the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 2 of 5
2 Kings 17:1-18
Hoshea, the assassin and successor of Pekah, was the last king of Israel. Israel did not take advantage of the stay of sentence granted by the LORD for several years. The ninth year of the reign of Hoshea saw the conquest of Samaria and the subsequent deportation of the ten tribes. But God in His righteous justice did not wish to take this final step without once again clearly establishing the guilt of Israel. Vv. 7 to 18 sum up the LORD’s irrefutable grounds of accusation against this unhappy people. It will be just so before the dreadful great white throne. The dead will not be judged before the books recording their works have first been opened, to their utter confusion (Revelation 20:12-13).
The king of Assyria proceeded with his plan of exchanging populations. What a shameful thing to see the beautiful land of Canaan henceforth occupied afresh by idolatrous nations, even if outwardly they have learnt to fear the LORD, and add some worship of Him to the worship of their own gods! (2 Kings 17:23-34).
We have now arrived at the moment, spoken of by the prophet Hosea, when the LORD pronounced over Israel the solemn words "Lo-ammi" (i.e. "not my people") with the converse: "I will not be your God" (Hosea 1:9).
