WWUTT 539 The Fall of Israel?

Over the course of our reading in 1st and 2nd Kings, we've seen Israel especially go from bad to worse, one king after the next, doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord. Where is all of this going?

A really bad place when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

The Rise of Ahaz and the Beginning of Judah’s Collapse

Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of the book of 2nd Kings in our Old Testament study, and if you've been wondering what we've been leading up to, we've just kind of been going through one king after the next, Israel and Judah progressively getting worse.

We're hearing the stories of these monarchical reigns in the two divided kingdoms, Israel the northern kingdom, Judah the southern kingdom. Where is all of this heading? Well, we kind of take a turning point today as we lose the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel in chapter 17.

The Assyrians are going to end up taking it over, and then we're going to start to see the beginning of the end of Judah. So 2nd Kings chapter 16 is where one of the worst kings to reign over Judah ascends to the throne.

In 2nd Kings 16, in the 17th year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah began to reign. Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem.

And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God as his father David had done, and that's an understatement here, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He was very wicked. He even burned his son as an offering according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. And because of the great sin that Ahaz had committed against the Lord, God is really going to punish Judah here.

Now Judah is not going to fall, at least not yet. We read about Israel's fall in chapter 17, but you'll begin to see the breakdown of Judah and also the deconstruction of the temple, which still belongs to Judah and is still in Jerusalem.

And again, this is all because of the evil of Ahaz. He was so evil that Judah was depreciated this much in such a short period of time. Verse five, then Rezan king of Syria and Pekah son of Ramalia, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem and they besieged Ahaz, but could not conquer him.

Isaiah’s Sign to Ahaz and the Assyrian Alliance

Now this verse right here, 2nd Kings 16 verse five, this is what's going on when you pick up with Isaiah in Isaiah chapter seven. So Ahaz is being surrounded by Syria and by Ephraim. And then Isaiah comes to Ahaz and says to Ahaz, make a request of the Lord.

Let it be as low as Sheol or as high as the heavens. And Ahaz says, I will not ask. Basically Ahaz is so proud. He's like, I don't need God. I can take care of this. I can work this situation myself. And so then Isaiah rebukes Ahaz and says to him, well, God is going to give you a sign anyway.

And that's when you have the famous verse in Isaiah 7, 14, behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. Of course, being a prophecy concerning the coming of Christ.

And that was going to be the sign that God would give to Israel. But of course that wouldn't come about for another six or 700 years. So that's what's going on here at this point in time is and where we are in the story in Second Kings and how this connects with even the other prophetic books.

So then verse six, Second Kings 16, verse six. At that time, Rezin, the king of Syria, discovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath and the Edomites came to Elath where they dwell to this day.

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Peleser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel who are attacking me.

Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king's house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kerr and he killed Rezin.

So Ahaz wouldn't take God up on his offer through the prophet Isaiah, but he does make this bargain with the pagan nation of the Assyrians. And that's going to end up coming to bite him in the end. Verse 10, when King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Peleser, king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus and King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar and its pattern exact in all of its details.

And Uriah the priest built the altar in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. So Uriah the priest made it before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. There is now this altar to this pagan God constructed there in Jerusalem.

And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar and the king drew near to the altar and went up on it and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.

And the bronze altar that was before the Lord, he removed from the front of the house from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord and put it on the north side of his altar. So the king of Judah, King Ahaz, has seen the king of the Assyrians worshiping his God and Ahaz sees that the king of the Assyrians is successful in his military campaign.

So he thinks, you know what? That's what I need. I need that God over Judah and then I will be more successful against my enemies. So he copies that exact same altar and brings it to Jerusalem. And here he is even beginning to move the pieces from the temple of God to be before this altar to this false God that Ahaz has constructed.

Verse 14, and the bronze altar that was before the Lord, he removed from the front of the house from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord and put it on the north side of his altar. And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest saying, on the great altar, burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king's burnt offering and his grain offering with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their grain offering and their drink offering and throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice.

But the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by. Uriah the priest did all this as King Ahaz commanded. All that belonged to the Lord God was instead being offered up to this false God. And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them.

And he took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal. The sea was that great big basin full of water. We talked about this when we were reading about the dimensions of the temple as Solomon constructed it back in first Kings.

And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house and the outer entrance for the king. He caused to go around the house of the Lord because of the king of Assyria. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz and he did all that he did.

Are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah and Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

Now some of these things that Ahaz did here we don't really understand the significance of them. We just know that he was changing the temple around. Basically what we conclude from this is that the beauty of the house of the Lord was being lost.

Ahaz did not see the temple as being anything important even though God had commanded that this was the place where he was to be worshipped and he was to be worshipped no other place. And Ahaz is even taking that place and worshipping someone else there other than God.

He's beginning to move pieces out of the temple. He's beginning to reconstruct redesign the temple into things that God did not command of his temple to be. So the beauty of the temple is being lost and eventually the temple is going to be destroyed.

But as you see here Judah is doing that before their enemies even come in and destroy the temple. Their enemies are going to end up doing what the king of Judah already started doing deconstructing the temple.

So eventually what is in the heart of of Judah is going to be in the hearts of their enemies to destroy Judah just as they were already doing. So then this is the beginning of the end of Judah that we're reading about here in chapter 16.

We see the end of Israel in chapter 17. So that's the pairing of these two chapters the beginning of the end of Judah and the end of Israel. So starting in verse 1 of chapter 17 in the 12th year of Ahaz king of Judah Hosea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel and he reigned for nine years and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria and Hosea became his vassal and paid him tribute but the king of Assyria found treachery in Hosea for he had sent messengers to so king of Egypt and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria and for three years he besieged it.

The Fall of Israel and the Sin Behind the Exile

So you had the reference to Israel being a vassal kingdom here so when a kingdom became a vassal kingdom they had been conquered by their enemies but the enemies didn't conquer them fully maybe they just didn't want to waste more troops and have more people die and experience more losses so they would kind of pull back a little bit and they would say hey we've conquered you so now you belong to us and you would have the suzerain kingdom and the vassal kingdom.

The vassal is subject to the suzerain and the suzerain kingdom would say that you owe us a tribute basically all your taxes everything that you bring about as far as wealth even crops and flocks belong to us and you have to give us a portion of what you have.

You also cannot raise up an army. So the vassal kingdom can't have their own army and in return the suzerain will agree we won't obliterate you we'll let you live. You can still have your lands you can still live as you do but you owe us a tribute.

And the vassal kingdom is therefore kind of enslaved to the suzerain kingdom. They're not free and their own kingdom anymore. So that's what was going on here. But Hosea decided that maybe to get out of under the thumb of the Assyrians I can make this deal with the Egyptians.

And thus he breaks the suzerain vassal treaty. So the king of Assyria goes all right if that's the way you want it and he shut him up and bound him in prison. And then verse 5 the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria and for three years he besieged it.

So a siege on a city is the army surrounds the city nothing can get in nothing can get can get out. And the people basically become depleted from starvation. So then in verse 6 in the ninth year of Hosea the king of Assyria captured Samaria and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah and on the Haber the river of Gozen and in the cities of the Medes.

Verse 7. And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the lord their god who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of pharaoh king of Egypt and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the lord drove out before the people of Israel and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.

And the people of Israel did secretly against the lord their god things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in their own towns from watchtower to fortified city. They set up for themselves pillars and ashram on every high hill and under every green tree.

And there they made offerings on all the high places as the nations did whom the lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things provoking the lord to anger. And they served idols of which the lord had said to them you shall not do this.

Yet the lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer saying turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with all the law that i commanded your fathers and that i sent to you by my servants the prophets.

But they would not listen. They were stubborn as their fathers had been who did not believe in the lord their god. They despised his statutes and his covenants that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them.

They went after false gods and became false. And they followed the nations that were around them concerning whom the lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the lord their god.

They made for themselves metal images of two calves and they made an asherah and worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the lord provoking him to anger.

Therefore the lord was very angry with israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of judah only judah also did not keep the commandments of the lord their god but walked in the customs that israel had introduced.

And remember that at one point there was a pretty significant divide between judah and israel. But it was when jehoshaphat you know he wanted to have a partnership with israel he wanted to see amends made between judah and israel same group of people same chosen people of god but two divided kingdoms.

Can't we get together and get along. But it was when he developed that partnership with king ahab that the things that the israelites were doing started to bleed into the things that judah was doing. And so because of that partnership the things that israel did were introduced to judah and the lord rejected all the descendants of israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers until he had cast them out of his sight.

That was verse 20. Now verse 21 when he had torn israel from the house of david they made jeroboam the son of nebat king and jeroboam drove israel from following the lord and made them commit great sin.

The people of israel walked in all the sins that jeroboam did. They did not depart from them until the lord removed israel out of his sight as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So israel was exiled from their own land to assyria until this day.

And that's the clue that we have. There is to the time frame in which first and second kings was written. It was during the time of the assyrian exile. And so we read in first kings 14 10. This was after jeroboam had sinned against the lord.

God said behold i will bring harm upon the house of jeroboam and will cut off from jeroboam every male both bond and free in israel and will burn up the house of jeroboam as a man burns up dung until it is gone.

Anyone belonging to jeroboam who dies in the city the dog shall eat. And anyone who dies in the open country the birds of the heaven shall eat. The lord has spoken. And then over at verse 15 the lord will strike israel all of israel so not just the house of jeroboam.

Now the lord will strike israel as a reed is shaken in the water and root up israel out of this good land that he gave to their fathers and scatter them beyond the euphrates because they have made their ashram provoking the lord to anger.

And he will give israel up because of the sins of jeroboam which he sinned and made israel to sin. So that prophecy that was made back in 1st kings 14 has now come to pass here in 2nd kings 17. Now we have verse 24.

I'm back in 2nd kings again. And the king of assyria brought people from babylon kutha eva hamath and sapphire sapphire vein and placed them in the cities of samaria instead of the people of israel. And they took possession of samaria and lived in its cities.

And at the beginning of their dwelling there they did not fear the lord. Therefore the lord sent lions among them which killed some of them. So the king of assyria was told the nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of samaria do not know the law of the god of the land.

Therefore he has sent lions among them and behold they are killing them because they do not know the law of the god of the land. Then the king of assyria commanded send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there and let him go and dwell there and teach the law of the god of the land.

So one of the priests whom they had carried away from samaria came and lived in bethel and taught them how they should fear the lord. But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines the high places that the samaritans had made every nation in the cities in which they lived.

The men of babylon made sucketh benneth. The men of kuth made nirgal. The men of hamath made ashima and the avites made nibhaz and tartak. And the sephirvites burned their children in the fire to adramelic and animelic.

And the gods of sephirvim and all the deities that are mentioned here come from a hodgepodge of different nationalities. Sucketh benneth was a syrian and was a goddess. But then you had nirgal which was a mesopotamian god associated with famine drought plague and death.

Then you had the west semitic god ashima. Then you had nibhaz and tartak who are deities from elam. And then adramelic and animelic were phonation gods. So the assyrians just worshiping a whole hodgepodge of gods.

And then you've got well i mean the assyrians the people that were located in this particular region. The king of assyria did not leave samaria and all the surrounding area uh desolate. He actually sent people to live there.

But they worshiped all their pagan gods. And so when they started feeling the effects of the god of that land who of course is the true god of israel who sent lions among them to kill them. The king says well we need somebody to teach him about this god.

So a priest from israel went back and taught them about the lord god. And they were told through this priest the laws that they were supposed to keep. But the people didn't keep those laws. They feared the lord just like they feared all the rest of their gods.

So they they did have a fear of god. But it wasn't the fear of only god. They also had the fear of their false gods. And so it just became this hodgepodge of false teaching and false worship. And they had the law.

They had the law of moses probably the whole pentateuch genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy. These are the samaritans. And this is the group of samaritans that we'll end up reading about when you get to the new testament this is how they came about and all the religions that they followed.

And so you had references here to the commandment that the lord commanded the children of jacob whom he named israel. And remember in john chapter 4 when jesus talked to the samaritan woman at the well she said are you greater than our father jacob who dug this.

Well so here in second king 17 you see references to stuff that you pick up later on in the new testament in the gospels when jesus witnessed even to the samaritans. This is where all of that came from.

Uh the we read about the beginning of that territory of that nationality of people here in second king 17. And why they would be so hated by those who lived in judah by the jews later on when they came back to inhabit the land.

False Worship, the Samaritan Origin, and the Call to True Faith

So anyway let's continue on this. I'm kind of getting off track and i've run out of time already. What do you expect. I'm a baptist preacher. Verse verse 32. They also feared the lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.

So they feared the lord. But they also served their own gods after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away to this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the lord.

And they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the lord commanded the children of jacob whom he named israel. The lord made a covenant with them and commanded them.

You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them. But you shall fear the lord who brought you out of the land of egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm.

You shall bow yourselves to him and to him. You shall sacrifice and the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandments that he wrote for you. You shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods.

And you shall not forget the covenant that i have made with you. You shall not fear other gods would. You shall fear the lord your god and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. However they would not listen but they did according to their former manner.

So these nations feared the lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise and their children's children as their fathers did so do they to this day. You know this honestly as as i read this description of those who lived in this particular land in samaria i'm reminded of the condition of religion in the direction that it's going here in the united states of america more and more the surveys that come out.

Whenever a religious survey is being done you find that even among those who claim to be christian that they adopt all these other practices and beliefs that are not christian. And when you get to the essential doctrines of what they claim as christianity they miss a lot of those essential doctrines like they don't believe in the trinity of god.

They do not believe that jesus is uncaused and eternal but rather that he was created by god the father. There's essential doctrines that are missed among those who will even profess christianity here in the united states of america.

So it's become a hodgepodge of religions and really emphasizes the importance of knowing sound doctrine and clinging to the truth of god's word. I mentioned the samaritan woman at the well jesus said to that woman.

The worshipers that god is seeking will worship him in spirit and truth. We must know the truth. And as jesus said the truth will set you free. John 14 6 i am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father jesus said but by me.

So let us commit ourselves to him and to him. Only to god belongs all the glory solely deo gloria.

Amen. Gabriel hughes is the pastor of first southern baptist church in junction city kansas. Find out more online at wwtt .com.