Today’s reading: 2 Kings 17; John 16
Despite the fact that it contains His judgement against Israel, 2 Kings 17 just screams to me of God’s incredible patience for His deeply undeserving people.
There is the all-too-common caricature of God that He is all loving and merciful in the New Testament, but was all judgmental and unforgiving in the Old Testament, almost like the first two thirds of the Bible represents a completely different God from the last third. I have to imagine this image of God comes from people who have never actually read the Bible though because, for as widely held of a view as it seems to be, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
In our reading today, Samaria, the capital of Israel was captured by the Assyrians, and the Israelites were carried off out of the land as God’s judgement for their disobedience. Despite this judgement, 2 Kings 17 tells us just how long this judgement had been coming, and just how patient God had been with them.
If you’ve been following along with the reading plan, you already know that Israel’s rebellion is nothing new by this point. The author even points out in chapter 17 that this rebellion goes all the way back to Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom after God tore the northern tribes away from the line of David. So right from the beginning, Israel has been in rebellion against God, and over time, it has only gotten worse. We are also told that throughout all the generations that have passed since Jeroboam, God has sent His prophets as well to call the people back to Him. We have seen some of those prophets pop up at times throughout the books of Kings, but as we get into the prophets, later in our reading plan, we will see just how hard God worked, through His prophets, to call the people out of their rebellion.
So while, yes, God does bring major judgement on His people in 2 Kings 17, we are also reminded in this chapter just how long this has been going on that God has not brought judgement down on them, and just how hard He has been working during those hundreds of years of rebellion to call His people back to Himself and away from their impending judgement.
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