1 and 2 Kings - Lesson 18

Dr. John Oswalt
1 & 2 Kings
th630-18
Hoshea and the End
Lesson Transcript

As I said at the end of the last lecture, we have one last episode in the story of the Northern Kingdom, and that is a man named Hoshea. His statement is an interesting one. This is Chapter 17, Verse 2. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him. I wonder what that means. He certainly did not get rid of the bull idols of Jeroboam, but perhaps it means that he did personally avoid some of the excesses of idolatry that some of the others had been involved in, but it's too little and too late.

Shalmaneser, this is the successor to Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria, came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser's vassal and had paid him tribute. Ah, okay. What we learn from Chronicles is that Hoshea tried to make a deal with the Egyptians to help him to revolt against Shalmaneser. This is that second stage. First stage, alliance and tribute. Second stage, revolt against that, but ultimately be forced to surrender.

So King Hoshea was a traitor, for he has sent envoys to sow King of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the King of Assyria as he had done year by year. So Mahanaim was the beginning, Pekah was the second, and Hoshea is the third.

Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison. The King of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria, and laid siege to it for three years. Three years. That's a long time for a siege. Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, fell in three months. But Samaria, as I've said earlier, was a very well-chosen spot. Omri chose the site for his capital city very, very carefully, and it was easily defensible, but ultimately it fell.

There's some disagreement among commentators. Some believe that the chronological order is correct here, that somehow or other Shalmaneser captured Hoshea, put him in jail, and held him while that three year siege was going on. Others, and I tend to be one of them, think, no, it's simply saying that in the end, Shalmaneser captured Hoshea after the three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the King of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah and goes on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes, the end. The end. This is 722, about 210 years of Israelite history, and it has now come to an end.

Interestingly, when the Assyrian literature was discovered, we find that Shalmaneser's successor, Sargon, claims to have captured Samaria and deported the leadership. And so it was said, oh yeah, well, this is another indication the Bible got it wrong. It says Shalmaneser are captured them and deported the people. And in fact, the Assyrian literature, of course, is entirely reliable.

Well, more careful study has shown that in fact, Shalmaneser captured Samaria and then died. Sargon replaced him and deported the people. So Sargon is the one who is bragging about having captured Samaria, when in fact he didn't. The biblical literature is in fact reliable, as opposed to the Assyrian literature.

Here then is the final step in the Assyrian process. The rebel city is captured and it is destroyed and the leadership is carried away.

Now, again, one of the things that is very important in interpreting the Bible is you have to interpret it in terms of its own understanding, its own use of language. So it has been demonstrated by archeologists that neither Israel nor Judah was totally abandoned after the destruction of Samaria and then the destruction of Jerusalem. So it will be said, "Oh, well, this stuff about them being taken into captivity, that's not true." Yes, it is. Yes, it is. When the Bible says all the people, it's not using all in the sense in which we would use it. It's simply using it to say everybody of significance, everybody of importance, everybody that mattered. So it's always so important to read the Bible in its own understanding of language and its own use of language as we go through.

A good example is found in the New Testament when Jesus says, "Unless you hate your father and your mother, you can't serve me." Really? But he accuses the Pharisees of neglecting their father and mother and using their own dedication to God as an excuse for that. But this is very typical of Semitic language. To try to make a point, you overstate it. In comparison to your commitment to your parents, your commitment to Christ makes that look like hate. But in fact, he's not counseling us to hate our father and mother at all.

So again, I simply say the Bible is entirely reliable and accurate when understood in its own terms, and not in terms that we force upon it.

The remainder of Chapter 17 then is given over to, first, theological reflection upon what has taken place here. That is found in Verses 7 through 23. Then in Verses 24 through 41, we have a report on Samaria's sad future. Verse 7, "All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against Yahweh, their God, who brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh, King of Egypt." Over and over again throughout the Pentateuch, it will be said, "You must be like me, because I delivered you from the power of Egypt."

Why is it that the king of the universe comes and says, "You have to replicate my character? Because I'm king, that's why. Because I say so. Because I have all power, and I can make you do this if I want to." No, no. Why should you be interested in sharing my character? Why should you be interested in replicating my nature? Because of what I've done for you. Because of the grace that I displayed to you in delivering you what I didn't have to. All the way through, and I think we just need to emphasize this again and again, what is the motive for Godly living? Grace. Grace.

I also want to say grace ought to cause us to want to live in godly ways. Across the years we've had this struggle between grace and works. There shouldn't be a struggle. How do we come into a relationship with God? Grace. No other way. There's nothing we can do to earn God's favor. But, if we have received God's favor, then what else should we want to do but be like him, live like him, treat others like him?Grace necessarily issues in godly living, call it works. But godly living is an impossibility without prior grace.

So here, they sinned. They sinned against the God who delivered them. They sinned against the God who gave himself for them. That's in many ways the real, real tragedy of sin. It's an offense against the grace of God.

They worshiped other Gods. First Commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. I love you and I want you for myself, and I don't want you giving yourself to any other lovers. And followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. So it's not merely that they're following the idolatrous rituals of their pagan neighbors, they're also doing things that the kings of Israel have themselves introduced. It's not merely the pagans, it's the, quote, believers. You have led them astray.

Notice this next verse, Verse 9. The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. We know what's wrong, don't we? And we do it. Maybe in the view of others, but in our own hearts, hiding it away. From watchtower to fortified cities, they built themselves high places in all their towns, not merely utilizing some of the high places that had existed before they built new ones. They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. At every high place, they burned incense as the nations whom the Lord had driven out before them had done. They did wicked things that aroused the Lord's anger. And here again, they worshiped idols. Though the Lord had said, "You shall not do this."

Not only did they do these things, they kept doing them after they had been warned, no, no, you don't want to do that. The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers, turn from your evil ways, observe my commands and decrees in accordance with the entire Torah that I commanded your ancestors to obey, and that I delivered to you through my servants, the prophets.

Again, as I said fairly early in this series, God loved the Northern Kingdom, and the evidence of his love is the number of prophets he gave to them, to try to call them back, to try to clear their eyes, to open their ears.

Verse 14, but they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the Lord their God. There it is there. There it is. Why do we worship the world? Because we don't trust God. God is not on my side. God does not want to give me what I need. God is not for me. It's the same argument the snake used in the garden. God doesn't want to give you what you need. God is playing his own game and he will use you to accomplish his purposes with no concern for you whatsoever. Well, the argument worked with our first mother and father, and it's worked ever since.

But again, as I've said before, trust is frightening. You mean I just let go of my support system that I have so carefully built up and dare to believe that this one who is not me whom I can't see will take care of me? No, no, no, no, no, no. They did not trust the Lord their God.

And so he continues to detail what they have done. They set up golden calves. They worship the stars. They worship Baal. They sacrificed their children. And they used divination and omens. We've talked about this again, the world is all interlocked. And so if you can figure out where the interlocking is, you can figure out what's going to happen. The Romans were especially enamored with birds. Okay, should the king go out to battle? No. We saw six black birds flying north. No. Why not? Well, because sometime in the past, when the king went out to battle and six black birds were flying north, the king died. Everything is interlocked. That's omens.

And God very strongly says throughout the Old Testament, "You must not consult omens." That's not the way the world is made. You are responsible for your choices. And this is a cause and effect world where our choices have reliable effects. They've done it all. All of it. All of it, an expression of distrust of God.

Verse 18, so the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. In the Old Testament, whenever you see presence, the English word presence, the Hebrew word is face. You remember the ironic benediction? "May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. May he smile upon you." Yes, yes.

Presence is kind of abstract. Hebrew by and large doesn't like abstractions. It's his face. It's to be face-to-face with him. And God removes them from his face. Oh, my. Oh, my. To live is to live face to face with God. To live is to experience his smile. A smile that is real in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties and hardships. But know his smile in the middle of all that, and you can endure anything.

Heaven is not a place. Heaven is a person. Heaven is to be face to face with God forever. To be in his presence, with all that that means. And so it's not, the Lord was very angry with them and punished them. The Lord was very angry with them and threw them out of the land. Well, those are both true. But the real punishment is, taken away from his face.

Only the tribe of Judah was left. Now, this is pretty shocking. And even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced. Therefore, the Lord rejected all the people of Israel. Oh my goodness. What's going to happen in the rest of the book, Chapters 18 to 25, in some ways is an epilogue. The die is cast. Judah is not going to differ from these practices that Israel had been practicing.

Now, again, this is part of the biblical understanding of history. Wait a minute. From this point on, there's no hope for Judah? Judah will go into captivity? Yes, if they choose to keep going on the path they're presently walking on. But if for any reason as a nation they would go off that path and take God's path, it doesn't have to happen. Is it going to happen? Yep. Does it have to happen? Nope.

So it is in our lives. We choose a path. That path has consequences. And as I've said before, choose that path long enough, and you get to the place where you are unable to choose another. Not because it's fated, but simply because your choices have become calcified. But even in the most calcified choices, it's possible for a person to hear the voice of God and to make another choice.

So I say it again. Yeah. Judah is on the same path Israel has taken and all the people of Israel are going into captivity. Did it have to happen? No. But it would happen if they kept on.

He wraps it up in Verses 21 through 24 by again naming Jeroboam. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the Lord and caused them to commit a great sin. Now, again, we're coming to the end of this series, and so I'm repeating myself all over the place. But what's such a big deal about making idols of Yahweh? As soon as you drag Yahweh into the cosmos, you then make him capable of being manipulated through the cosmos, and the whole tragedy follows.

Idol making, making God an idol, has world shaking implications. God is not this world. And making an idol of him is to drag him into this world and immediately to undercut surrender and trust.

Well, we must move on. This is Verse 24. "The King of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, Sepharvaim, and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace them." This was the practice that Assyria had perfected. How do you create an imperial culture? How do you manage this empire made up of several hundred different cultures, many different languages, many different religious practices. I think the religion, as I've argued, is essentially the same everywhere, but many different practices. How do you do that? Well, you mix them up. You take people from here, put them there. You take people from there, put them here.

This also is a way of stopping freedom fighters. I'm not going to fight the empire if I'm struggling to somehow get acculturated to this new place where I have to live and somehow provide a means of survival. I don't have time to think about revolt. So, that's what happened.

And we see then in the remainder of Chapter 24, how these people, here's syncretism at work again. "Oh, who's the God of this territory?" "Well, he's a God named Yahweh." "Oh, all right, okay, we'll worship Yahweh, along with our God that we brought with us from Persia or Iran or Armenia or wherever, and all gods are the same anyway. Change the names, eh, they're all the same." And so you have the listing of how that syncretism was going on.

This is Verse 34. "To this day, they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the Lord, nor adhere to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands, that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob who he named." So these people who have come in. Oh, they may give lip service to Yahweh, but they're not interested in the covenant or anything having to do with the covenant.

But, lions showed up. Again, I think this is the wild animals multiplied in the chaos of when people are taken out of the land and before other people come in, the lions show up and they are killing the people off. So what are we going to do? Verse 27, "The King of Assyria gave this order, "Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the God of the land requires."

Well, what do you think priests from Samaria were teaching? Were they teaching the pure covenant obedience? Of course not. They're teaching this paganized Yahwehism that was characteristic of Israel at this point. So you see this situation of just complete religious chaos. That's Samaria's future.

So we turn then to the final section of the book, and that is Judah alone. This is the third division. In the third division of the book. From Chapter 18 through 25, we have only 10 pages given to 135 years. We gave 25 pages to 90 years in the story of Elijah and Elisha. Now only 10 pages to 135 years. Why? I think the answer is there in Chapter 17 that we saw a moment ago. Judah is on the same path that Israel was earlier. Ahaz has set their feet on the path, and in the end, they're not going to diverge from it.

Really, the only thing that the narrators want to call our attention to is two bright spots, the reign of Hezekiah and the reign of Josiah. Those are given a great deal of attention. And I think the reason for that is pretty clear. How is it that the Judeans survived exile when most of the northern tribes did not? And the answer is the lives, the ministries, the rule of these two men, Hezekiah and Josiah.

Hezekiah is important because he enables the faith to survive while the Northern Kingdom is going under. If we look at our chart again, the Northern Kingdom has come to an end, and all of that upheaval is happening in the north as new peoples are brought in. The border of Assyria now is six miles north of Judah. Will Judah go under at this same time? And the answer is no. But Hezekiah is succeeded by Manasseh. If Ahaz was bad, Manasseh is worse. Farther down the road, will there be anybody left as believers when the exile that looks to be now inescapable happens? Yes, there will. Josiah.

So 10 pages for 135 years, and of those pages, most are given to these two bright spots who enable Judean believers to survive and carry into the exile those germs of faith that will come back home and make it possible, against all the odds, for Israelite faith to succeed in the years after the exile.

Let's look then at Hezekiah. That's Chapters 18, 19, and 20. Three chapters given to Hezekiah. Notice what is said, Verse 3 of Chapter 18. "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done." Ah, we're back to the source now. Thank God, not as his father Ahaz had done, but not even as his grandfather Jotham has done. No, we're back to the original measuring stick now.

He removed the high places. Ah, first one since Solomon. He smashed the sacred stones. He cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made. For up to that time, the Israelites had been burning incense to it. Good grief. Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.

Same thing is going to be said of Josiah later, but I think what we can say is there was none like Hezekiah who trusted the Lord, and there's none like Josiah who repented of what had been done. So both of these kings are outstanding in this remarkable way.

He held fast to the Lord and did not stop walking with him. He kept the commands the Lord had given Moses my mind. My, my. What a great refreshing word after what we've heard of Ahaz, after what we've heard of the reasons for the fall of the Northern Kingdom. And again, as I say, I'm confident that it's because of Hezekiah and his influence that Judah was able to survive and not go under at the same time that the Northern Kingdom did.

Now, what we have in the succeeding account of Hezekiah is almost identical to what we find in Isaiah. I think again, the narrator has done what he did with the Elijah Elisha ministry. Those materials must have existed somewhere else by themselves, and the narrator has imported them in at this critical juncture in the history of Israel. Are they going to abandon Yahweh and make Baal their God? He's brought in that material and plugged it in here. I think he's done the very same thing with the material from Isaiah. Oh, here's material that I can use to make my point.

Now, I need to say, scholarship goes the other way. Scholarship says, "Oh, this is the original, and Isaiah used it." They're wrong. Why do I say that? Well, I say it for two reasons. One is a relatively minor one, but it's still I think telling. In Isaiah, the phrase, "The holy one of Israel" occurs 26 times. It is only found five other times in the rest of the Old Testament, two in Psalms, two in Jeremiah. And one in 2 Kings. Only one, and it's here in a direct equivalent to what is said at that point in Isaiah. What's it doing here? I think there's no explanation except that it is functioning here as it functioned in Isaiah and has been brought in.

But here's the larger reason why I would argue pretty forcefully, and perhaps one day I'll write something on this, that Isaiah reflects the original and it's been plugged in from Isaiah. Why? Because in Isaiah, this material as it is written, as it appears, fulfills a very clear function. Ahaz refused to trust God, and that's dealt with in Isaiah Chapter 7 to 12. He trusted the nations, Assyria, more than he would trust God.

So then in Chapters 13 through 35 of Isaiah, you have what I've called lessons in trust. Why shouldn't you trust the nations? Why is that a dumb thing to do? Then Hezekiah is given the opportunity to take the exam again.

Ahaz was threatened by Pekah and reason, and chose to try to buy a serious help. Hezekiah is faced by Assyria with no help from anywhere. Egypt had promised help, and as it always did, failed. He's alone facing Assyria. Is he going to trust God? And the answer is yes.

So those Chapters in Isaiah, shaped like they are, with the whole question of will you trust God or will you trust Assyria, functions very, very clearly in that structure. There's one other element involved. So if Hezekiah trusts Yahweh, is he the promised Messiah? No. In the book of Isaiah, we're going to have to look beyond Chapter 39 into 40 to 66 to find out who the Messiah really is. In the Isaiah structure, the structure of this passage works perfectly. Here, it's a little odd. We'll talk about it.

Let me say one more word there. You don't have this kind of discussion with Josiah. Josiah is pictured as the ultimate, ultimate Davidic scion, the Davidic sun, the Davidic seed. But you don't have the kind of narration in the Josiah material that you have here. And this narration, as I say, is virtually duplicated in Isaiah. Who duplicated who? I think Kings duplicates the Isaiah material. It's picked it up, plunked it in here to be used. All right.

So in 705, Sargon. Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon. Sargon, who is in many ways the most aggressive of them all, is killed on the battlefield. The only Assyrian emperor we know of who was killed on the battlefield. And the empire erupted. Who's going to replace him? Ultimately, his replacement is a man named Sennacherib.

So Sennacherib, for a matter of three or four years, has his hands full in putting down these revolts at various places in the empire. Well, one of the revolts was led by a fellow over in Judea named Hezekiah. As he tried to put together a coalition, coalitions where were very, very attractive, even if they didn't work, Hezekiah captured the king of Philistia, put him in jail. He also brought in it appears Amman and Moab and Edam.

So 701, Sennacherib shows up. And nothing can stop him. He claims, probably correctly, that he captured 46 fortifications in Judah. Only two are left, Lachish, the great, great fortified city down to the southwest of Jerusalem, guarding the road to Egypt down the coast, it remains, and Jerusalem. And Lachish is about to fall. So what does Hezekiah do? He puts together a lot of money and asks Sennacherib to withdraw.

Sennacherib takes the money and stays. And not only that, but he sends his third in command, the Rabshakeh, up to Jerusalem to demand surrender. He's got a big army with him. And in the context of Isaiah, his speech is all about trust. Who you trusting? You trusting Egypt? Egypt is a broken reed that if you lean on it will break the rest of the way and stab you in the armpit. Who are you trusting? Hezekiah? Who do you think Hezekiah is in comparison to the great king? Hezekiah is the one that destroyed all the local churches around here. Do you think Yahweh's happy with him? No. He's done his homework. He may not quite understand the point here, but nevertheless. And as for Yahweh, Yahweh sent me to come here.

And the envoys say, "Hey, why don't you continue your speech in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire? You don't need to talk in Hebrew." He's learned Hebrew for this thing. Now, maybe he's memorized the speech, I don't know, but he's talking in Hebrew. And he says, "No, no. These people sitting on the wall around here, they need to hear me, because they're going to be drinking their own urine and eating their own dung if you don't surrender. Now, I'll tell you what, surrender to my master, and he'll leave you here for a little while, and then he'll come and he'll take you to a place so much better than this dumpy ruined old country." Trust.

Now as I say, in Isaiah, that's what this whole thing has been about. It has shown up here in Kings, but it's not the major issue. The major issue is covenant keeping. Well, what are you going to do? You're going to trust Yahweh in the middle of this. Hezekiah knows if he surrenders, he will be killed. That's what happens to kings who revolt against Assyria. But, maybe, maybe Yahweh could deliver them.

The Egyptians make a sally out, and the Rabshakeh goes back down onto the coast to meet with Sennacherib and help dispense with the Egyptians. Wow, he's withdrawn. It's going to be okay. Sennacherib sends a letter, "Don't get your hopes up. What have any of the gods done compared to me? I've killed the gods of every city I've been in." Notice, it's not a conflict between Yahweh and Ashur, the God of Assyria, it's a conflict between Sennacherib and Yahweh.

And Hezekiah takes the letter into the temple, spreads it out before God and says, "God, have you read this letter?" God says, "Yeah, I've read it. I know. I know his boasting against me. And I'm going to put a hook in his mouth, he's going to hear a report, and he's going to go back home and he's going to die in the temple of his God."

And so you have one of the greatest prayers in the Bible. It's a brief one. "Yahweh, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear Lord and hear, open your eyes. Idols have ears, but can't hear, idols have eyes, but can't see. Open your ears. Open your eyes. See. Listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to ridicule the living God. It's true, Lord. The Assyrian kings have laid waste the nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not Gods but only wood in stone fashioned by human hands. Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand." I'm going to misquote the scripture. "Because we are so obedient, because we are so deserving, because you need us, now deliver us from His hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord our God." How's God going to say no to that prayer? If he wanted to, which he did not, obviously.

And that night, 185,000 Syrian soldiers died, and Sennacherib decided he had pressing business back at home. He lived another 19 years. He never campaigned in the West again. I wouldn't either. And his son assassinated him in his temple, in the temple of his God.

Isn't that a wonderful, wonderful story? Yes, God can be trusted. Now again, I say this fits perfectly in Isaiah. It's a little odd. It's wonderful here, but it doesn't quite follow through on the stories.

Then, what's really odd is Chapter 20, which tells about Hezekiah getting sick and being on the point of death, and in response to his prayers, recovering miraculously and being promised by God through Isaiah another 15 years. Envoys from Babylon come because they've heard about this miraculous recovery, and Hezekiah shows off his wealth and his armaments. How tragic.

This is a moment, again in the context of Isaiah, Isaiah says, "You are going to declare my glory to the nations." Here was the moment when Hezekiah could have told these Babylonians about the Yahweh who delivers helpless people from Assyria. The God who delivers a dying man from death. He shows off his wealth. And Isaiah shows up and says, "Um, so who were these people?" "Oh, well, they were from far away." "What'd you show them?" "Everything." "Well, that's good, because the Babylonians are going to own it all one day, and your sons will be eunuchs in their court.2 And Hezekiah says, "Oh, good. It's not going to happen to me."

Now, in Kings, the whole function of this 20th chapter is not very clear. Why are you telling this? In Isaiah, the function is very clear. This is not the Messiah. This is not the one who was promised back there in Chapter 7, 8, 9, and 11. Now we're going to have to look for somebody else. In Kings, eh, is it instructive? Is it useful? Yeah. But I don't think it serves the purposes of Kings as clearly and directly as it does Isaiah. But all that being said, what a wonderful, wonderful moment.

Chapter 19 is especially beautiful in God's message. I won't take the time to read it all. You need to. "The virgin daughter Zion despises you, Sennacherib. Mocks you. Daughter Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee. Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed.? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the holy one of Israel. By your messengers, you have ridiculed the Lord. You have said, with my many chariots, I have ascended the heights of the mountains," and so forth.

It's a long, beautiful prayer where God mocks Sennacherib. Yes, Assyria is conquering the world. There's no one who can stand against them. No Gods who can stand against them. You want to bet? The God of this little nation, Judah, smaller than most counties in the United States, the God of that nation is God of the world, and as Assyria had better figure that out and bow before him before it's too late.

We'll continue on in the next lecture talking about the tragedy that's about to follow.