But they would not listen, and they stiffened their necks like their fathers, who did not believe the LORD their God. But they would not listenThis phrase highlights the persistent disobedience and rebellion of the Israelites. The Hebrew root for "listen" is "שָׁמַע" (shama), which implies not just hearing but obeying and acting upon what is heard. In the biblical context, listening to God is synonymous with obedience. The Israelites' refusal to listen is a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament, illustrating a pattern of resistance against divine instruction. This disobedience is not merely a passive act but an active choice to reject God's authority and guidance. and they stiffened their necks
The imagery of "stiffened their necks" is a vivid metaphor used frequently in the Bible to describe obstinacy and stubbornness. The Hebrew phrase "קָשָׁה עֹרֶף" (qashah oref) literally means to make one's neck hard or unyielding, akin to an ox that refuses to be guided by a yoke. This metaphor underscores the Israelites' unwillingness to submit to God's will, reflecting a hardened heart and a rebellious spirit. Historically, this phrase is used to describe the Israelites' behavior during their wilderness wanderings and their subsequent history, emphasizing a continuous cycle of rebellion. like their fathers
This phrase connects the current generation of Israelites with their ancestors, indicating a generational pattern of disobedience. The reference to "fathers" serves as a reminder of the historical context of Israel's repeated failures to uphold their covenant with God. It highlights the importance of learning from past mistakes and the consequences of failing to do so. The Bible often uses the actions of forefathers as a benchmark for the behavior of future generations, stressing the need for repentance and renewal. who did not believe
The lack of belief or faith is central to the Israelites' failure. The Hebrew word for "believe" is "אָמַן" (aman), which conveys a sense of trust, faithfulness, and reliability. In the biblical narrative, belief in God is not merely intellectual assent but involves trust and reliance on His promises and commands. The Israelites' unbelief is a fundamental issue that leads to their downfall, as faith is the foundation of their relationship with God. This unbelief is often contrasted with the faith of figures like Abraham, who is commended for his trust in God. the LORD their God
This phrase emphasizes the covenant relationship between the Israelites and Yahweh, their God. The use of "LORD" (YHWH) signifies the personal and covenantal name of God, highlighting His faithfulness and sovereignty. The term "their God" underscores the unique relationship and responsibility the Israelites have towards Yahweh, who has chosen them as His people. This relationship is central to the identity of Israel and their calling to be a light to the nations. The failure to believe in "the LORD their God" is not just a personal failing but a breach of the covenant that has profound spiritual and communal implications. Persons / Places / Events 1. The IsraelitesThe primary subjects of this verse, the Israelites are being described as disobedient and stubborn, following the sinful patterns of their ancestors. 2. The LORD (Yahweh)The God of Israel, who had established a covenant with the Israelites, expecting their faithfulness and obedience. 3. The Fathers/AncestorsRefers to the previous generations of Israelites who also exhibited unbelief and disobedience towards God. 4. The ProphetsAlthough not directly mentioned in this verse, the prophets were God's messengers who repeatedly called the Israelites to repentance. 5. The Kingdom of IsraelThe northern kingdom, which is the context of this passage, facing impending judgment due to their persistent idolatry and rebellion. Teaching Points The Danger of StubbornnessJust as the Israelites stiffened their necks, we must be cautious of hardening our hearts against God's guidance and correction. The Importance of ListeningTrue faith involves listening to and obeying God's word, rather than following our own desires or traditions. Generational PatternsWe should be aware of the spiritual legacies we inherit and strive to break any patterns of unbelief or disobedience. Faith and BeliefBelief in God is not just intellectual assent but involves trust and obedience, as demonstrated by the Israelites' failure. Repentance and ReturnGod continually calls His people to repentance, offering grace and restoration to those who turn back to Him. Bible Study Questions 1. What are some modern examples of "stiff-necked" behavior in our personal lives or communities, and how can we address them? 2. How can we ensure that we are truly listening to God and not just following religious routines or traditions? 3. In what ways can we identify and break negative spiritual patterns inherited from previous generations? 4. How does the concept of belief in God in this passage challenge our understanding of faith and obedience? 5. Reflect on a time when you resisted God's guidance. What steps did you take (or can you take) to repent and realign with His will? Connections to Other Scriptures Exodus 32The incident of the golden calf, where the Israelites quickly turned to idolatry, exemplifying their stiff-necked nature. Deuteronomy 9:6-13Moses describes the Israelites as a stiff-necked people, highlighting their rebellious nature even during the wilderness journey. Jeremiah 7:24-26The prophet Jeremiah echoes the theme of Israel's stubbornness and refusal to listen to God's commands. Acts 7:51Stephen, in his speech, accuses the Jewish leaders of being stiff-necked, drawing a parallel to their ancestors' resistance to the Holy Spirit. People Adrammelech, Ahaz, Anammelech, Avites, Avvites, David, Elah, Hoshea, Israelites, Jacob, Jeroboam, Nebat, Pharaoh, Sepharvites, ShalmaneserPlaces Assyria, Avva, Babylon, Bethel, Cuth, Cuthah, Egypt, Gozan, Habor River, Halah, Hamath, Samaria, SepharvaimTopics Believe, Believed, Didn't, Ear, Faith, Fathers, Harden, Hardened, Hearkened, However, Listen, Neck, Necks, Notwithstanding, Stedfast, Stiffened, Stiff-necked, Stubborn, TrustDictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 17:14 5165 listening
5170 neck
6194 impenitence, warnings
8224 dependence
8723 doubt, results of 2 Kings 17:3-18 7560 Samaritans, the 2 Kings 17:3-23 7233 Israel, northern kingdom 2 Kings 17:6-23 6659 freedom, acts in OT 2 Kings 17:7-20 8705 apostasy, in OT 2 Kings 17:7-23 6026 sin, judgment on 2 Kings 17:13-14 1611 Scripture, inspiration and authority
6627 conversion, nature of
8404 commands, in OT 2 Kings 17:13-20 6195 impenitence, results 2 Kings 17:14-15 8719 distrust
8836 unbelief, response 2 Kings 17:14-16 5212 arts and crafts 2 Kings 17:14-20 8741 failure Library Divided Worship
'These nations feared the Lord, and served their own gods.'--2 KINGS xvii. 33. The kingdom of Israel had come to its fated end. Its king and people had been carried away captives in accordance with the cruel policy of the great Eastern despotisms, which had so much to do with weakening them by their very conquests. The land had lain desolate and uncultivated for many years, savage beasts had increased in the untilled solitudes, even as weeds and nettles grew in the gardens and vineyards of Samaria. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureA Kingdom's Epitaph
'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. 7. For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, 8. And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture September the Eleventh a Fatal Divorce
"They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." --2 KINGS xvii. 24-34. And that is an old-world record, but it is quite a modern experience. The kinsmen of these ancient people are found in our own time. Men still fear one God and serve another. But something is vitally wrong when men can divorce their fear from their obedience. And the beginning of the wrong is in the fear itself. "Fear," as used in this passage, is a counterfeit coin, which does not ring true to the truth. It means only the …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year Upon Our Lord's SermonOn the Mount
Discourse 9 "No man can serve two masters; For either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: For they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions Mongrel Religion
I. I shall first call your attention to THE NATURE OF THIS Mongrel Religion. It had its good and bad points, for it wore a double face. These people were not infidels. Far from it: "they feared the Lord." They did not deny the existence, or the power, or the rights of the great God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah. They had not the pride of Pharaoh who said, "Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice?" They were not like those whom David calls "fools," who said in their hearts, "There is no God." …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881 Building in Troublous Times
'Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; 2. Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. 3. But Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Profession and Practice.
18th Sunday after Trinity. S. Matt. xxii. 42. "What think ye of Christ?" INTRODUCTION.--Many men are Christians neither in understanding nor in heart. Some are Christians in heart, and not in understanding. Some in understanding, and not in heart, and some are Christians in both. If I were to go into a Temple of the Hindoos, or into a Synagogue of the Jews, and were to ask, "What think ye of Christ?" the people there would shake their heads and deny that He is God, and reject His teaching. The …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent The Original Text and Its History.
1. The original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, with the exception of certain portions of Ezra and Daniel and a single verse of Jeremiah, (Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan. 2:4, from the middle of the verse to end of chap. 7; Jer. 10:11,) which are written in the cognate Chaldee language. The Hebrew belongs to a stock of related languages commonly called Shemitic, because spoken mainly by the descendants of Shem. Its main divisions are: (1,) the Arabic, having its original seat in the …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Of the Power of Making Laws. The Cruelty of the Pope and his Adherents, in this Respect, in Tyrannically Oppressing and Destroying Souls.
1. The power of the Church in enacting laws. This made a source of human traditions. Impiety of these traditions. 2. Many of the Papistical traditions not only difficult, but impossible to be observed. 3. That the question may be more conveniently explained, nature of conscience must be defined. 4. Definition of conscience explained. Examples in illustration of the definition. 5. Paul's doctrine of submission to magistrates for conscience sake, gives no countenance to the Popish doctrine of the obligation …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion A More Particular view of the Several Branches of the Christian Temper, by which the Reader May be Farther Assisted in Judging what He Is, And
1, 2. The importance of the case engages to a more particular survey what manner of spirit we are of.--3. Accordingly the Christian temper is described, by some general views of it, as a new and divine temper.--4. As resembling that of Christ.--5. And as engaging us to be spiritually minded, and to walk by faith.--6. A plan of the remainder.--7. In which the Christian temper is more particularly considered with regard to the blessed God: as including fear, affection, and obedience.--8, 9. Faith and …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul Solomon's Temple Spiritualized
or, Gospel Light Fetched out of the Temple at Jerusalem, to Let us More Easily into the Glory of New Testament Truths. 'Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Isreal;--shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out hereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof.'--Ezekiel 43:10, 11 London: Printed for, and sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgate, …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3 Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links 2 Kings 17:14 NIV2 Kings 17:14 NLT2 Kings 17:14 ESV2 Kings 17:14 NASB2 Kings 17:14 KJV
2 Kings 17:14 Commentaries
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