Scripture Daily

Context No. 3224 of 4322 · 2 Kings

Context · Reflection

2 Kings 17:19-23: in context

19Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. 20The LORD rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight. 21For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin. 22The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them 23until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.

This is the theological summary of the northern kingdom's fall. Even Judah did not keep God's commandments, but walked in the ways of Israel. Israel had been torn from the house of David, had followed the sin of Jeroboam, and would not turn from it, until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said through all his servants the prophets. So they were carried away into Assyria.

Israel was carried into exile not by an accident of politics but because they persistently followed the sin of Jeroboam and would not turn, until the LORD removed them out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. The exile was the fulfillment of warnings long ignored. God had spoken through prophet after prophet for two centuries; the judgment came only after long patience and repeated calls to repent. And the passage notes that even Judah walked in the same sins. The fall of a people is the slow harvest of persistent, warned-against sin.

Do I take God's repeated warnings seriously, remembering that his patience, though long, is not endless, and that persistent sin has consequences?

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