Now when the settlers first lived there, they did not worship the LORD, so He sent lions among them, which killed some of them. Now when they first lived thereThis phrase sets the stage for the unfolding events in the land of Samaria. Historically, this refers to the time after the Assyrian conquest when the king of Assyria resettled people from various nations into the cities of Samaria ( 2 Kings 17:24). The Assyrians had a policy of relocating conquered peoples to prevent rebellion, which led to a mix of cultures and religions. The Hebrew word for "lived" (יָשַׁב, yashab) implies dwelling or settling, indicating a new beginning for these people in a foreign land. they did not fear the LORD
The phrase highlights a spiritual deficiency among the new inhabitants. The Hebrew word for "fear" (יָרֵא, yare) encompasses reverence, awe, and worship. In the biblical context, fearing the LORD is synonymous with acknowledging His sovereignty and adhering to His commandments. The absence of this fear indicates a lack of recognition of the God of Israel, which is a recurring theme in the Old Testament, where the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). so He sent lions among them
This action by God serves as a divine response to the people's spiritual ignorance. The sending of lions is both literal and symbolic. In the ancient Near East, lions were common and feared predators, and their presence would have been a tangible sign of divine displeasure. Theologically, this reflects God's sovereignty over creation and His ability to use nature to fulfill His purposes. The lions serve as instruments of judgment, reminiscent of other biblical instances where God uses natural elements to execute His will (e.g., the plagues in Egypt). which killed some of them
The consequence of the lions' presence was death, underscoring the seriousness of the people's failure to fear the LORD. This phrase serves as a stark reminder of the wages of sin and disobedience. In the broader biblical narrative, death is often the result of turning away from God, as seen in the fall of man in Genesis. Theologically, this highlights the justice of God, who cannot overlook sin but must address it, often through corrective measures designed to bring people back to Himself. Persons / Places / Events 1. The IsraelitesThe original inhabitants of the land who were exiled due to their disobedience to God. 2. The SamaritansA mixed population settled in the land of Israel by the Assyrian king after the Israelites were exiled. 3. The LORD (Yahweh)The God of Israel, who is central to the account and whose fear and worship are required. 4. LionsSent by God as a form of judgment against the new inhabitants for not fearing Him. 5. Assyrian EmpireThe ruling power that conquered Israel and resettled the land with people from other nations. Teaching Points The Importance of Fearing the LORDThe fear of the LORD is foundational to a right relationship with Him. The new inhabitants' lack of fear led to divine judgment. God's Sovereignty in JudgmentGod is sovereign and uses various means, including nature, to execute His judgment. This reminds us of His control over all creation. Consequences of DisobedienceDisobedience to God and neglecting His commands have serious consequences, as seen in the sending of lions. The Call to True WorshipThe account challenges us to examine our worship and ensure it aligns with God's requirements, not just cultural or inherited practices. God's Desire for All to Know HimEven in judgment, there is an implicit call for the new inhabitants to recognize and fear the LORD, pointing to God's desire for all nations to know Him. Bible Study Questions 1. What does the sending of lions teach us about God's response to those who do not fear Him? 2. How can we cultivate a healthy fear of the LORD in our daily lives, and what scriptures support this practice? 3. In what ways does God's use of nature as a tool of judgment in 2 Kings 17:25 reflect His sovereignty? 4. How can we ensure that our worship is genuine and not merely a cultural or inherited practice? 5. Reflect on a time when you experienced consequences for disobedience. How did it lead you to a deeper understanding of God's character? Connections to Other Scriptures Leviticus 26:22This verse speaks of God sending wild animals as a form of judgment, similar to the lions in 2 Kings 17:25. 1 Kings 13:24Another instance where a lion is used as an instrument of God's judgment. Proverbs 9:10Highlights the importance of fearing the LORD as the beginning of wisdom, contrasting with the new inhabitants' lack of fear. Hebrews 10:31Emphasizes the seriousness of falling into the hands of the living God, reflecting the consequences faced by those who do not fear Him. People Adrammelech, Ahaz, Anammelech, Avites, Avvites, David, Elah, Hoshea, Israelites, Jacob, Jeroboam, Nebat, Pharaoh, Sepharvites, ShalmaneserPlaces Assyria, Avva, Babylon, Bethel, Cuth, Cuthah, Egypt, Gozan, Habor River, Halah, Hamath, Samaria, SepharvaimTopics Beginning, Causing, Commencement, Death, Destroying, Didn't, Dwelling, Fear, Feared, Killed, Lions, Pass, Slew, WorshipDictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 17:18-28 7324 calf worship 2 Kings 17:23-27 5305 empires 2 Kings 17:24-33 4215 Babylon 2 Kings 17:24-41 7560 Samaritans, the Library Divided Worship
'These nations feared the Lord, and served their own gods.'--2 KINGS xvii. 33. The kingdom of Israel had come to its fated end. Its king and people had been carried away captives in accordance with the cruel policy of the great Eastern despotisms, which had so much to do with weakening them by their very conquests. The land had lain desolate and uncultivated for many years, savage beasts had increased in the untilled solitudes, even as weeds and nettles grew in the gardens and vineyards of Samaria. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureA Kingdom's Epitaph
'In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. 7. For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, 8. And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture September the Eleventh a Fatal Divorce
"They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." --2 KINGS xvii. 24-34. And that is an old-world record, but it is quite a modern experience. The kinsmen of these ancient people are found in our own time. Men still fear one God and serve another. But something is vitally wrong when men can divorce their fear from their obedience. And the beginning of the wrong is in the fear itself. "Fear," as used in this passage, is a counterfeit coin, which does not ring true to the truth. It means only the …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year Upon Our Lord's SermonOn the Mount
Discourse 9 "No man can serve two masters; For either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: For they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions Mongrel Religion
I. I shall first call your attention to THE NATURE OF THIS Mongrel Religion. It had its good and bad points, for it wore a double face. These people were not infidels. Far from it: "they feared the Lord." They did not deny the existence, or the power, or the rights of the great God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah. They had not the pride of Pharaoh who said, "Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice?" They were not like those whom David calls "fools," who said in their hearts, "There is no God." …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881 Building in Troublous Times
'Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; 2. Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. 3. But Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Profession and Practice.
18th Sunday after Trinity. S. Matt. xxii. 42. "What think ye of Christ?" INTRODUCTION.--Many men are Christians neither in understanding nor in heart. Some are Christians in heart, and not in understanding. Some in understanding, and not in heart, and some are Christians in both. If I were to go into a Temple of the Hindoos, or into a Synagogue of the Jews, and were to ask, "What think ye of Christ?" the people there would shake their heads and deny that He is God, and reject His teaching. The …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent The Original Text and Its History.
1. The original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, with the exception of certain portions of Ezra and Daniel and a single verse of Jeremiah, (Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan. 2:4, from the middle of the verse to end of chap. 7; Jer. 10:11,) which are written in the cognate Chaldee language. The Hebrew belongs to a stock of related languages commonly called Shemitic, because spoken mainly by the descendants of Shem. Its main divisions are: (1,) the Arabic, having its original seat in the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Of the Power of Making Laws. The Cruelty of the Pope and his Adherents, in this Respect, in Tyrannically Oppressing and Destroying Souls.
1. The power of the Church in enacting laws. This made a source of human traditions. Impiety of these traditions. 2. Many of the Papistical traditions not only difficult, but impossible to be observed. 3. That the question may be more conveniently explained, nature of conscience must be defined. 4. Definition of conscience explained. Examples in illustration of the definition. 5. Paul's doctrine of submission to magistrates for conscience sake, gives no countenance to the Popish doctrine of the obligation …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion A More Particular view of the Several Branches of the Christian Temper, by which the Reader May be Farther Assisted in Judging what He Is, And
1, 2. The importance of the case engages to a more particular survey what manner of spirit we are of.--3. Accordingly the Christian temper is described, by some general views of it, as a new and divine temper.--4. As resembling that of Christ.--5. And as engaging us to be spiritually minded, and to walk by faith.--6. A plan of the remainder.--7. In which the Christian temper is more particularly considered with regard to the blessed God: as including fear, affection, and obedience.--8, 9. Faith and …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul Solomon's Temple Spiritualized
or, Gospel Light Fetched out of the Temple at Jerusalem, to Let us More Easily into the Glory of New Testament Truths. 'Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Isreal;--shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out hereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof.'--Ezekiel 43:10, 11 London: Printed for, and sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgate, …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links 2 Kings 17:25 NIV2 Kings 17:25 NLT2 Kings 17:25 ESV2 Kings 17:25 NASB2 Kings 17:25 KJV
2 Kings 17:25 Commentaries
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