Saturday, September 12, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Kings 17-22
Key Verse
2 Kings 19:14 — “And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.”
Devotional Thought
What does it take for a people to forget the God who brought them out of Egypt? The long, sad answer unfolds in 2 Kings 17. Hoshea, last king of Israel, did evil in the sight of the LORD, and Assyria’s Shalmaneser came up against him. After a three-year siege, Samaria fell in the ninth year of Hoshea, and Israel was carried away to Halah and Habor by the river of Gozan. The inspired historian does not leave us guessing why. They had feared other gods, walked in the statutes of the heathen, built high places from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city, and secretly done things not right against the LORD. They followed vanity and became vain. The LORD testified against them by all the prophets, saying, “Turn ye from your evil ways,” but they hardened their necks and would not hear. So the northern kingdom vanished from its own land.
Yet the chapter does not end in exile. It ends in irony. The Assyrian king brought men from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim to dwell in Samaria, and when lions slew some of them, a priest was sent back to teach them “the manner of the God of the land.” The result was a religion of mixture: “They feared the LORD, and served their own gods.” That is the quiet danger the passage presses on us today. We may keep a form of reverence while our real trust rests elsewhere—in a portfolio, a reputation, a political moment. September, with its return to routine, is a good season to ask where our fear of the LORD actually lives. Hezekiah shows the other path: he removed the high places, brake the images, and even broke in pieces the brasen serpent Moses had made, calling it Nehushtan—a mere piece of brass. He trusted in the LORD God of Israel, clave to Him, and the LORD was with him.
Then comes Rabshakeh, shouting in the Jews’ language on the wall, mocking trust in Egypt as a bruised reed and asking, “On whom dost thou trust?” Hezekiah’s response is the model for every pressured soul: he rent his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. He did not answer the taunt; he carried it to God and to Isaiah. When the voices around us are loud and the siege feels long, the remedy is not cleverer arguments but humbler knees. The God who delivered Israel out of Egypt, and who scattered them for their unfaithfulness, is the same God who hears the prayer of a king in sackcloth. Let the lions, the exiles, and the empty high places teach us: fear the LORD alone, and serve Him only.
Reflection
- Where in your life have you begun to “fear the LORD and serve your own gods”—keeping a form of devotion while your real confidence rests in something else?
- When the Rabshakehs of your day mock your faith, do you argue on the wall, or do you rend your heart and go into the house of the LORD?
Prayer
O LORD God of Israel, who brought Thy people out of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, we confess that we have too often followed vanity and become vain. We have kept high places in hidden corners of our hearts and trusted in bruised reeds. Teach us, as Thou didst teach Hezekiah, to rend our hearts and not our garments, and to lay every taunt and threat before Thee in Thy house. Break in pieces every Nehushtan we have cherished. Be with us as Thou wast with Hezekiah, and deliver us not for our deserving but for Thy great name’s sake. Amen.