"So these nations feared the Lord and served their Graven Images." 2 Kings xvii, 41.
By Joseph Clarke
Any one by reading the above mentioned chapter from the 24th to the 41st verse will discover the circumstances which elicited the sad description of this state of things. The people were a mixed multitude (see verse 24) and driven by terror had acknowledged Jehovah as the God of the land. The ten tribes were removed for their sins and their land was occupied by strangers who feared not the Lord, and he sent lions among them. As a matter of policy the Assyrian king sent a priest to teach them how they should fear the Lord. See verses 27 and 28. Howbeit every nation made them gods of their own. Probably they thought that if they were sincere it made no difference, or perhaps the priest who came among them (see verse 28) told them that if they were pure and feared the Lord, that a graven image was no great offense, that God would not notice so small a thing. All see the absurdity of such a mixture of heathenish practices with a godly fear. A similar instance of ignorance and depravity is found in Judges xvii, 3, 4. The mother of Micah had dedicated eleven hundred shekels of silver to the Lord, and she took a part of it and caused a graven and a molten image to be made. What a dedication! How wickedly absurd to suppose that Jehovah would accept such a gift. Yet doubtless she imagined from the depths of her wicked heart that she was doing a very religious act. So now, people often suppose that the dreadful denunciations of the moral law are silenced, and that one or more of the ten commands are a dead letter and as the people feared the Lord and worshipped graven images, so now, the people generally fear the Lord and break the Sabbath. This is no fancy sketch. The cases are similar. JOSEPH CLARKE.
Portage, Wood Co., Ohio, May 5th, 1857.