Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 17:7-23
Though the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes was but briefly related, it is in these verses largely commented upon by our historian, and the reasons of it assigned, not taken from the second causes - the weakness of Israel, their impolitic management, and the strength and growing greatness of the Assyrian monarch (these things are overlooked) - but only from the First Cause. Observe, 1. It was the Lord that removed Israel out of his sight; whoever were the instruments, he was the author of this calamity. It was destruction from the Almighty; the Assyrian was but the rod of his anger, Isa 10:5. It was the Lord that rejected the seed of Israel, else their enemies could not have seiz…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Kings 17:7
SAMARIA TAKEN, AND ISRAEL FOR THEIR SINS CARRIED CAPTIVE. (2Ki. 17:7-41)
For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned--There is here given a very full and impressive vindication of the divine procedure in punishing His highly privileged, but rebellious and apostate, people. No wonder that amid so gross a perversion of the worship of the true God, and the national propensity to do reverence to idols, the divine patience was exhausted; and that the God whom they had forsaken permitted them to go into captivity, that they might learn the difference between His service and that of their despotic conquerors.
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 17:18
Removed them out of his sight - Banished them from the promised land, from the temple, and from every ordinance of righteousness, as wholly unworthy of any kind of good.
None left but the tribe of Judah only - Under this name all those of Benjamin and Levi, and the Israelites, who abandoned their idolatries and joined with Judah, are comprised. It was the ten tribes that were carried away by the Assyrians.
John Gill on 2 Kings 17:18
Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel,.... Nothing being more provoking to him than idolatry:
and removed them out of his sight; not out of the reach of his all seeing eye, but from all tokens of his favour, from the good land he had given them, and all the benefits and privileges of it:
there was none left but the tribe of Judah only; and part of Benjamin, which was annexed to it, and incorporated in it, and made one kingdom, and maintained the same worship; and there was the lot of Simeon, which was within the tribe of Judah; and the priests and the Levites, and various individuals of the several tribes, that came and settled among them for the sake of worship; but no perfect, di…
