Do not forget the covenant I have made with you. Do not worship other gods, Do not forgetThe phrase "do not forget" is a powerful admonition that echoes throughout the Scriptures, emphasizing the importance of remembrance in the life of faith. In Hebrew, the word for "forget" is "שָׁכַח" (shakach), which implies neglect or a lapse in memory. This command serves as a reminder to the Israelites to keep God's covenant at the forefront of their minds and hearts. In a historical context, the Israelites were prone to forgetfulness, often turning away from God to follow the practices of surrounding nations. This call to remembrance is not merely intellectual but involves a deep, active engagement with God's promises and commands. the covenant
The term "covenant" in Hebrew is "בְּרִית" (berit), signifying a solemn agreement or promise between God and His people. This covenant is central to the identity of Israel as God's chosen people, beginning with Abraham and reaffirmed through Moses at Sinai. It encompasses laws, promises, and a relationship that requires fidelity and obedience. The covenant is not just a legal contract but a relational bond that demands loyalty and love. In the broader biblical narrative, this covenant foreshadows the New Covenant established through Jesus Christ, which offers redemption and eternal relationship with God. I have made with you
This phrase underscores the personal and divine initiative in the covenant relationship. God is the one who initiates and establishes the covenant, highlighting His sovereignty and grace. The use of "I" emphasizes God's active role and commitment to His people. Historically, this reflects the unique relationship between God and Israel, where God chose them not because of their merit but out of His love and purpose. This divine initiative is a source of assurance and calls for a response of faithfulness from the people. and do not worship
The command "do not worship" is a direct prohibition against idolatry, which was a persistent temptation for Israel. The Hebrew word for "worship" is "עָבַד" (avad), meaning to serve or to work for. Worship in the biblical sense involves devotion, service, and allegiance. This command is a call to exclusive worship of Yahweh, rejecting all forms of idolatry. In the ancient Near Eastern context, idolatry was rampant, and Israel's distinctiveness was to be found in their exclusive worship of the one true God. other gods
The phrase "other gods" refers to the deities worshiped by the surrounding nations, such as Baal, Asherah, and Molech. These "gods" were often associated with fertility, weather, and war, and their worship included practices that were abhorrent to Yahweh, such as child sacrifice and ritual prostitution. The command to avoid worshiping other gods is rooted in the first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). This prohibition is not only about avoiding false deities but also about maintaining the purity and holiness of the worship of Yahweh. It is a call to recognize the uniqueness and supremacy of the God of Israel, who alone is worthy of worship and allegiance. Persons / Places / Events 1. IsraelThe Northern Kingdom of Israel, which was experiencing spiritual decline and idolatry, leading to its eventual exile by the Assyrians. 2. God (Yahweh)The covenant-keeping God who had established a relationship with Israel, emphasizing exclusive worship and obedience. 3. Assyrian ExileThe event where the Northern Kingdom was conquered and its people were taken into exile due to their persistent idolatry and disobedience. 4. ProphetsMessengers sent by God to warn Israel of the consequences of their idolatry and to call them back to covenant faithfulness. 5. CovenantThe solemn agreement between God and Israel, which included blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Teaching Points Covenant FaithfulnessGod calls His people to remember and uphold the covenant. This requires a commitment to exclusive worship and obedience to His commands. The Dangers of IdolatryIdolatry leads to spiritual decline and separation from God. Believers must guard against modern forms of idolatry, such as materialism or self-worship. Consequences of DisobedienceDisobedience to God's covenant results in severe consequences, as seen in the exile of Israel. This serves as a warning to remain faithful. God's Patience and WarningsGod is patient and sends warnings through His prophets. Believers should heed God's warnings and repent when they stray from His ways. The Importance of RemembranceRemembering God's past faithfulness and His covenant helps believers stay grounded in their faith and avoid the pitfalls of forgetfulness. Bible Study Questions 1. How does the concept of covenant in 2 Kings 17:38 relate to the New Covenant established through Jesus Christ? 2. In what ways can modern believers identify and avoid idolatry in their own lives? 3. What are some practical steps you can take to ensure you do not "forget the covenant" God has made with you? 4. How do the warnings given to Israel through the prophets apply to the church today? 5. Reflect on a time when you experienced the consequences of disobedience. How did that experience shape your understanding of God's covenant and faithfulness? Connections to Other Scriptures Exodus 20:3-4The first and second commandments, which prohibit the worship of other gods and the making of idols, directly relate to the warning in 2 Kings 17:38. Deuteronomy 6:12A reminder to Israel not to forget the Lord who brought them out of Egypt, similar to the call in 2 Kings 17:38 to remember the covenant. Jeremiah 11:10Describes Israel's breaking of the covenant, echoing the themes of disobedience and idolatry found in 2 Kings 17. Hosea 4:1-2Highlights Israel's unfaithfulness and lack of knowledge of God, which are central issues in 2 Kings 17. Psalm 106:34-39A recounting of Israel's idolatry and the consequences, providing a historical context for the events of 2 Kings 17. 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 Agreement, Covenant, Fear, Forget, Gods, Memory, WorshipDictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 17:38 8764 forgetting God 2 Kings 17:24-41 7560 Samaritans, the 2 Kings 17:34-41 8831 syncretism 2 Kings 17:35-38 8763 forgetting
8799 polytheism 2 Kings 17:35-39 7525 exclusiveness
8769 idolatry, in OT 2 Kings 17:38-39 8138 monotheism 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 17:38 NIV2 Kings 17:38 NLT2 Kings 17:38 ESV2 Kings 17:38 NASB2 Kings 17:38 KJV
2 Kings 17:38 Commentaries
Bible Hub |
