The God of the Land and the Lions He Keeps
Introduction: A Hyphenated Faith
We live in an age of the hyphen. We are not content to be one thing; we must be many things at once. We have Irish-Americans, African-Americans, and so on. In the civic realm, this can be a relatively harmless description of our heritage. But when this mindset bleeds into our faith, it becomes a spiritual malignancy. The modern evangelical church is riddled with a hyphenated faith. We are not simply Christians. We are Christian-progressives, or Christian-nationalists, or Christian-therapists, or Christian-capitalists. We want to fear Yahweh, but we also want to serve the gods of our particular tribe, the gods of our age.
We want the blessings of the God of Abraham without the exclusive demands of the God of Abraham. We want a God who will keep the lions away, but who will not interfere with the idols we have set up in the high places of our hearts. We want a Savior, but we resist a Lord. This is the disease of syncretism. It is the attempt to have it both ways, to blend the worship of the one true God with the worship of demons. It is an attempt to pour the new wine of the kingdom into the old, cracked wineskins of our pagan allegiances.
The passage before us in 2 Kings 17 is the original case study of this spiritual malady. After God divorced the northern kingdom of Israel for her flagrant, centuries-long spiritual adultery, the king of Assyria implemented a brutal but effective policy of resettlement. He ripped the Israelites out of their land and scattered them, and he imported a motley crew of pagans from across his empire to take their place. What follows is a tragic, and at times darkly comical, account of what happens when men try to add Yahweh to their pantheon of idols. It is a stark warning against the folly of a divided heart.
The Text
And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the sons of Israel. So they possessed Samaria and lived in its cities. Now it happened at the beginning of their settlement there, that they did not fear Yahweh; therefore Yahweh sent lions among them which were killing them. So they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations whom you have taken away into exile and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the custom of the god of the land; so he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are putting them to death because they do not know the custom of the god of the land.”
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Take there one of the priests whom you took away into exile and let him go and live there; and let him instruct them the custom of the god of the land.” So one of the priests whom they had taken away into exile from Samaria came and settled at Bethel, and instructed them how they should fear Yahweh.
But each nation was still making gods of its own and put them in the houses of the high places which the people of Samaria had made, each nation in their cities in which they lived. And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of the Sepharvaim. They were also fearing Yahweh and appointed from among all of themselves priests of the high places, and they were were acting for them in the houses of the high places. They were fearing Yahweh and serving their own gods according to the custom of the nations from among whom they had been taken away into exile.
To this day they are acting according to the earlier customs: they are not fearing Yahweh; they are not acting according to their statutes or their judgments or the law, or the commandment which Yahweh commanded the sons of Jacob, whom He named Israel; with whom Yahweh cut a covenant and commanded them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor worship them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them. But Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, and to Him you shall worship, and to Him you shall sacrifice. And the statutes and the judgments and the law and the commandment which He wrote for you, you shall be careful to do forever; and you shall not fear other gods. And the covenant that I have cut with you, you shall not forget, nor shall you fear other gods. But Yahweh your God you shall fear; and He will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.” However, they did not listen, but they were acting according to their earlier custom. So while these nations were fearing Yahweh, they also were serving their graven images; their children likewise and their grandchildren, as their fathers acted, so they are acting this way to this day.
(2 Kings 17:24-41 LSB)
A Theological Problem with Teeth (vv. 24-26)
The Assyrians deport the Israelites and import a grab bag of pagans. These new tenants move in, set up their furniture, and promptly ignore the landlord. Verse 25 is stark: "they did not fear Yahweh." They moved into God's land, the land He had covenanted to Abraham, the land He had given to Israel, and they acted as though He did not exist. They were practical atheists, and God decided to give them a very practical theology lesson.
"therefore Yahweh sent lions among them which were killing them." (2 Kings 17:25)
When you disregard the God of the land, the land itself turns on you. The created order, which groans under the weight of sin, will not tolerate such insolence forever. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and He owns the lions in the nearby woods. And He can weaponize His creation against His enemies at any moment. This is not a random animal attack; it is a covenantal lawsuit with teeth. God is demonstrating His ownership in a way that the pagans, for all their theological confusion, could not ignore.
And to their credit, they diagnose the problem correctly, albeit through their pagan worldview. They tell the king of Assyria, "The nations... do not know the custom of the god of the land; so he has sent lions among them." They understood the concept of territorial deities. In their minds, every nation had its god, and if you moved into that god's territory, you had to pay him his due. They were wrong about the "a" god part, but they were dead right that there was a God of that land, and that He demanded to be acknowledged. They had a theological problem that had become a zoological crisis.
A Corrupted Cure (vv. 27-28)
The king of Assyria, being a practical pagan politician, responds with a practical pagan solution. This is not about truth, conversion, or salvation. This is about civic stability. It is religious pest control.
"Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, 'Take there one of the priests whom you took away into exile... and let him instruct them the custom of the god of the land.'" (2 Kings 17:27)
So they send back one of the exiled priests. But where does this priest set up shop? He settles at Bethel. This is not an insignificant detail. Bethel was one of the two centers of Israel's state-sponsored apostasy, established by Jeroboam centuries earlier. It was the home of the golden calf. This priest was not a Levite from Jerusalem, trained in the pure worship of Yahweh according to the law of Moses. He was a product of a compromised, syncretistic, and condemned religious system. He was sent to teach them how to fear Yahweh, but the Yahweh he knew was already a Yahweh mixed with paganism. They were trying to cure a disease with a diluted form of the original poison.
The Monstrous Birth of Syncretism (vv. 29-33)
The result is precisely what we should expect. The people do not abandon their old gods. They simply add Yahweh to the shelf. This is not conversion; it is addition. They now have a religious buffet, and they take a little of everything.
"But each nation was still making gods of its own... They were also fearing Yahweh..." (2 Kings 17:29, 32)
The text gives us a grotesque catalogue of their demonic menagerie. Succoth-benoth, Nergal, Ashima, and on it goes. It culminates in the most horrific of pagan practices: the Sepharvites "burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech." Let that sink in. They were offering their children to demons with one hand, and offering sacrifices to Yahweh with the other. They feared Yahweh enough to want to stop the lion attacks, but they loved their sin enough to keep burning their babies.
Verse 33 gives the damnable summary: "They were fearing Yahweh and serving their own gods according to the custom of the nations." This is the essence of all false religion. It is an attempt to worship God on our terms, not His. They wanted to fit Yahweh into their customs, their traditions, their preferences. They appointed their own priests "from among all of themselves," creating a DIY religion that was convenient and affirming. This is the religion of the modern West. We fear God enough to want fire insurance, but we serve the gods of money, sex, power, and self-esteem "according to the custom of the nations." We want a God who will conform to our image, rather than a God who demands that we be conformed to His.
God's Non-Negotiable Terms (vv. 34-40)
At this point, the inspired narrator steps in to deliver God's verdict. He drops the dispassionate historical tone and preaches a sermon. He lays out the terms of the covenant that Israel broke and that these Samaritans are utterly ignoring. The central issue is antithesis. It is God versus the idols. There is no middle ground.
"...they are not fearing Yahweh; they are not acting according to their statutes or their judgments or the law, or the commandment which Yahweh commanded the sons of Jacob..." (2 Kings 17:34)
The narrator is saying that their "fear of Yahweh" is not the genuine article. To fear Yahweh in a way that is pleasing to Him means to fear Him exclusively. God does not do partnerships. He is not looking for a seat on the board of directors of your life; He owns the entire corporation. The covenant command is absolute: "You shall not fear other gods" (v. 35). This is the first and great commandment, upon which everything else hangs.
God's identity is not that of a generic "god of the land." He identifies Himself by His mighty acts of redemption in history: "Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear" (v. 36). He is the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. To worship Him is to remember His covenant and to obey His law. Any other form of worship is idolatry, no matter how pious it may feel. The Samaritans' problem was not a lack of religious feeling; it was a lack of submission to God's revealed Word.
Conclusion: No Neutral Ground
"So while these nations were fearing Yahweh, they also were serving their graven images..." (2 Kings 17:41)
This is the tragic summary that echoes down to our own day. This divided worship, this spiritual schizophrenia, became the defining characteristic of the Samaritans. This is the backdrop for the animosity we see in the New Testament, and for Jesus's conversation with the woman at the well in John 4. She was a direct spiritual descendant of this compromised people, worshipping a God she did not truly know on a mountain of her forefathers' choosing.
And Jesus's answer to her is God's answer to all syncretism. "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know... But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:22-23). True worship is not a blend of our customs and God's commands. It is not a negotiation. It is total, glad-hearted submission to the truth of who God is, as revealed in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.
The Lion of Judah has come. He has conquered the lions of judgment and the demons behind the idols. He does not ask for a place in our lives; He demands every square inch. He will not be hyphenated. You cannot be a Christian-and. You are either a Christian, or you are still in your sins, serving your graven images, no matter what you call them. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it is the end of all other gods.