Deliverer
2 Kings 15:30; 17:1-6
Scornful men bring a city into a snare: but wise men turn away wrath. Prov. 29:8
“In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years.” He was the last of the nineteen kings who ruled (or, rather, misruled) Israel. A period of at least eight years (see HEZEKIAH in Kings of Judah) occurred between the murder of Pekah, Hoshea’s predecessor, and his actual assumption of the throne. Why this kingless interval we have no means of knowing, nor how the time was occupied. Josephus, even if we could always trust him, gives us no help here (the usual way of rewriters or would-be improvers of Scripture history), for he passed the subject over in silence. It was probably a period of anarchy in the land, when Hosea’s position was disputed.
But God’s Word has chronicled Hoshea’s wickedness thus: “And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him.” There is nothing in that sentence that could be construed to Hoshea’s credit, for the Assyrian plunderers had in all probability removed and carried away the golden calves of Dan and Bethel (see Hos. 10:5-8). If he did not worship them, or other abominations, it was not because he abhorred idols.
But his evil doings, whatever their character, speedily brought the Assyrian—“the rod of God’s anger”—upon him and his wicked subjects. “Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and gave him presents.” He who conspired against his weaker Israelite master attempted the same (to his sorrow) with this powerful Gentile lord. “And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to so King of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.”
The siege of Samaria occurred before Hoshea’s imprisonment, even though recorded after. “Hoshea’s imprisonment was not before the capture of Samaria, but the sacred writer first records the eventual fate of Hoshea himself, then details the invasion as it affected Samaria and Israel” (Fausset).
Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes (2 Kings 17:5-6).
This siege and capture of Samaria are recorded on the monuments of Assyria just as they are narrated in 2 Kings 17. What finally became of Hoshea is not revealed, unless he is the king meant in the prophet’s poetic allusion, “As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water” (Hos. 10:7). His name means “deliverer,” and may have a prophetic significance. It serves as a gracious reminder to the now long scattered nation, of that great Deliverer who will “come out of Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” And then, “all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. 11:26).
In 2 Kings 17:7-23 we are given an instructive and touching review of Israel’s downward course. It has been truly observed that the most dismal picture of Old Testament history is that of the kingdom of Israel. Of the nine distinct dynasties that successively ruled the dissevered tribes, three ended with the total extermination of the reigning family. The kingdom lasted for a period of about 250 years, and the inspired records of those eventful two-and-a-half centuries of Israel’s kings and people furnish us with little more than repeated and fearful exhibitions of lawlessness and evil. Out of the nineteen kings that ruled Israel from the great division to the deportation of the people to the land of Assyria, only seven died natural deaths (Baasha, Omri, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, and Menahem); seven were assassinated (Nadab, Elah, Joram, Zachariah, Shallum, Pekaiah, and Pekah); one committed suicide (Zimri); one died of wounds received in battle (Ahab); one was “struck” by the judgment of God (Jeroboam); one died of injuries received from a fall (Ahaziah); and the other, and last (Hoshea), apparently was “cut off as foam upon the water.” To this meaningful array of facts must be added two prolonged periods of anarchy, when there was no king in Israel, every man doing, in all likelihood, “that which was right in his own eyes.”
The kingdom of Judah continued for more than a century and a quarter after the kingdom of Israel had ceased to exist, making its history fully one-third longer than that of the ten tribes. Then it too, like its sister-kingdom, fell into disintegration and decay, and was given up to the first universal empire under the renowned Nebuchadnezzar (see 2 Kings 25, and 2 Chron. 36:15-23). This world monarchy began the “times of the Gentiles,” during which “the most High ruleth [over] the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will” (Dan. 4:25)—setting up over it, at times, even the basest of men (as Belshazzar, the last Darius, Alexander, Nero, etc.). Since that day empire has superseded empire, dynasty has supplanted dynasty, and king succeeded king, as God has said, “I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him” (Ezek. 21:27).We hope His coming will be very soon, and then the eye of weeping, waiting Israel “shall see the King in His beauty.”
But before this, “the willful king,” the “profane, wicked prince of Israel” (the antichrist) must come. And from his unworthy head shall be removed the crown (see Ezek. 21:25-26), to be placed, with many others, on the once thorn-crowned brow of Him who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. That will be our highest joy and glory, to see Him, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ honored and declared by all, as God’s “firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth” (Psa. 89:27).
The Ruler over men shall be just,
Ruling in the fear of God;
And He shall be as the light of the morning,
Like the rising of the sun,
A morning without clouds,
When, from the sunshine after rain,
The green grass springeth from the earth.
For this is all my salvation, And every desire.
(2 Sam. 23:3-5, JND).
“Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”