Useful Bible Studies > 2 Kings Commentary > chapter 17
The Bible continues its explanation of why God permitted the people in northern and central Israel to suffer the loss of their land.
After some time, the people became completely unwilling to change their wrong attitudes and behaviour. That was like the people called ‘their fathers’ – in other words, the people whom Moses led out of Egypt (Exodus 32:9; Psalm 78:8). In the word-picture, they had ‘stiff necks’ – like farm animals that the farmer cannot direct to do their work.
So, they did not trust God, who had promised to direct them and to look after them (Deuteronomy chapter 32). They would not obey his laws. They did not care about his covenant, the promises that he had made to establish his special relationship with Israel.
Instead, they chose to put their trust in false gods – in gods that were not really gods. They believed the lies of these untrue religions.
Those false religions began with the two idols (images) that their first king, Jeroboam made (1 Kings 12:25-30). Then Ahab and Jezebel introduced them to more wicked religions, the religions of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 16:31-33).
We have no record of when they began to pray to the stars. It seems likely that Israel’s people copied this religion from Assyria’s people. Molech was the false god for whom the people killed their own children. Perhaps the people began to serve that evil god at the same time as King Ahaz of Judah did (16:3).
The Bible mentions in 2 Kings 9:22 about the importance of magic in Jezebel’s religion. All of these things were against God’s law (Deuteronomy 12:1-4, 13:1-11 and 18:9-13).
Next part: God sends Israel's people away from their own country (2 Kings 17:18-20)
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