2 Kings 17:8

8 They had lived according to the customs of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites^[a] and the customs the kings of Israel had introduced.

2 Kings 17:8 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 17:8

And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom the Lord cast
out from before the children of Israel
Meaning the Canaanites, in whose idolatrous ways they walked, and whom they imitated; though their ejection out of the land should have been a warning to them, and they were the more inexcusable, as they were particularly cautioned against walking in them, ( Leviticus 18:3 )

and of the kings of Israel, which they had made;
their laws and statutes, to worship the golden calves, and not go up to Jerusalem to worship.

2 Kings 17:8 In-Context

6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He deported the Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah and by the Habor, Gozan's river, and in the cities of the Medes.

7 [This disaster] happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt and because they had worshiped other gods.

8 They had lived according to the customs of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites and the customs the kings of Israel had introduced.

9 The Israelites secretly did what was not right against the Lord their God. They built high places in all their towns from watchtower to fortified city.

10 They set up for themselves sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

Footnotes

• [a]. Lv 18:3; Dt 18:9