MAY 23, 2026 – EXILE

READ: 2 Kin. 17:1–41: The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam … they did not depart from them … until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He had said by all His servants the prophets … so Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day …

Hoshea, the son of Elah, forms a conspiracy against Pekah in the twentieth year of his reign over Israel, the ten-tribe kingdom (2 Kin. 15:30). He kills him and becomes king in his place. This happens during the reign of Ahaz over Judah.

Hoshea also does what is evil in the sight of the LORD. When he becomes a tributary servant of the king of Assyria, no deliverance comes any longer from the LORD. He is taken prisoner because of misconduct toward the king of Assyria. Samaria, the capital of the ten-tribe kingdom, is captured and the people are carried away to Assyria.

We read extensively the reason why the LORD gives them over into the hand of their enemy. In everything they have departed from Him and have served the abominable idols of the nations. They behaved as heathens and not as covenant children.

Moreover, all those years they refused to repent and return to the LORD. Despite many calls from the prophets and seers whom the LORD sent to them, they persisted in their idolatrous practices and broke the covenant with the LORD. In everything they were apostate. Thus they provoked the LORD to great wrath.

Finally, the LORD rejects the whole offspring of Israel from before His face, according to the warning of His prophets. Moses had already spoken of this. Deut. 28:63ff.: “You shall be plucked from off the land… the LORD will scatter you among all peoples…” Deut. 32:20ff.: “I will hide My face from them… they are a perverse generation… I will scatter them…”

What is the worst thing that can happen to the church?

Singing: Ps. 106:17,20