Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

This verse and the next are parenthetical. Here again, as in 2 Kings 17:13, the writer is led on from his account of the sins and punishment of the Israelites to glance at the similar sins and similar punishment of the Jews.

It was the worst reproach which could be urged against any Jewish king, that he “walked in the way of the kings of Israel” 2 Kings 8:18; 2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 21:6; 2 Chronicles 28:2. The Baal worship is generally the special sin at which the phrase is leveled; but the meaning here seems to be wider. Compare Micah 6:16.

Coffman Commentaries on the Bible

THE DIVINE VERDICT OF JUDGMENT AGAINST JUDAH

"Also Judah kept not the commandments of Jehovah their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. And Jehovah rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight."

"And Jehovah rejected all the seed of Israel" (2 Kings 17:20). In these terse words the very same punishment was announced for Judah that had already fallen upon Israel. This was the dramatic terminal that signaled the end of God's further concern, either for Israel as a race, or as a temporal kingdom. Henceforth, God's total emphasis would rest upon that "righteous remnant," spoken of by Isaiah and Jeremiah. There would be no further Divine preference either for racial or national Israel. Some find it very hard to understand this, but the truth of it is undeniable.

In this dramatic shift of God's concern toward individual righteousness, it meant that racial or national preference, in any sense whatever, was no more. However, this was not a discrimination against Israel, for even after the Gentiles were admitted to God's favor in the times of Christ, no Jew was ever excluded, but every man of every race is received upon identically the same conditions. One of the mysteries of human behavior is the fact of the Jewish resentment of God's calling the Gentiles, because that had been God's intention from the days of Genesis 12:3. God stated his purpose there in calling Abraham was to bless all men, "all the families of men," not Jews only.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God,.... But were infected with the idolatry of the ten tribes, and drawn into it by their example, and persisted therein, notwithstanding what befell the ten tribes; which are aggravations of the sins of them both, see Jeremiah 3:7,

but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made; worshipping the calves as they did, particularly in the times of Ahaz, he setting the example, see 2 Kings 16:3.

Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

Judah kept not — Judah's idolatry and wickedness are here remembered, as an aggravation of the sin of the Israelites, which was not only evil in itself, but mischievous to their neighbour, who by their examples were instructed in their wicked arts, and provoked to an imitation of them.

John Trapp Complete Commentary

2 Kings 17:19 Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

Ver. 19. Also Judah.] Being the worse for Israel’s ill neighbourhood, [Hosea 4:14] and therefore the worse, because she should have been better by such a warning. [Jeremiah 3:8]

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Judah’s idolatry and wickedness is here remembered, as an aggravation of the sin of the Israelites, which was not only evil in itself but scandalous and mischievous to their neighbour, who by heir examples were instructed in their wicked arts, and provoked to an imitation of them: see Hosea 4:15, and compare Matthew 18:7.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

19.Also Judah — This verse should be enclosed in a parenthesis, as it is merely a remark of the writer occasioned by the closing words of 2 Kings 17:18; so that, says Thenius, “the parenthesis intimates that in truth Judah also was ripe for punishment.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments

2 Kings 17:19. Also Judah kept not, &c., but walked in the statutes of Israel — Followed the idolatrous devices of the ten tribes, which they did most notoriously in the reign of Ahaz. And though his son Hezekiah made a noble reformation, it lasted no longer than his time, so extremely corrupted was the nation. Judah’s idolatry and wickedness are here remembered as an aggravation of the sin of the Israelites, which was not only evil in itself, but mischievous to their neighbours, who by their examples were instructed in their wicked arts, and provoked to an imitation of them: see Hosea 4:15; Matthew 18:7. Those that bring sin into a country or family bring a plague into it, and will have to answer for all the mischief that follows.

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes

but walked. Compare Athaliah (2 Kings 8:18, 2 Kings 8:27; 2 Kings 16:3, &c).

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) Also Judah kept not . . .—Judah was no real or permanent exception to the sins and punishment of Israel; she imitated the apostasy of her sister-kingdom, and was visited with a similar penalty.

The statutes of Israel which they made.—See Note on 2 Kings 17:8 supra, and comp. Micah 6:16, “the statutes of Omri.” According to 2 Kings 8:27; 2 Kings 16:3, Ahaziah and Ahaz especially favoured the idolatry practised in the northern kingdom. The example of her more powerful neighbour exercised a fatally powerful spell upon Judah.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Also Judah

1 Kings 14:22,23; 2 Chronicles 21:11,13; Jeremiah 2:28; 3:8-11; Ezekiel 16:51,52; Ezekiel 22:2-16; 23:4-13

walked

8:18,27; 16:3