2Ki 17:24-41 | KingComments | STEP | In , the thread of history is taken up again. We see how the cities of Samaria were doing after having been carried away into exile. These cities have new inhabitants, people from other nations. Their character is the same as that of God’s people who lived there first, for they feared not the LORD either ( ). For this reason, the LORD sent lions among them. A natural reason may be that the number of inhabitants was insufficient to populate the land, giving the wild beasts a chance to multiply ( ). In any case, the hand of God was in it. He used lions to make these people remember that He was there and that they were in His land. The people who had come to live there were people who had nothing to do with God, they did not relate to Him. However, God did interfere with them. Because these people lived in His land, He sent a judgment. God is not only the God of the land of Israel, but also of the whole world. The inhabitants of the Samaritan cities drew the right conclusion, but the solution to their problem was not correct. While God’s action was aimed at people asking for Him, they approached the king of Assyria instead. It was clear to him that the lions were sent because of the lack of knowledge of the God of the land. To change this, the king of Assyria commanded a priest to go there and “teach them the custom of the god of the land”. The priest who was sent would undoubtedly be one of the priests of the golden calves, a priest of a mixed religion. This man introduced even more mixed worship among the new inhabitants of the cities of Samaria. What he taught the people of the land about the service of God was nothing but the observance of outward forms as he had done when he himself still lived there. This terrible mixture is also seen in professing Christianity. Priests of the roman-catholic church have established a mixed religion all over the world. It is a mixture of truth and the world. People are driven by the sword into the water to be baptized. That is what made Europe Christian. How much the name ‘Christian’ has become a hollow concept today, goes without saying for those who love and know God’s Word.

‏ 2 Kings 17:24-41

The New Inhabitants of Samaria

In 2Kgs 17:24, the thread of history is taken up again. We see how the cities of Samaria were doing after having been carried away into exile. These cities have new inhabitants, people from other nations. Their character is the same as that of God’s people who lived there first, for they feared not the LORD either (2Kgs 17:25). For this reason, the LORD sent lions among them.

A natural reason may be that the number of inhabitants was insufficient to populate the land, giving the wild beasts a chance to multiply (Exo 23:29). In any case, the hand of God was in it. He used lions to make these people remember that He was there and that they were in His land. The people who had come to live there were people who had nothing to do with God, they did not relate to Him. However, God did interfere with them. Because these people lived in His land, He sent a judgment. God is not only the God of the land of Israel, but also of the whole world.

The inhabitants of the Samaritan cities drew the right conclusion, but the solution to their problem was not correct. While God’s action was aimed at people asking for Him, they approached the king of Assyria instead. It was clear to him that the lions were sent because of the lack of knowledge of the God of the land. To change this, the king of Assyria commanded a priest to go there and “teach them the custom of the god of the land”.

The priest who was sent would undoubtedly be one of the priests of the golden calves, a priest of a mixed religion. This man introduced even more mixed worship among the new inhabitants of the cities of Samaria. What he taught the people of the land about the service of God was nothing but the observance of outward forms as he had done when he himself still lived there.

This terrible mixture is also seen in professing Christianity. Priests of the roman-catholic church have established a mixed religion all over the world. It is a mixture of truth and the world. People are driven by the sword into the water to be baptized. That is what made Europe Christian. How much the name ‘Christian’ has become a hollow concept today, goes without saying for those who love and know God’s Word.

The Religion of the Samaritans

In addition to the ritual worship of the God of Israel, each nation also remained faithful to their homemade gods. Outwardly they did what was appropriate for a faithful Israelite, assisted by an ‘original’ priest. Serving their own gods seemed to be perfectly compatible with the service to God as taught to them by the priest. This is what the roman-catholic church did, making pagan gods Christian, so that everyone could become their worshiper, still holding on to their own gods, albeit sometimes with other names.

Disobeying the Word

2Kgs 17:34 seems to be another contradiction to the previous verses, where it says that they feared the LORD, and now it says that they feared not the LORD. However, it is not a contradiction. The first fear was only outwardly, while in 2Kgs 17:34 it is about fearing with the heart.

A true fear of the LORD, a fear with the heart, was not present among the people. The touchstone for true fear is whether there is obedience to what God has said in His Word. This obedience was completely absent from the inhabitants of the cities of Samaria. This is clearly stated in 2Kgs 17:34-40. In these verses, the importance of the Word is discussed in detail – “the statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment” (2Kgs 17:37) – with the conclusion in 2Kgs 17:41.

The conclusion brings us into a next phase of the development of Samaria and the religion that was adhered to there. We find the same phase in the Gospels. There we find nothing about the Samaritans carrying out idol worship. The Samaritans believed in the five books of Moses and served God on Mount Gerizim. However, it was a religion that had its roots in what we find here.

In what the Lord Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, we hear how He judged the service: “You worship what you do not know” (Jn 4:22a). Samaritans worshipped what they did not know. The Samaritans had the Scriptures in their hands, in which it is written that the LORD dwells in Jerusalem and that He wants to be worshipped there. The woman knew that and yet she said that “our fathers worshipped in this mountain” that is Mount Gerizim. Contrary to the clear statements of God’s Word, the Samaritans had their own place of worship with a form they had devised themselves.

In church history we have such a development. What we see in the Samaritans, we see repeated in Protestantism, where the Word has been recaptured from roman-catholicism and idolatry has been dealt with. But that is not enough to reach the final station. There is something more to come. It is about taking the true place of worship. This can only be made known by the Prophet, the Lord Jesus. He Himself is that true place.

What the Samaritans and professing Christianity need is the Lord Jesus, the Son of God Who can speak of the Father. Whoever comes into contact with Him is also made aware of the true place of worship. That place is not geographically defined, like Jerusalem, but is spiritual in nature. It is about worship “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23-24), that is: worship must be done in a spiritual and true way. This means that a completely different position has to be taken than the one used in Samaria at the time of the exile.

The contradictions between Jews and Samaritans were great. The Jews despised the Samaritans, but the Lord Jesus did not. For us, that spells a warning. If by grace we may worship the Father in spirit and truth in the place where the Lord Jesus now dwells, that is where the church meets (Mt 18:20). We may not despise others who go to a place that is not in accordance with the Word. It is pride to know the true place of worship and to look down with contempt on those who do not know this place. Wherever this attitude is found, the Lord disappears from the midst. He cannot be in a place where there is pride. That is where the spirit of Laodicea reigns. There He stands outside, at the door (Rev 3:14-20).

What we read about the Samaritans here, in 2 Kings 17, is not the last thing we hear from them. “To this day” means to the day of the historian. It has already been pointed out previously that in John 4 the Lord Jesus spoke to a woman from Samaria about the highest service of the believer or the purpose of the life of the believer: the worship of the Father.

We see something like that in Luke 17. There a Samaritan cleansed of his leprosy found the true place of worship: at the feet of the Lord Jesus (Lk 17:15-16). Following these two examples, we can say that a sister, in John 4, and a brother, in Luke 17, have found this place of worship.

In the familiar parable of the good Samaritan, the Lord Jesus compares Himself to a Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37). At the end He asks: ‘Who shows himself to be a neighbor of others?’ The answer is that our neighbor is the one who comes to help us in our need. Our neighbor is not one to whom we must show love, but a neighbor is the one who takes care of us. This means that we see ourselves in the man who fell into the hands of robbers and that we are dependent on someone who wants to be our neighbor. The Lord Jesus became the Neighbor for us. Do we want to take the neighbor’s place in relation to Him and be dependent on His grace?