2 Kings 17:20 - Exposition

And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel. God is no respecter of persons. As he had rejected the ten tribes on account of certain transgressions, which have been enumerated ( 2 Kings 17:8-17 ), so, when Judah committed the self-same sins, and transgressed equally, Judah had equally to be rejected. " All the seed of Israel" is the entire nation—Israel in the widest sense, made up of Judah and of Israel in the narrow sense. So Keil, rightly. And afflicted them —by the hands of Sargon, and Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon ( 2 Chronicles 33:11 ), and Pharaoh-Nechoh, and others— and delivered them into the hands of spoilers. The "spoilers" intended are probably, first, the "bands of the Chaldees, and of the Syrians, and of the Moabites, and of the children of Ammon," who were let loose upon Judaea by Nebuchadnezzar when Jehoiakim rebelled against him ( 2 Kings 24:2 ), and secondly Nebuchadnezzar himself and Nebuzaradan, who completed the spoliation of the country, and plundered Jerusalem itself, to punish the revolts of Jehoiachid and Zedekiah ( 2 Kings 24:13-16 and 2 Kings 25:8-21 ), when all the treasures of the temple were carried off. Until he had cast them out of his sight ; i.e. until he had punished Judah as he had previously punished Israel ( 2 Kings 17:18 ), which was what justice required.