In Second Kings, chapter seventeen, verse eighteen, the southern kingdom consisted of the tribe of Judah, elements of the tribes of Benjamin and Simeon, and some from the ten tribes in Israel who migrated to the southern kingdom to worship God at Jerusalem. Therefore, the nation of Judah became a people through whom God’s covenant with the Hebrew people was present. The descendants from the tribes of Israel existed in the Holy Land in New Testament times as in Acts twenty-six, verse seven, Luke two, verse thirty-six, and Philippians three, verse five.
Removal from God’s sight is a loss of his favor and care. “The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous,” as in Psalms thirty-four, verse fifteen. He “knoweth their way,” “watcheth ever them,” as in Jeremiah thirty-one, verse twenty-eight. God “careth for them,” as in Psalm one hundred and forty-six, verse eight. However, “the countenance of the Lord is against them who do evil,” as in Psalm thirty-four, verse sixteen. He will not look upon them nor hear them.
For He is a jealous God and highly resents the giving of honor to any created or imaginary being, which is due to himself only. An expression to signify not only his casting them out of Canaan, then the only place of his solemn worship and gracious presence, or out of his church, but his utter rejection and total removal of this apostate people from his care and providence. This conduct excited the anger of God so that He removed them from His face and only left the tribe of Judah, although Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord and walked in the statutes of Israel, and therefore deserved rejection. The memorial of Israel in which Judah walked is not merely the worship of Baal under the Ahab dynasty, to refer only to Joram, Ahaziah, and Ahaz, but also the worship of the high places and worship of idols, which they practiced under many of the kings of Judah.