2 Kings 17:7-23 - Homiletics

The lessons to be learnt from the destruction of the kingdom of Samaria.

The first and main lesson is, of course, the great fact—

I. THAT NATIONS ARE TREATED BY GOD AS RESPONSIBLE UNITS , AND ARE PUNISHED , EVEN DESTROYED , FOR THEIR SINS . It was their "evil ways," their transgression against the commandments of God, that lay at the root of Israel's rejection. The prophets Hosea and Amos paint an awful picture of the condition of Samaria under its later kings. Luxury, oppression, lewdness, drunkenness, idolatry, prevailed. The service of God was a lip-service, which "his soul hated." There was no truth, no mercy, no real "knowledge of God," in the land ( Hosea 4:1 ). "By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing … they broke out, and blood touched blood" ( Hosea 4:2 ). "Whoredom and wine and new wine had taken away their heart" ( Hosea 4:11 ). "A man and his father would go in unto the same maid" ( Amos 2:7 ). False balances were employed ( Amos 8:5 ). "Companies of priests murdered in the way by consent" ( Hosea 6:9 ). Therefore was the doom pronounced against the nation—they should "go into captivity beyond Damascus" ( Amos 5:27 ). "The Lord swore by his holiness … that he would take them away with hooks, and their posterity with fish-hooks" ( Amos 4:2 ). "The end came upon them; they could not be passed by any more" ( Amos 8:2 ). Minor lessons are—

II. THAT SINS ARE GREATLY AGGRAVATED IN GOD 'S SIGHT WHEN THEY ARE INFRACTIONS OF A COVENANT MADE WITH HIM . Israel was under covenant with God—had been made God's "peculiar people" on the express condition of keeping his statutes, testimonies, commandments, and judgments ( Exodus 19:5-8 ). This they had bound themselves to do; but they had done the exact opposite. Hence the reproaches in verses 15 and 35-40. It is the breach of the covenant by the northern kingdom that, in the view of the writer of Kings, is the main and special cause of its fall. All else might have been forgiven, but not that. A covenant is a holy thing, even when it is only between man and man ( Galatians 3:15 ); but a covenant between man and God—how can anything be more holy? Must not the infraction of such a covenant entail fearful consequences?

III. THAT IT IS A FURTHER GREAT AGGRAVATION OF THE GUILT OF SIN TO COMMIT IT AGAINST FREQUENT WARNINGS . "Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways" (verse 13). Comp. 2 Chronicles 36:15 , 2 Chronicles 36:16 , "And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy." The sin of Israel would have been far less, would not perhaps have been quite "without remedy," had they not for so long a time turned a deaf ear to the warnings and exhortations of the prophets, refusing to "hear the voice of the charmers, charmed they never so wisely," and persisting in their disobedience, their wickedness, their greed, their cruelty, their besotted idolatry, despite the scathing denunciations, the tender pleadings, the wise counsels, almost uninterruptedly addressed to them. "Stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears" ( Acts 7:51 ), they " resisted the Holy Ghost; "and their doom had to be pronounced. Congregations in this country and at the present day may be reminded