speaking of the restored Israel.