Two different starting points. Same practices. Two different assessments. That’s what I’m chewing on this morning.

Reading in 2Kings 17 this morning. Israel, the northern kingdom, is done. Operation “Assyrian Occupation” is complete. After 200 years of worshiping golden calves as God rather than God as God, God “removed them from His presence” (2Ki. 17:18). After conquering Israel, the Assyrians import foreigners from other conquered regions into the land so that “the settlers took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities” (2Ki. 17:24). So, in the land were two types of people with two different starting points — those who had been brought out of Egypt by God and those who had been brought out of other lands by the king of Assyria.

And it starts out pretty rough for the newcomers to Samaria.

When they first lived there, they did not fear the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. The settlers said to the king of Assyria, “The nations that you have deported and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the god of the land. Therefore He has sent lions among them that are killing them because the people don’t know the requirements of the god of the land.”

(2Kings 17:25-26 CSB)

Lions with insatiable appetites. That’s a big problem! Solution? Send back one of Israel’s priests and have him teach the newcomers “how they should fear the LORD” (2Ki. 17:27-28). And so, it would seem worship according to the law was re-introduced to the land. Thus, one land, two different types of people with two different starting points, both engaged in the same practices — both “worshiping” God and worshiping gods. The Israelites having done so for the past couple of centuries, the pagans in the land doing so since becoming lion food.

Two different starting points. Same practices. Yet, I read, two different assessments.

They feared the Lord, but they also worshiped their own gods according to the practice of the nations from which they had been deported. . . . None of them fear the Lord or observe the statutes and ordinances, the law and commandments that the Lord had commanded the descendants of Jacob, whom He had given the name Israel.

(2Kings 17:33-34 CSB)

They feared the Lord . . . none of them fear the Lord. “They” refers to the settlers imported from foreign lands who began to worship the God of heaven in addition to worshiping their gods of earth. “Them” are those who were in covenant relationship with the God of heaven, those who knew God’s deliverance, those who were privy to God’s will and ways and were commanded, “Do not fear other gods; do not bow in worship to them; do not serve them; do not sacrifice to them — Instead fear the Lord” (2Ki. 17:35-36a). Both practicing the same practices. Yet two different assessments. They feared the Lord . . . none of them fear the Lord.

Hmm . . .

What comes to mind? How do I make sense of math that can add the same things together and yet come up with two different answers? That the pagans added God to their program was at least a starting point, it indicated they made the connection between the lions and the Lord and that they feared the Lord. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10, Prov. 9:10). But to those of Abraham, to whom much is given, much is required, and from those to whom much is entrusted, more will be demanded (Lk. 12:48). That the Israelites knew God yet unfaithfully gave themselves to the world indicates that none of them feared the Lord. Claiming to be wise, they became fools (Rom. 1:22). Like I said, hmm . . .

Seems starting point matters.

Something to chew on I think.

In light of His grace. Desiring His glory.