2 Kings 17:29, commentary and pictures

The verse records what happened when foreign peoples were settled in Samaria, that every nation made gods of its own and set them in the houses of the high places already made there, each nation in the cities where it lived. Those Samaritans had once belonged to Israel but became separated through transgression in neglecting to obey the statutes of God, so the Lord allowed an idolatrous nation to overcome them. Through intermingling over many generations their religion was gradually contaminated.

While still preserving reverence for the true God, they represented Him by images of wood and stone before which they bowed in worship. They claimed the idols were only to remind them of the living God, the Ruler of the universe, yet they were led to reverence the graven images themselves. They worshiped on Mount Gerizim according to the ceremonies given through Moses, but they mingled that worship with the taint of idolatry and never wholly renounced it.

Even after disasters, attempted reform, and instruction by teachers from the Jews that made their views of God and His requirements clearer and their service more like that of the Jews, they still clung to idolatry to a certain degree and retained that taint. That mixed character of Judaism and heathenism continued when Jews who had married idolaters and chose exile with them, together with priests and rulers expelled from the congregation for refusing to separate from idolaters, joined the Samaritans. To strengthen the alliance the Samaritans promised to adopt more fully the Jewish faith and customs, and the apostates, determined to outdo their former brethren, erected a temple on Mount Gerizim in opposition to the house of God at Jerusalem. Their claim to be the people of God became the source of schism, emulation, and enmity between the two nations from generation to generation.