Lions, Gods, and Awkward Conversions: Welcome to Samaria
Today I read 2 Chronicles 28 and 2 Kings 16-17, and what caught my attention most was the account in 2 Kings 17, where the Assyrian empire resettles people from various regions into Samaria after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel.
The text says these new inhabitants didn't "fear the Lord," so lions were sent among them. As a result, an Israelite priest is brought back to teach them how to worship the God of the land. What follows is a fascinating mix: the people begin worshipping the God of Israel while also continuing to serve their own gods from their native cultures.
A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That
This moment feels complicated. It's not a full conversion to the practices of Israel, nor is it a total rejection. Instead, it's something in between. They perform rituals dedicated to the God of the land while maintaining loyalty to their ancestral traditions. The result is a blended form of religion that isn’t quite what came before, and it isn’t something entirely new either.
The passage doesn’t present this fusion in a positive light, but from a historical perspective, it’s interesting to think about how religious practices adapt and shift in times of upheaval. These people were relocated, likely under duress, and inserted into a region with a different cultural and religious legacy. In that kind of dislocation, it's perhaps not surprising that people would try to cover all their bases when it came to the divine.
Samaritans: The Prequel
This also appears to be the beginning of the Samaritan identity—at least, the biblical version of that story. Later, in the New Testament, there’s clear tension between Jews and Samaritans. Understanding this background adds some depth to that conflict. It wasn’t just a difference of practice; it was a contested history, a divergence that went back generations and was bound up in exile, conquest, and shifting religious norms.
Divine Fear or Just Playing It Safe?
What’s also noteworthy is how this passage describes the motives behind religious practice. The new residents are taught to fear "the God of the land" to stop the lions, not out of personal conviction. It's a functional kind of worship—less about belief, more about survival. That raises questions about what drives religious behavior. Is it fear? Habit? Cultural pressure? Something deeper?
This chapter doesn’t answer those questions, but it does raise them. And it reminds me that religion, in many cases, isn’t static or clear-cut. It evolves in response to political, social, and personal circumstances. The version of worship that emerges in Samaria is tangled, reactive, and, in a way, very human.