(25, 26) The captivity of the three eastern tribes. A fuller account may be read in 2Kings 17:6-18.

(25) They transgressed against the God of their fathers.--Rather, were faithless or untrue to Him (Joshua 7:1, "committed a trespass").

Went a whoring after the gods of the people (peoples).--Jehovah was the true Lord (Ba'al) and Husband (Ish) of Israel. Apostasy from Him is, in the prophetic language, whoredom. (See Hos. 1 Chronicles 1, 2, especially 2:16, and 1 Chronicles 3) According to Kings 50100 the fatal sin of Israel evinced itself: (1) in the worship of the high places; (2) in adoration of the heavenly bodies, and the productive powers of nature; (3) in the practice of magic and divination.

The people of the land, whom God had destroyed before them.--Comp. Numbers 21:21-35, and Joshua 12:6; Psalm 135:10-12. The reduction of the Canaanites was, to the mind of the chronicler, a Divine work. He is not thinking only of such extraordinary events as were told of the battle of Beth-boron (Joshua 10:11-14). All the incidents of the conquest were the Lord's doing, whether He acted through the agency of sun and moon, or storm and tempest, or the good swords of Joshua and his warriors. From the same standpoint, he ascribes the Assyrian invasions to a direct impulse from the God of Israel (1Chronicles 5:26). The Assyrian kings themselves were wont to regard their campaigns as a fulfilment of the bidding of their Divine protectors, Istar, Bel, and other imaginary beings. It was not given to them to attain to the higher vision of the Hebrew prophets and priests, who saw but one guiding and controlling power at the summit of the world. (Comp. Isaiah 10:5-15.)

Verses 25, 26. - The "transgressors" here described include manifestly not this half-tribe Manasseh alone, but the other tribes of Israel of whom this chapter has treated. Verse 25. - And they went a-whoring (וַיַּזְנוּ); so 2 Chronicles 21:11, 13. This verb, in one form of its root or another, occurs as many as ninety-seven times in the Pentateuch, Judges, Joshua, Psalms, Proverbs; and prophets, for only twice in Kings and four times in Chronicles, in all the rest of the Old Testament writings.

5:1-26 Genealogies. - This chapter gives some account of the two tribes and a half seated on the east side of Jordan. They were made captives by the king of Assyria, because they had forsaken the Lord. Only two things are here recorded concerning these tribes. 1. They all shared in a victory. Happy is that people who live in harmony together, who assist each other against the common enemies of their souls, trusting in the Lord, and calling upon him. 2. They shared in captivity. They would have the best land, not considering that it lay most exposed. The desire of earthly objects draws to a distance from God's ordinances, and prepares men for destruction.And they transgressed against the God their fathers,.... Against his law, will, word, and ordinances, not only the half tribe of Manasseh, hut the Reubenites and Gadites also:

and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them; that is, committed idolatry, which is spiritual fornication or whoredom; worshipped the idols either of the Amorites, who were destroyed by the Lord to make way for their first settlement; or of the Ishmaelites, whom they conquered, and whose land they dwelt in to the captivity.