744 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Unto this day they do after the former manners,.... Which may be understood either of the new colonies in Samaria doing after the former customs in their own land, or after the customs of the idolatrous Israelites; or of the Israelites in captivity continuing in their idolatry, not being in the least reformed by their troubles; or of such of them...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
With whom the Lord had made a covenant,.... As he did at Sinai, 2 Kings 17:15 and charged them, saying, ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them; all which is contained in the first and second commandments of the law.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But the Lord, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt, with a great power, and a stretched out arm,.... Which is observed, to show the obligations they lay under, in point of gratitude, to serve the Lord: him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice: and him only, and not other gods; none but he being the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment which he wrote for you,.... On the two tables of stone: ye shall observe to do for evermore; those commands relating to religious worship, especially the object of it, and to moral duties, being of eternal obligation; and all other statutes and ordinances of a ceremonial kind...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the covenant that I have made with you, ye shall not forget,.... The law given at Mount Sinai; the first table of which chiefly concerned the worship of the one true and living God, and forbid the worship of any other, as follows: neither shall ye fear other gods; or make them the object of worship.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But the Lord your God ye shall fear,.... Or worship him, both internally and externally, according to his revealed will; for the fear of God includes both internal and external worship: and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies; that is, provided they feared and served him as he required, and it became them to do.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Howbeit, they did not hearken, but did after their former manner. They did not repent of their idolatries, but persisted in them, and even when they were in captivity in Assyria, or such of them as were left in the land.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images,.... Just in like manner as the Israelites had done, who served the Lord and the calves, and worshipped God and Baal: both their children, and their children's children; that is, the children and children's children of the Samaritans: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 18 This chapter begins with the good reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, the reformation he made in the kingdom, and the prosperity that attended him when Israel was carried captive, 2 Kings 18:1 and gives an account of the siege of Jerusalem by the king of Assyria, and of the distress Hezekiah was in, and the hard measures he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel,.... That is, in the third year of his rebelling against the king of Assyria, when he shook off his yoke, and refused to be tributary to him any longer, see 2 Kings 17:1, [that] Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign; having finished the account of the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign,.... Now as Ahaz his father began to reign at twenty, and reigned sixteen, he must die at thirty six; so that this son of his must be born to him when at eleven years of age, for only so many years there be between twenty five and thirty six, which may seem wonderful; but, as Grotius...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did. Some of the kings of Judah, that were better than some others, are said to do that which was right, but not like David; or they did as he did, but not according to all that he did, as is here said of Hezekiah.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
He removed the high places,.... Which the best of the kings of Judah never attempted, and which is observed of them to their discredit: and broke the images, and cut down the groves; the idols his father set up and served, 2 Kings 16:4, groves and idols in them, were early instances of idolatry; [See comments on Judges 3:7], and their use for...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
He trusted in the Lord God of Israel,.... To be his protector and defender, and had no dependence on idols as an arm of flesh; the Targum is, he trusted in the Word of the Lord God; not in Nehushtan, but in him the brasen serpent was a type of, even in the Word and Son of God, his alone Saviour and Redeemer: so that after him was none like him...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For he clave to the Lord,.... To his worship and service; to the fear of the Lord, as the Targum: and departed not from following him; from his worship, as the same paraphrase: but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses; both moral, ceremonial, and judicial.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord was with him,.... The Word of the Lord was for his help, as the Targum: and he prospered whithersoever he went forth; that is, to war: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria: which is explained in the next clause: and served him not; he refused to be his servant, as his father Ahaz had been, 2 Kings 16:7, to which he was not...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
He smote the Philistines even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof,.... Who in his father's time had invaded Judah, and taken many cities and towns in it, which Hezekiah now recovered, and drove them to their own territories, of which Gaza was one; see 2 Chronicles 28:18 from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city; that is, places both great...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah,.... In the beginning of it: which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel: the beginning of his seventh: that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it; see 2 Kings 17:5.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And at the end of three years they took it,.... That is, at the first end of them, at the beginning, in which sense the phrase is taken in Deuteronomy 15:1, even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken: see 2 Kings 17:6.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria,.... Of the places he disposed of them in, after mentioned, [See comments on 2 Kings 17:6].