2 Kings 17:24 – 41 “Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its towns.
Now when the settlers first lived there, they did not worship the LORD, so He sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The peoples that you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land. Because of this, He has sent lions among them, which are indeed killing them off.”
Then the king of Assyria commanded: “Send back one of the priests you carried off from Samaria, and have him go back to live there and teach the requirements of the God of the land.”
Thus one of the priests they had carried away came and lived in Bethel, and he began to teach them how they should worship the LORD.
Nevertheless, the people of each nation continued to make their own gods in the cities where they had settled, and they set them up in the shrines that the people of Samaria had made on the high places. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim.
So the new residents worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed for themselves priests of all sorts to serve in the shrines of the high places. They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods according to the customs of the nations from which they had been carried away. To this day they are still practicing their former customs. None of them worship the LORD or observe the statutes, ordinances, laws, and commandments that the LORD gave the descendants of Jacob, whom He named Israel.
For the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites and commanded them, “Do not worship other gods or bow down to them; do not serve them or sacrifice to them. Instead, worship the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm. You are to bow down to Him and offer sacrifices to Him. And you must always be careful to observe the statutes, ordinances, laws, and commandments He wrote for you. Do not worship other gods. Do not forget the covenant I have made with you. Do not worship other gods, but worship the LORD your God, and He will deliver you from the hands of all your enemies.”
But they would not listen, and they persisted in their former customs. So these nations worshiped the LORD but also served their idols, and to this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.”
When the citizens of the Northern Kingdom were carried off to Assyria, the Assyrians brought in people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim – all places to the east of Israel to settle the land and to pay tribute to the Assyrians. Understandably, these people brought their own religions with them. When these new settlers entered Israel and saw the shrines the Israelites had left, they were thrilled and took over these shrines for their own worship. (How convenient!) But lions began attacking the new settlers and they complained to Assyrian headquarters. Assuming that the God of Israel was merely one more territorial spirit, the Assyrians sent back one priest, who tried to teach these settlers how to worship God. This effort was moderately successful; the lion attacks ceased. But the settlers simply took on the trappings of Jewish worship and added them to the things they were already doing. Bethel continued to serve as the center of Jewish – style worship; however, it was a bastardized form of worship at best and the people who were practicing it were a mongrel people by Jewish standards.
When the Jews began returning from Babylon under Ezra and later under Nehemiah, they refused to have anything to do with the Samaritans, viewing the Samaritan worship as corrupt and invalid. The Samaritans responded by trying to disrupt the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple. Even though the Jews had gone into exile because of their apostasy, they still viewed themselves as a much purer race than the Samaritans. Under Nehemiah, there was a sorting out of families that had intermarried with Babylonians rather than restricting themselves to Jews. This racial and religious pride persisted up to Jesus’ day.
In Jesus’ day, Samaria was under Roman control and was a center of Hellenistic culture. (Encyclopedia Britannica) By the time of Jesus, the Jews had re – settled much of Israel and were again practicing worship according to the Law of Moses. But during the Babylonian exile, a number of other traditions were added to the Law of Moses, and now the Pharisees were demanding that these traditions also be practiced if one was to REALLY be Godly. Since the Samaritans were practicing a syncretistic religion that merged practices from a number of different sources, the Jews felt that they were also religiously superior and generally wanted nothing to do with Samaritans.
When Jesus passed through Samaria and stopped to speak to a woman at a well in the middle of the day, this contact was revolutionary. The woman herself was shocked that Jesus would even give her the time of day, let alone speak to her of the things of God. (John 4)
APPLICATION: When God gave Moses the Law, He warned the Israelites that if they insisted on worshiping the pagan gods they would find in Canaan, they would be seized and sent into exile. Deuteronomy 32 embodies the Song of Moses that God commanded the Israelites to teach to each succeeding generation. The Israelites failed to do this, for had they done so, they would have been fully warned. The Song begins by describing the grace of God to the Israelites and how He delivered them from Egypt. But then the Song turned prophetical.
Deuteronomy 32:15 – 27 “But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked— becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation. They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations. They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear. You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters. He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation— children of unfaithfulness.
They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding. For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them. They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust. Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man. I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind, if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the LORD who did all this.’”
There is much more to the Song of Moses. This Song graphically predicted everything that eventually happened to the Israelites. The citizens of the Northern Kingdom were carried off into Assyria. The citizens of Judah were taken to Babylon. As long as the Jews were free to worship in Judah and Israel, they chased after every pagan deity they could find. Only after the Jews realized the extent of their losses did they turn to worship God in their lands of exile.
For the Israelites, riches and luxury proved to be their undoing. Rather than continue to be grateful to God for a miraculous deliverance and to worship God as He had asked, the Jews began taking their freedom for granted and abusing it. Proverbs 14:34 tells us, “Uprightness and right standing with God elevate a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” We need to repent individually and as nations for failing to truly follow God. Social programs, electric vehicles, and other initiatives will never touch climate change or any of the other problems currently facing our nations. Repentance – true repentance – and re – dedication to God is what is needed.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, we confess that our countries have turned their backs on You and have gone into worthless endeavors in attempts to solve problems that require Your solutions. Lord, forgive us, help us to turn to You and trust only You, both individually and corporately. Heal us, Oh Lord, and heal our lands. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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