" TDOT, IX, 331.1. Though 2 Ki.17:1-18 attributes the demise of the northern kingdom to, among other pagan practices, the sin of "bowing down to all the starry hosts" (v.16), Manasseh was the first king to whom the sin of astral veneration was specifically attributed (2 Ki.17:16). It has often been suggested that Israel's capitulation to the astral cults was a matter of political necessity in the face of Assyrian and Babylonian hegemony; on this, however, see M. Gogan, Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.E. (SBLMS, 19; Missoula, MN: Scholars Press, 1974).
2. Commentators who subscribe to this reading include Driver, 70; Craigie, 137; Weinfeld, 206, Tigay, 50, and McConville, 108. Cf. Maye's caution (154): "The intention behind the verse is not to express tolerance or ridicule of the nations and their practices, but rather to prepare the way for the contrasting picture of Israel's favoured status, in the next verse."
3. See comments on Deut 32:8-9.
4. Tigay, 50.
5. See, e.g., Psm.21:9; Eze.22:20, 22; Mal.4:1
6. See, e.g., Psm.12:6; 66:10; Prov.17:3; 27:21; Isa,48:10; Zec.13:9, & Mal.3:3.
7. Nelson, 67. Israel's Egyptian sojourn is described with the same metaphor in 1 Ki.8:51 and Jer.11:4.
8. s.v."" TDOT, IX, 331.
9. Hence Naboth's unfaltering refusal to sell his vineyard to Ahab (1 Ki 21:3). For a useful overview of the social customs concerning properties, see C. J. H. Wright, God's People in God's Land: Family, Land and Property in the Old Testament (Reprinted; Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1997).