Teaching the Fear of the Lord

And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof. And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them. Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because they know not the manner of the God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry (holikhu) thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go (v'yelekhu) and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.

2 Kings 17:24ff (Spoke 12, Cycle 1)

This passage records the Assyrian king's order to repopulate Samaria with foreigners after he exiled the northern ten tribes of Israel. It appears that God wanted some of His priests put back in the land, so He sent lions (also the symbol of Assyria, see Nahum 2:11) to terrify the new inhabitants. This brings us to yet another mysterious wonder of God's Word. Searching the entire Bible for all verses containing the words "teach or "taught" in conjunction with "fear the Lord" or "fear of the Lord" yields two and only two verses – the Lamed verse of AV Psalm 34, "Come ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD," and 2 Kings 17:28 quoted above, "Then one of the priests ... taught them the fear of the Lord." This can be verified online by searching the KJV for the set ("fear the Lord" or "fear of the Lord", teach/taught) ^[Verify] . We have, therefore, an Alphabetic KeyLink from Lamed verse of AV Psalm 34 to the Twelfth Book.

Note also that two forms of halak (to go), very similar to lekhu, are used in the verse immediately preceding 2 Kings 17:28. (Recall the maximized distribution of lekhu in 2 Kings discussed in Go and Enquire). The common letters are printed bold in the table. This should be compared with the similar but distinct Spoke 9 Alphabetic KeyLink called Teaching the Good and the Upright Way (BW book pg 222) to see how precisely the order and content of the Books follow the alphabetic sequence.

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