And you must always be careful to observe the statutes, ordinances, laws, and commandments He wrote for you. Do not worship other gods. You must always be carefulThis phrase emphasizes the necessity of vigilance and diligence in spiritual practice. The Hebrew root for "be careful" is "שָׁמַר" (shamar), which means to guard, keep, or observe. It suggests an active, intentional effort to maintain faithfulness. In a historical context, this reflects the covenant relationship between God and Israel, where obedience was crucial for maintaining divine favor and protection. to observe
The Hebrew word "עָשָׂה" (asah) is often translated as "to do" or "to make," but in this context, it implies a conscientious adherence to God's commands. Observance is not passive but involves active participation and commitment. This aligns with the broader biblical theme of living out one's faith through actions, not just beliefs. the statutes, ordinances, laws, and commandments
These terms collectively refer to the comprehensive body of divine instructions given to Israel. "Statutes" (חֻקִּים, chukkim) are decrees that may not have an obvious rationale but are to be followed out of obedience. "Ordinances" (מִשְׁפָּטִים, mishpatim) are judgments or decisions that often relate to justice and social order. "Laws" (תּוֹרוֹת, torot) refer to teachings or instructions, often encompassing the broader Torah. "Commandments" (מִצְוֹת, mitzvot) are specific directives from God. Together, they represent the full spectrum of divine guidance intended to shape a holy and just society. He wrote for you
This phrase underscores the personal and direct nature of God's communication with His people. The act of writing signifies permanence and authority. Historically, this reflects the belief that the laws were divinely inscribed, as seen in the tablets given to Moses. It highlights the personal relationship between God and Israel, where His laws are tailored for their guidance and well-being. Do not worship other gods
This command is central to the monotheistic faith of Israel. The Hebrew word for "worship" is "עָבַד" (avad), which means to serve or work for. The prohibition against serving other gods is a recurring theme in the Old Testament, emphasizing exclusive devotion to Yahweh. Historically, this was crucial in a polytheistic context where Israel was surrounded by nations with multiple deities. The command serves as a reminder of the first commandment and the call to loyalty and faithfulness to the one true God. Persons / Places / Events 1. IsraelThe Northern Kingdom, which is the primary audience of this warning. They were often led astray by idolatry and disobedience to God's covenant. 2. God (Yahweh)The covenant-making and covenant-keeping God who commands Israel to remain faithful to Him alone. 3. CovenantThe solemn agreement between God and Israel, which includes the Ten Commandments and other laws given through Moses. 4. Other godsRefers to the idols and deities of surrounding nations that Israel was tempted to worship, contrary to God's command. 5. ProphetsGod's messengers who repeatedly warned Israel about the consequences of idolatry and breaking the covenant. Teaching Points Faithfulness to God's CovenantGod calls His people to remember and uphold the covenant. This requires a commitment to His commandments and a rejection of idolatry. The Danger of ForgetfulnessForgetting God's covenant leads to spiritual decline. Regular engagement with Scripture and prayer helps keep God's commands at the forefront of our lives. Exclusive Worship of GodWorship is due to God alone. Modern "idols" can include anything that takes priority over our relationship with God, such as materialism, career, or personal ambitions. The Role of Remembrance in Spiritual LifeRegularly recalling God's faithfulness and past deliverances strengthens our faith and commitment to Him. Consequences of DisobedienceThe history of Israel serves as a warning of the consequences of turning away from God. Obedience brings blessing, while disobedience leads to judgment. Bible Study Questions 1. What are some modern-day "idols" that can distract us from our commitment to God, and how can we guard against them? 2. How does the concept of covenant in the Old Testament relate to the New Covenant established through Jesus Christ? 3. In what ways can we actively "remember" God's covenant in our daily lives? 4. How does the warning in 2 Kings 17:37 challenge us to evaluate our priorities and allegiances? 5. What lessons can we learn from Israel's history about the importance of obedience and the consequences of idolatry? Connections to Other Scriptures Exodus 20:3-4The first and second commandments, which prohibit the worship of other gods and the making of idols, directly relate to the warning in 2 Kings 17:37. Deuteronomy 6:12-15This passage warns Israel not to forget the Lord who brought them out of Egypt, similar to the reminder in 2 Kings 17:37. Jeremiah 11:10This verse speaks of Israel's breach of the covenant, echoing the themes of disobedience and idolatry found in 2 Kings 17. 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 Always, Careful, Command, Commandment, Commands, Decrees, Evermore, Fear, Forever, Forevermore, Gods, Judgments, Law, Laws, Observe, Orders, Ordinances, Rules, Statutes, Worship, Writing, WroteDictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 17:37 7404 ordinances 2 Kings 17:24-41 7560 Samaritans, the 2 Kings 17:34-41 8831 syncretism 2 Kings 17:35-38 8763 forgetting
8799 polytheism 2 Kings 17:35-39 7525 exclusiveness
8769 idolatry, in OT 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 17:37 NIV2 Kings 17:37 NLT2 Kings 17:37 ESV2 Kings 17:37 NASB2 Kings 17:37 KJV
2 Kings 17:37 Commentaries
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