But they would not listen, and they persisted in their former customs. But they would not listenThis phrase highlights the persistent disobedience of the Israelites. The Hebrew root for "listen" is "שָׁמַע" (shama), which implies not just hearing but obeying and acting upon what is heard. In the biblical context, listening to God is synonymous with obedience. The Israelites' refusal to listen is a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament, illustrating a hardened heart and a rejection of God's covenant. Historically, this disobedience led to their downfall and exile, as they ignored the prophetic warnings and continued in their sinful ways. and they persisted
The Hebrew word for "persisted" is "עָשָׂה" (asah), which means to do, make, or practice. This indicates a deliberate and continuous action. The Israelites' persistence in their ways shows a willful defiance against God's commands. It reflects a deep-seated rebellion and a choice to follow their desires rather than God's will. This persistence in sin is a cautionary tale for believers, emphasizing the importance of repentance and turning back to God. in their former customs
The phrase "former customs" refers to the practices and traditions that the Israelites adopted from the surrounding pagan nations, which were contrary to the laws given by God. The Hebrew word for "customs" is "מִשְׁפָּט" (mishpat), often translated as judgments or ordinances. These customs included idolatry and other practices that led them away from the worship of Yahweh. Archaeological findings have uncovered various artifacts and inscriptions that confirm the syncretism and idolatry prevalent in Israel during this period. This serves as a reminder of the dangers of conforming to worldly practices and the importance of adhering to God's commandments. Persons / Places / Events 1. IsraelitesThe Northern Kingdom of Israel, who were taken into exile by the Assyrians due to their persistent idolatry and disobedience to God. 2. AssyriansThe empire that conquered the Northern Kingdom and resettled the land with people from other nations, leading to a syncretistic form of worship. 3. SamariaThe capital of the Northern Kingdom, which became a center of mixed religious practices after the Assyrian conquest. 4. God (Yahweh)The one true God who commanded the Israelites to worship Him alone and follow His statutes. 5. ProphetsMessengers sent by God to warn the Israelites of the consequences of their disobedience and to call them back to faithfulness. Teaching Points The Danger of SyncretismMixing true worship with pagan practices leads to spiritual compromise and disobedience to God. The Importance of Listening to GodIgnoring God's commands and the warnings of His prophets leads to judgment and separation from His blessings. The Stubbornness of the Human HeartLike the Israelites, we are prone to follow our own ways rather than God's, highlighting the need for repentance and submission. The Consequences of DisobediencePersistent disobedience results in God's discipline, as seen in the exile of the Northern Kingdom. The Call to Exclusive WorshipGod demands our full allegiance and devotion, rejecting any form of idolatry or divided loyalty. Bible Study Questions 1. What customs or practices in your life might be hindering your full obedience to God, similar to the Israelites' persistence in their former customs? 2. How can we guard against syncretism in our own faith practices today? 3. In what ways does the account of the Northern Kingdom's fall serve as a warning for us in our personal and communal faith journeys? 4. How can we cultivate a heart that listens to and obeys God's commands, rather than following our own desires? 5. Reflect on a time when you experienced the consequences of disobedience. How did that experience shape your understanding of God's call to exclusive worship? Connections to Other Scriptures Deuteronomy 6:4-9This passage emphasizes the Shema, the call to love and obey God exclusively, which the Israelites failed to uphold. Jeremiah 7:24Highlights the stubbornness of the Israelites, who followed their own plans rather than listening to God. 2 Kings 17:13-14Provides context for the Israelites' disobedience, showing that God sent prophets to warn them, but they did not listen. Exodus 32:9Describes the Israelites as a "stiff-necked people," a theme that recurs throughout their history. Romans 1:21-23Discusses the consequences of turning away from God and 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 Attention, Custom, Customs, Earlier, Former, Hearken, Hearkened, Howbeit, However, Listen, Manner, Persisted, Practices, YetDictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 17:40 5165 listening 2 Kings 17:24-41 7560 Samaritans, the 2 Kings 17:34-41 8831 syncretism 2 Kings 17:40-41 5286 custom
8720 double-mindedness
8722 doubt, nature of 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 17:40 NIV2 Kings 17:40 NLT2 Kings 17:40 ESV2 Kings 17:40 NASB2 Kings 17:40 KJV
2 Kings 17:40 Commentaries
Bible Hub |
