2 Raja-raja 17:11

17:11 They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry. ¹ 

2 Raja-raja 17:15

17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. ²  They paid allegiance to ³  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ⁴  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 21:2

21:2 He did evil in the sight of ⁶  the Lord and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations ⁷  whom the Lord drove out from before the Israelites.

2 Raja-raja 21:9

21:9 But they did not obey, ⁸  and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed from before the Israelites.

[17:11]  ¹ tn Heb “and they did evil things, angering the Lord.”

[17:15]  ² tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

[17:15]  ³ tn Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[17:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[17:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

[21:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[21:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “like the abominable practices of the nations.”

[21:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “listen.”