Barnes' Notes on 2 Kings 17:8

A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.

Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.

Idolatry was worse in the Israelites than in other nations, since it argued not merely folly and a gross carnal spirit, but also black ingratitude Exodus 20:2-3. The writer subdivides the idolatries of the Israelites into two classes, pagan and native - those which they adopted from the nations whom they drove out, and those which their own kings imposed on them. Under the former head would come the great mass of the idolatrous usages described in 2 Kings 17:9-11, 2 Kings 17:17; “the high places” 2Ki 17:9, 2 Kings 17:11; the “images” and “groves” 2 Kings 17:10; the causing of their children to “pass through the fire” 2 Kings 17:17; and the “worship of the host of heaven” 2 Kings 17:16 : under the latter would fall the principal points in 2 Kings 17:12, 2Ki 17:16, 2 Kings 17:21. Which they had made - “Which” refers to “statutes.” The lsraelites had “walked in the statutes of the pagan, and in those of the kings of Israel, which (statutes) they (the kings) had made.” return to 'Top of Page'

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