They burned incense on all the high places like the nations that the LORD had driven out before them. They did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger. They burned incenseThe act of burning incense in ancient Israel was intended to be a sacred ritual, symbolizing prayers ascending to God. However, in this context, it signifies idolatrous practices. The Hebrew word for incense, "קְטֹרֶת" (qetoret), often denotes offerings made to deities. Archaeological findings have uncovered altars and incense burners in ancient Israelite sites, indicating the widespread nature of this practice. The burning of incense on unauthorized altars was a direct violation of God's commandments, reflecting a departure from true worship. on all the high places
"High places," or "בָּמוֹת" (bamot) in Hebrew, were elevated sites often used for worship. These locations were originally intended for the worship of Yahweh but became corrupted by pagan practices. Historically, high places were common in Canaanite religion, and their continued use by the Israelites demonstrates a syncretism that God had expressly forbidden. The persistence of these sites highlights the Israelites' struggle to remain distinct from surrounding nations. like the nations that the LORD had driven out before them
This phrase underscores the tragic irony of Israel's actions. The very nations that God had expelled from the land due to their abominations were now being emulated by His chosen people. The Hebrew word for "nations," "גּוֹיִם" (goyim), often refers to Gentile peoples who did not know God. This imitation of pagan customs was a direct affront to the covenant relationship between God and Israel, as it signified a rejection of their unique identity and calling. They did wicked things
The term "wicked things" translates from the Hebrew "דְּבָרִים רָעִים" (devarim ra'im), indicating actions that are morally and spiritually corrupt. This phrase captures the essence of Israel's rebellion, encompassing idolatry, injustice, and disobedience. The biblical narrative consistently portrays such behavior as leading to divine judgment, emphasizing the seriousness of turning away from God's commandments. provoking the LORD to anger
The Hebrew root "כָּעַס" (ka'as) conveys the idea of inciting or stirring up anger. In the biblical context, God's anger is not capricious but a righteous response to covenant unfaithfulness. The Israelites' actions were not merely personal failings but communal transgressions that threatened the very fabric of their relationship with God. This provocation serves as a sobering reminder of the consequences of disobedience and the importance of faithfulness to God's commands. Persons / Places / Events 1. The IsraelitesThe people of God who were living in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They are the primary subjects of this verse, engaging in idolatrous practices. 2. High PlacesElevated sites where the Israelites engaged in idol worship, contrary to God's commands. These were often used by the surrounding pagan nations for their religious rituals. 3. The LORD (Yahweh)The covenant God of Israel, who had commanded His people to worship Him alone and not to adopt the practices of the nations He had driven out. 4. The Nations Driven OutRefers to the Canaanite nations that previously inhabited the land and practiced idolatry, which God had judged and removed to give the land to Israel. 5. Provoking the LORD to AngerThe Israelites' actions were not just disobedient but were seen as a direct affront to God, leading to His righteous anger. Teaching Points The Danger of SyncretismMixing true worship with pagan practices leads to spiritual compromise and provokes God's anger. The Importance of ObedienceGod desires obedience to His commands, which includes exclusive worship and the rejection of idolatry. The Consequences of IdolatryIdolatry leads to spiritual decay and ultimately to judgment, as seen in the history of Israel. God's Righteous AngerUnderstanding that God's anger is a response to sin and disobedience, calling His people back to righteousness. The Call to HolinessBelievers are called to be set apart, avoiding the practices of the world that lead away from God. Bible Study Questions 1. What were the high places, and why were they significant in the context of Israel's disobedience? 2. How does the commandment in Exodus 20:3-5 relate to the actions of the Israelites in 2 Kings 17:11? 3. In what ways can modern believers fall into the trap of syncretism, and how can we guard against it? 4. How does understanding God's righteous anger help us in our personal walk with Him? 5. Reflect on a time when you faced the temptation to compromise your faith. How can the lessons from 2 Kings 17:11 guide you in future situations? Connections to Other Scriptures Exodus 20:3-5The commandment against idolatry, highlighting God's expectation for exclusive worship. Deuteronomy 12:2-4Instructions to destroy the high places and not worship as the nations did, emphasizing the importance of pure worship. 1 Kings 14:22-24Similar accounts of Judah's idolatry, showing a pattern of disobedience among God's people. Jeremiah 19:4-5The consequences of idolatry and the shedding of innocent blood, further illustrating the gravity of Israel's sin. Romans 1:21-23The New Testament perspective on idolatry and the futility of worshiping created things rather than the Creator. People Adrammelech, Ahaz, Anammelech, Avites, Avvites, David, Elah, Hoshea, Israelites, Jacob, Jeroboam, Nebat, Pharaoh, Sepharvites, ShalmaneserPlaces Assyria, Avva, Babylon, Bethel, Cuth, Cuthah, Egypt, Gozan, Habor River, Halah, Hamath, Samaria, SepharvaimTopics Anger, Burned, Burning, Burnt, Carried, Driven, Evil, Exile, Heathen, Incense, Moving, Nations, Offered, Offerings, Perfume, Places, Presence, Provoke, Provoked, Provoking, Removed, Wicked, Worked, Wrath, WroughtDictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 17:11 1210 God, human descriptions
6218 provoking God
7374 high places
8282 intolerance 2 Kings 17:3-18 7560 Samaritans, the 2 Kings 17:3-23 7233 Israel, northern kingdom 2 Kings 17:6-23 6659 freedom, acts in OT 2 Kings 17:7-20 8705 apostasy, in OT 2 Kings 17:7-23 6026 sin, judgment on Library Divided Worship
'These nations feared the Lord, and served their own gods.'--2 KINGS xvii. 33. The kingdom of Israel had come to its fated end. Its king and people had been carried away captives in accordance with the cruel policy of the great Eastern despotisms, which had so much to do with weakening them by their very conquests. The land had lain desolate and uncultivated for many years, savage beasts had increased in the untilled solitudes, even as weeds and nettles grew in the gardens and vineyards of Samaria. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureA Kingdom's Epitaph
'In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. 7. For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, 8. And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture September the Eleventh a Fatal Divorce
"They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." --2 KINGS xvii. 24-34. And that is an old-world record, but it is quite a modern experience. The kinsmen of these ancient people are found in our own time. Men still fear one God and serve another. But something is vitally wrong when men can divorce their fear from their obedience. And the beginning of the wrong is in the fear itself. "Fear," as used in this passage, is a counterfeit coin, which does not ring true to the truth. It means only the …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year Upon Our Lord's SermonOn the Mount
Discourse 9 "No man can serve two masters; For either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: For they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions Mongrel Religion
I. I shall first call your attention to THE NATURE OF THIS Mongrel Religion. It had its good and bad points, for it wore a double face. These people were not infidels. Far from it: "they feared the Lord." They did not deny the existence, or the power, or the rights of the great God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah. They had not the pride of Pharaoh who said, "Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice?" They were not like those whom David calls "fools," who said in their hearts, "There is no God." …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881 Building in Troublous Times
'Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; 2. Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. 3. But Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Profession and Practice.
18th Sunday after Trinity. S. Matt. xxii. 42. "What think ye of Christ?" INTRODUCTION.--Many men are Christians neither in understanding nor in heart. Some are Christians in heart, and not in understanding. Some in understanding, and not in heart, and some are Christians in both. If I were to go into a Temple of the Hindoos, or into a Synagogue of the Jews, and were to ask, "What think ye of Christ?" the people there would shake their heads and deny that He is God, and reject His teaching. The …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent The Original Text and Its History.
1. The original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, with the exception of certain portions of Ezra and Daniel and a single verse of Jeremiah, (Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan. 2:4, from the middle of the verse to end of chap. 7; Jer. 10:11,) which are written in the cognate Chaldee language. The Hebrew belongs to a stock of related languages commonly called Shemitic, because spoken mainly by the descendants of Shem. Its main divisions are: (1,) the Arabic, having its original seat in the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Of the Power of Making Laws. The Cruelty of the Pope and his Adherents, in this Respect, in Tyrannically Oppressing and Destroying Souls.
1. The power of the Church in enacting laws. This made a source of human traditions. Impiety of these traditions. 2. Many of the Papistical traditions not only difficult, but impossible to be observed. 3. That the question may be more conveniently explained, nature of conscience must be defined. 4. Definition of conscience explained. Examples in illustration of the definition. 5. Paul's doctrine of submission to magistrates for conscience sake, gives no countenance to the Popish doctrine of the obligation …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion A More Particular view of the Several Branches of the Christian Temper, by which the Reader May be Farther Assisted in Judging what He Is, And
1, 2. The importance of the case engages to a more particular survey what manner of spirit we are of.--3. Accordingly the Christian temper is described, by some general views of it, as a new and divine temper.--4. As resembling that of Christ.--5. And as engaging us to be spiritually minded, and to walk by faith.--6. A plan of the remainder.--7. In which the Christian temper is more particularly considered with regard to the blessed God: as including fear, affection, and obedience.--8, 9. Faith and …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul Solomon's Temple Spiritualized
or, Gospel Light Fetched out of the Temple at Jerusalem, to Let us More Easily into the Glory of New Testament Truths. 'Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Isreal;--shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out hereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof.'--Ezekiel 43:10, 11 London: Printed for, and sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgate, …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links 2 Kings 17:11 NIV2 Kings 17:11 NLT2 Kings 17:11 ESV2 Kings 17:11 NASB2 Kings 17:11 KJV
2 Kings 17:11 Commentaries
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