In the four major books on the history of Israel and Judah – I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings – the material covers a span of more than five centuries, from the birth of Samuel in about 1100 BC to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. There is no direct evidence as to who the author of this history might have been. Yet clearly it has to have been a person who could look back at these events, drawing together material from across these centuries to tell us the story of how the kingdom of Israel came to be, and how it fell apart.

Up till now, we have seen an occasional glimpse of the author’s theological perspective: for example, this never-named historian frequently offered a brief remark about how such-and-such a king continued in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat (from the chapters preceding today’s reading, for example: II Kings 14:24, 15:9, 18, 24, 28).

But in today’s reading we find a more extensive theological analysis: the captivity of Israel happened “because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt” (17:7). They “secretly did things that were not right against the Lord their God” (17:9). They “did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger” (17:11), even though “the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes’” (17:13). Yet they “would not listen but were stubborn, as their ancestors had been” (17:14).

We do not commonly engage in this sort of theological analysis on a national historical basis. What was God’s response, for example, to the Holy Roman Empire in the time of Charlemagne, or to the Franco-Prussian War? How does God feel about the four centuries from colonial America to the present day? We don’t usually ask such questions; and if someone did, we would not expect to answer them. But the editor who gathered together the material in these Bible books thought that such questions were vitally important. Looking back across the centuries at the events leading to the destruction of Jerusalem, this theological historian could say, “There were reasons why God let this happen.”

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Ah Lord! We are so hesitant to suppose you would allow terrible things to happen to us, because we failed to be faithful to you: yet we are no better than our ancestors. We too remain stubbornly caught in the same old sins, despite all the calls to repentance you give us. Save us, Lord: change our hearts: teach us to follow you, day by day.

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