Albert Barnes Commentary 2 Kings 17:41

"So these nations feared Jehovah, and served their graven images; their children likewise, and their children`s children, as did their fathers, so do they unto this day." — 2 Kings 17:41 (ASV)

Their graven images - The Babylonians appear to have made very sparing use of animal forms among their religious emblems. They represented the male sun, Shamas, by a circle (plain or crossed); the female sun, Anunit, by a six- or eight-rayed star; Nebo by a single wedge or arrowhead, the fundamental element of their writing; and the god of the atmosphere by a double or triple thunderbolt.

The gods were generally represented in human form. A few of them also had animal emblems—the lion, the bull, the eagle, or the serpent—but these seem never to have been set up for worship in temples. There was nothing intentionally grotesque in the Babylonian religion, as there was in the Egyptian and Phoenician.

So do they unto this day - This phrase refers to the mixed worship—the union of professed reverence for Yahweh with the grossest idolatry—that continued until the time this book was written. This would be as late as 561 B.C., or at least 580 B.C. (2 Kings 25:27).

This practice, however, did not continue much longer. When the Samaritans wished to join the Jews in rebuilding the temple (around 537 B.C.), they showed an inclination to draw nearer to Jewish worship, a tendency that marked their religious progress from that time on.

Long before the building of a temple to Yahweh on Mount Gerizim (409 B.C.), they had abandoned all their idolatrous rites. Admitting the binding authority of the Pentateuch, they committed themselves to observing the entire Law.