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.
What does 2 Kings 17:4 mean?
When the measure of sin is filled up, the Lord will forbear no longer. The inhabitants of Samaria must have endured great affliction.
Key themes
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Keep this verse inside 2 Kings 17:3-4 and alongside a few nearby related passages.
Commentary on 2 Kings 17:4
So, king of Egypt, is generally identified with Shebek (730 B. C.), the Sabaco of Herodotus. Hoshea's application to him was a return to a policy which had been successful in the reign of Jeroboam I(( 1 Kings 12:20 note), but had not been resorted to by any other Israelite monarch. Egypt had for many years been weak, but Sabaco was a conqueror, who at the head of the swarthy hordes of Ethiopia had invaded Egypt and made himself master of the country. In the inscriptions of Shebek he boasts to have received tribute from "the king of Shara" (Syria), which is probably his mode of noticing Hoshea's application.
Key words
- Assyria
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And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea,.
- found
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And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea,.
- conspiracy
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And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea,.
Context in 2 Kings 17
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2 Kings 17 belongs to the middle movement of the book, especially the section often described as decline of Judah. Second Kings follows the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, recounts the decline of both kingdoms, and ends with Jerusalem’s fall and a faint glimmer of Davidic continuity. Read this chapter with the wider themes of prophetic witness, judgment, and exile in view so the individual verses keep their proper weight.
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