^17:1In the twelfth year of King Ahaz’s reign over Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king over Israel. He reigned in Samaria¹ for nine years. ^17:2He did evil in the sight of² the Lord, but not to the same degree as the Israelite kings who preceded him. ^17:3King Shalmaneser of Assyria threatened³ him; Hoshea became his subject and paid him tribute. ^17:4The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was planning a revolt.⁴ Hoshea had sent messengers to King So⁵ of Egypt and had not sent his annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him.⁶^17:5The king of Assyria marched through⁷ the whole land. He attacked Samaria and besieged it for three years. ^17:6In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel⁸ to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes.

A Summary of Israel’s Sinful History

^17:7This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of⁹ Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped¹⁰ other gods; ^17:8they observed the practices¹¹ of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before Israel, and followed the example of the kings of Israel.¹²^17:9The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right.¹³ They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress.¹⁴^17:10They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. ^17:11They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry.¹⁵^17:12They worshiped¹⁶ the disgusting idols¹⁷ in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command.¹⁸

^17:13The Lord solemnly warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and all the seers, “Turn back from your evil ways; obey my commandments and rules that are recorded in the law. I ordered your ancestors to keep this law and sent my servants the prophets to remind you of its demands.”¹⁹^17:14But they did not pay attention and were as stubborn as their ancestors,²⁰ who had not trusted the Lord their God. ^17:15They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey.²¹ They paid allegiance to²² worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord.²³ They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command.²⁴^17:16They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God; they made two metal calves and an Asherah pole, bowed down to all the stars in the sky,²⁵ and worshiped²⁶ Baal. ^17:17They passed their sons and daughters through the fire,²⁷ and practiced divination and omen reading. They committed themselves to doing evil in the sight of the Lord and made him angry.²⁸

^17:18So the Lord was furious²⁹ with Israel and rejected them;³⁰ only the tribe of Judah was left. ^17:19Judah also failed to keep the commandments of the Lord their God; they followed Israel’s example.³¹^17:20So the Lord rejected all of Israel’s descendants; he humiliated³² them and handed them over to robbers, until he had thrown them from his presence. ^17:21He tore Israel away from David’s dynasty, and Jeroboam son of Nebat became their king.³³ Jeroboam drove Israel away³⁴ from the Lord and encouraged them to commit a serious sin.³⁵^17:22The Israelites followed in the sinful ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and did not repudiate³⁶ them. ^17:23Finally³⁷ the Lord rejected Israel³⁸ just as he had warned he would do³⁹ through all his servants the prophets. Israel was deported from its land to Assyria and remains there to this very day.

The King of Assyria Populates Israel with Foreigners

^17:24The king of Assyria brought foreigners⁴⁰ from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria⁴¹ in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. ^17:25When they first moved in,⁴² they did not worship⁴³ the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them and the lions were killing them. ^17:26The king of Assyria was told,⁴⁴ “The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people⁴⁵ because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land.” ^17:27So the king of Assyria ordered, “Take back one of the priests whom you⁴⁶ deported from there. He must settle there and teach them the requirements of the God of the land.”⁴⁷^17:28So one of the priests whom they had deported from Samaria went back and settled in Bethel.⁴⁸ He taught them how to worship⁴⁹ the Lord.

^17:29But each of these nations made⁵⁰ its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria⁵¹ had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived. ^17:30The people from Babylon made Succoth Benoth,⁵² the people from Cuth made Nergal,⁵³ the people from Hamath made Ashima,⁵⁴^17:31the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak,⁵⁵ and the Sepharvites burned their sons in the fire as an offering to Adrammelech and Anammelech,⁵⁶ the gods of Sepharvaim. ^17:32At the same time they worshiped⁵⁷ the Lord. They appointed some of their own people to serve as priests in the shrines on the high places.⁵⁸^17:33They were worshiping⁵⁹ the Lord and at the same time serving their own gods in accordance with the practices of the nations from which they had been deported.

^17:34To this very day they observe their earlier practices. They do not worship⁶⁰ the Lord; they do not obey the rules, regulations, law, and commandments that the Lord gave⁶¹ the descendants of Jacob, whom he renamed Israel. ^17:35The Lord made an agreement⁶² with them⁶³ and instructed them, “You must not worship other gods. Do not bow down to them, serve them, or offer sacrifices to them. ^17:36Instead you must worship the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt by his great power and military ability;⁶⁴ bow down to him and offer sacrifices to him. ^17:37You must carefully obey at all times the rules, regulations, law, and commandments he wrote down for you. You must not worship other gods. ^17:38You must never forget the agreement I made with you, and you must not worship other gods. ^17:39Instead you must worship the Lord your God; then he will rescue you from the power of all your enemies.” ^17:40But they⁶⁵ pay no attention; instead they observe their earlier practices. ^17:41These nations are worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their idols; their sons and grandsons do just as their fathers have done, to this very day.

Hezekiah Becomes King of Judah

^18:1In the third year of the reign of Israel’s King Hoshea son of Elah, Ahaz’s son Hezekiah became king over Judah. ^18:2He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem.¹ His mother² was Abi,³ the daughter of Zechariah. ^18:3He did what the Lord approved, just as his ancestor David had done.⁴^18:4He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole.⁵ He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time⁶ the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan.⁷^18:5He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; in this regard there was none like him among the kings of Judah either before or after.⁸^18:6He was loyal to⁹ the Lord and did not abandon him.¹⁰ He obeyed the commandments which the Lord had given to¹¹ Moses. ^18:7The Lord was with him; he succeeded in all his endeavors.¹² He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to submit to him.¹³^18:8He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from the watchtower to the city fortress.¹⁴

^18:9In the fourth year of King Hezekiah’s reign (it was the seventh year of the reign of Israel’s King Hoshea, son of Elah), King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched¹⁵ up against Samaria¹⁶ and besieged it. ^18:10After three years he captured it (in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign); in the ninth year of King Hoshea’s reign over Israel Samaria was captured. ^18:11The king of Assyria deported the people of Israel¹⁷ to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes. ^18:12This happened because they did not obey¹⁸ the Lord their God and broke his agreement with them.¹⁹ They did not pay attention to and obey all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded.²⁰

Sennacherib Invades Judah

^18:13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ^18:14King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, who was at Lachish, “I have violated our treaty.²¹ If you leave, I will do whatever you demand.”²² So the king of Assyria demanded that King Hezekiah of Judah pay three hundred talents²³ of silver and thirty talents of gold. ^18:15Hezekiah gave him all the silver in²⁴ the Lord’s temple and in the treasuries of the royal palace. ^18:16At that time King Hezekiah of Judah stripped the metal overlays from the doors of the Lord’s temple and from the posts which he had plated²⁵ and gave them to the king of Assyria.

^18:17The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser²⁶ from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem,²⁷ along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went²⁸ and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth.²⁹^18:18They summoned the king, so Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went out to meet them.

^18:19The chief adviser said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says:…

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Footnotes

1 For location see ; ; ; ; .
2 Heb “in the eyes of.”
3 Heb “went up against.”
4 Heb “and the king of Assyria found in Hoshea conspiracy.”
5 For discussion of this name, see סוֹא and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
6 Heb “and bound him in the house of confinement.”
7 Heb “went up against.”
8 The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.
9 Heb “and from under the hand of.” The words “freed them” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons.
10 Heb “feared.”
11 Heb “walked in the customs.”
12 Heb “and [the practices of] the kings of Israel which they did.”
13 The meaning of the verb וַיְחַפְּאוּ (vayékhappé’u), translated here “said,” is uncertain. Some relate it to the verbal root חָפַה (khafah), “to cover,” and translate “they did it in secret” (see 341 חָפָא). However, the pagan practices specified in the following sentences were hardly done in secret. Others propose a meaning “ascribe, impute,” which makes good contextual sense but has little etymological support (see חפא). In this case Israel claimed that the Lord authorized their pagan practices.
14 That is, from the city’s perimeter to the central citadel.
15 Heb “and they did evil things, angering the Lord.”
16 Or “served.”
17 See the note at .
18 Heb “about which the Lord had said to them, ‘You must not do this thing.’ ”
19 Heb “obey my commandments and rules according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets.”
20 Heb and they stiffened their neck like the neck of their fathers.”
21 Or “and his warnings he had given them.”
22 Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).
23 Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.
24 Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”
25 The phrase כָל צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם (khol tséva’ hashamayim), traditionally translated “all the host of heaven,” refers to the heavenly lights, including stars and planets. In 1 Kgs 22:19 these heavenly bodies are pictured as members of the Lord’s royal court or assembly, but many other texts view them as the illegitimate objects of pagan and Israelite worship.
26 Or “served.”
27 See the note at .
28 Heb “they sold themselves to doing what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering him.”
29 Heb “very angry.”
30 Heb “turned them away from his face.”
31 Heb “they walked in the practices of Israel which they did.”
32 Or “afflicted.”
33 Heb “and they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king.”
34 The consonantal text (Kethib) assumes the verb is נָדָא (nada’), an alternate form of נָדָה (nadah), “push away.” The marginal reading (Qere) assumes the verb נָדָח (nadakh), “drive away.”
35 Heb “a great sin.”
36 Heb “turn away from.”
37 Heb “until.”
38 Heb “the Lord turned Israel away from his face.”
39 Heb “just as he said.”
40 The object is supplied in the translation.
41 In vv. 24–29 Samaria stands for the entire northern kingdom of Israel.
42 Heb “in the beginning of their living there.”
43 Heb “fear.”
44 Heb “and they said to the king of Assyria, saying.” The plural subject of the verb is indefinite.
45 Heb “Look they are killing them.”
46 The second plural subject may refer to the leaders of the Assyrian army. However, some prefer to read “whom I deported,” changing the verb to a first person singular form with a third masculine plural pronominal suffix. This reading has some support from Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic witnesses.
47 Heb “and let them go and let them live there, and let him teach them the requirements of the God of the land.” The two plural verbs seem inconsistent with the preceding and following contexts, where only one priest is sent back to Samaria. The singular has the support of Greek, , and Latin witnesses.
48 For location see ; ; ; ; .
49 Heb “fear.”
50 The verb “make” refers to the production of idols. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
51 Heb “Samaritans.” This refers to the Israelites who had been deported from the land.
52 No deity is known by the name Succoth Benoth in extant Mesopotamian literature. For speculation as to the identity of this deity, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
53 Nergal was a Mesopotamian god of the underworld.
54 This deity is unknown in extra-biblical literature. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
55 Nibhaz and Tartak were two Elamite deities. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
56sn Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of the Sepharvaim are unknown in extra-biblical literature. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
57 Heb “feared.”
58 Heb “and they appointed for themselves from their whole people priests for the high places and they were serving for them in the house[s] of the high places.”
59 Heb “fearing.”
60 Heb “fear.”
61 Heb “commanded.”
62 Or “covenant.”
63 That is, the descendants of Jacob/Israel (see v. 35b).
64 Heb “and outstretched arm.”
65 This refers to the foreigners whom the king of Assyria settled in the land (see v. 35a).
1 For location see ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; .
2 Heb “the name of his mother.”
3 The parallel passage in 2 Chr 29:1 has “Abijah.”
4 Heb “he did what was proper in the eyes of the Lord, according to all which David his father had done.”
5 The term is singular in the but plural in the and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items. Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).
6 Heb “until those days.”
7 In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nékhash hannékhoshet), “bronze serpent.”
8 Heb “and after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, and those who were before him.”
9 Heb “he hugged.”
10 Heb “and did not turn aside from after him.”
11 Heb “had commanded.”
12 Heb “in all which he went out [to do], he was successful.”
13 Heb “and did not serve him.”
14 See the note at .
15 Heb “went” (also in v. 13).
16 For location see ; ; ; ; .
17 The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.
18 Heb “listen to the voice of.”
19 Heb “his covenant.”
20 Heb “all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded, and they did not listen and they did not act.”
21 Or “I have done wrong.”
22 Heb “Return from upon me; what you place upon me, I will carry.”
23 The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 22,500 pounds of silver and 2,250 pounds of gold.
24 Heb “that was found.”
25 Heb “At that time Hezekiah stripped the doors of the Lord’s temple, and the posts which Hezekiah king of Judah had plated.”
26 For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (), .
27 For location see ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; .
28 Heb “and they went up and came.”
29 Heb “the field of the washer.”