For my weekly quiet time this week, I studied II Kings 17, which is about the fall of Northern Israel to the Assyrians. The fall occurred under King Hoshea of Northern Israel.
In the late eighth century B.C.E., Hoshea stopped paying tribute to Shalmaneser, the King of Assyria, and sought to form an alliance with Egypt, which naturally upset Shalmanesar. Consequently, Assyria decimated Northern Israel, exiled Northern Israelites to Mesopotamia and beyond, and replaced Northern Israelites in Palestine with foreigners. The foreigners brought gods of their own nations with them, but Assyria encouraged them to worship the God of Israel as well. Some have suggested that the Assyrians were trying to prevent these foreigners (and the remaining Israelites in Palestine) from developing nationalistic sentiments. What better way was there for the Assyrians to do this than to confuse their religions through syncretism, detaching them from a full commitment to their national customs?
II Kings 17 looks beyond geo-political explanations for the fall of Israel and the foreigners’ embrace of Yahwism, however. It attributes the fall of Northern Israel to her idolatry—her religious practices that the God of Israel had forbidden. And it holds that the foreigners embraced a form of Yahwism because God was punishing them with lions, prompting them to inquire how the God of the land wanted to be worshipped. Even when God’s people are falling and going into exile, God is bringing attention to his own power and glory—before idolatrous foreigners and the conquering Assyrians!
V 2 makes the puzzling statement that Hoshea the king of Israel was not as bad as the Israelite kings who came before him. And yet, it was during his reign that God chose to bring Northern Israel down. Josephus seems to ignore II Kings 17:2, asserting that Hoshea was a wicked man who despised the worship of God (Antiquities 9:238). The eleventh century Jewish commentator Rashi, drawing from rabbinic traditions, states that Hoshea was allowing Northern Israelites to worship in Jerusalem, a practice that had been forbidden since the days of King Jeroboam. Moreover, according to Rashi, Jeroboam’s golden calves were gone by the time of Hoshea, for one had been taken by the Syrians when they invaded and plundered Dan (I Kings 15:20), and the other had been removed by the Assyrians, in fulfillment of the prophecy in Hosea 10:6.
Under Hoshea, the Northern Israelites could go to Jerusalem to worship, and they didn’t have the golden calves to cause them to stumble. But did they do the right thing? By and large, no. If II Chronicles 30:5-11 is about the time before the fall of Northern Israel (depending on how one interprets v 6), then most Northern Israelites under Hoshea laughed at the invitation by King Hezekiah of Judah to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem (though a few Northern Israelites did go). According to Rashi, the Northern Israelites could no longer blame their king for their wickedness, for King Hoshea was not as bad as his predecessors. Hoshea gave them the chance to do the right thing, and they did not take it. Jeroboam may have influenced them to sin when he set Northern Israel on the path of apostasy, but they embraced the sin (II Kings 17:21-22). Under Hoshea, they only had themselves to blame.
To be honest, I wish that I could identify more with the Deuteronomist whose hand is so heavy in II Kings. Northern Israel fell because of her incorrect worship. Personally, as an American who likes religious pluralism, and as a person who seeks spirituality yet is uncomfortable with rigid conservative Christianity, I don’t feel all that cozy inside about Northern Israel falling because she worshipped other gods, or failed to worship the LORD in a certain location.
At the same time, I can understand that Israel had a covenant with God, and so she was breaking a solemn promise through her apostasy. (What’s interesting, however, is that II Kings 17:34ff. appears to hold the foreigners in Palestine to the same standard to which God held Israel, for why else would the passage care about the Samaritans’ worship practices? And yet, God shows more latitude to the foreigners, for he ceases his wrath against them once they are instructed by a Northern Israelite priest—a representative of the very cult that the Deuteronomist condemns. Plus, God doesn’t punish the foreigners for their syncretism.) Also, God was upholding a certain humanitarianism when he condemned the Israelites for passing their children through fire, which can be construed as human sacrifice.