They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, going after the surrounding nations that the LORD had commanded them not to imitate.
Though the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes was but briefly related, it is in these verses largely commented upon by our historian, and the reasons of it assigned, not taken from the second causes - the weakness of Israel, their impolitic management, and the strength and growing greatness of the Assyrian monarch (these things are overlooked) - but only from the First Cause. Observe, 1.
Commenting on 2 Kings 17:7-23
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers,.... At Sinai and Horeb, see Exo 24:8, and his testimonies which he testified against them; calling heaven and earth to witness what he would do to them if they broke his laws, Deu 4:26, and which were so many testifications of his mind and will what they should do, or otherwise...
SAMARIA TAKEN, AND ISRAEL FOR THEIR SINS CARRIED CAPTIVE. (2Ki. 17:7-41) For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned--There is here given a very full and impressive vindication of the divine procedure in punishing His highly privileged, but rebellious and apostate, people.
Commenting on 2 Kings 17:7-41