Chapter 10

Jehu tells the keepers of Ahab's 70 sons in Samaria to take their heads and send them to him in Jezreel.  They do so, wantonly beheading these 70 men, who were apparently helpless to do anything about it.  Would have been blood everywhere, and screaming.  This was God's curse on Ahab for these 70 sons of his to die, one and all.  Just like Jeroboam and Baasha. We never see anything like this in the Southern Kingdom, because God had promised David to keep his descendants on that southern throne forever.  Remember that these northern Kings very often ascend to the throne by murder, treachery, and plotting.  They don't very often ascend the normal way - when their father dies.  Sometimes a few generations maintain the throne in the north, but eventually, it changes.  God preserves the Southern Kingdom, and Jerusalem, the city where He chose to set his name.  Surely we can see this as God working to make sure David's throne remains in the hands of his descendants.

He piles the heads in two piles at the gates.  Next day he takes responsibility for killing King Joram, but says it is the leaders in Samaria who killed the sons.  He reminds the people of the prophecy concerning Ahab, then kills all Ahab's great men, and his priests, until he has none remaining.

Jehu heads for Samaria.  On the way he meets 42 relatives of Ahaziah coming to visit the royal princes (who have all been beheaded) and the sons of the queen mother (Jezebel).  Jehu has them all taken alive, but then slaughters them at the pit of Beth-eked.  None are left alive.  This Jehu is off to a murderous start!

Still on the way to Samaria, Jehu meets his old friend Jehonadab.  When he finally arrives in Samaria he wipes out "all who remain to Ahab".  This is the end of the house of Ahab, as Elijah the Tishbite prophesied.  This verse, as Jehu and Jehonadab pledge loyalty to each other:

16 And he said, "Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD." So he had him ride in his chariot. [2Ki 10:16 ESV]

It is very tempting to see Jehu as a very evil mass murdering usurper.  But we should remember that He was carrying out God's command, as delivered to him by a son of the prophets who came direct from Elisha.  All this barbarism is the fulfillment of God's prophecies by His prophets.  Despite how repulsive it is to us to think of in this day and time, it was no more "wrong" than the invasion and conquest of Canaan and its people.  Jehu is subverting his own qualms about violence and murder to the will of God.  He has zeal for the Lord.

2025 - There is also the point that Ahab escaped all this.  He was killed by a random arrow sneaking through a weak spot in his armor in a battle.  It didn't kill him right away, but he died the same day.  He was not executed.  He did not go down to treachery.  But his sons surely did.  70 sons, killed one at a time or all together, but all saw it coming and their pleas would fall on deaf ear.  Killed for nothing they themselves had done, but because they were Ahab's children.  And Ahab's friends and acquaintances - or should we say is co-conspirators and willing - even enthusiastic partners in crime - are also executed.  Dragged from their houses and beheaded or killed with swords.  We can condemn all this, we can say "What kind of God would order such consequences..." or we can remember that none who died were innocent, all got less than their sin deserved.  And something else we ought to remember - a fact that these days never occurs to us - is that we ought never support evil people, evil kings, and we should never call an evil person friend.  We must judge, as those in Ahab's kingdom did, and choose right over riches, choose isolation over fellowship with evil.  If you were not known as the evil king's friend, you did not get yourself executed.  Here too people had made their own choices.

Jehu proclaims that he is a worshiper of Baal, and has all the Baal-worshipers in Israel come to Samaria.  He has them dress up in their finest, and offers a sacrifice.  Then he has every last man of them killed, they destroy the temple of Baal, and burn the pillars of Baal.  This temple is turned into a latrine, as it still is this day.  Again, a mass murder.  Hundreds at least, perhaps thousands.  Killed with swords of the 80 guards Jehu put around the temple of Baal.  This would not have gone quickly.  These people - men, women, and children very likely, would have had time to comprehend what was happening.  They would have been filled with terror, they would have died in pain, and they would have awakened in hellfire.  It seems to me that Jehu did this on his own.  The son of the prophet did not tell him to wipe out Baal worship in the north. 

So how, after all this, does he still worship the golden calves set up by Jeroboam.  He is still a heathen himself, though he zealously carried out God's commands.  Not only that, but even though he is a calf worshiper, because Jehu had done as the Lord intended, God promises that his descendants to the fourth generation will sit on the throne of Israel.  Recall now that this is the son of Jehoshaphat.  So now relatives will be on the thrones of both Israel and Judah.

This verse comes next:

32 In those days the LORD began to cut off parts of Israel. Hazael defeated them throughout the territory of Israel: [2Ki 10:32 ESV]  God is removing the northern kingdom, a little at a time at first, as birth pangs, but inexorably it is coming apart.  Sure sounds like what is happening in this country today.

Hazael makes many inroads into Israel, and captures much land during Jehu's reign.  He captures the lands east of the Jordan, the land of the tribes that did not take a share of Canaan, but instead remained on the land that was good for herds to the east.  These are the first to go, because they did not follow God's plan.  And also remember the prophecy about Hazael, and all the evil he would do to Israel. 

Jehu is King for 28 years.  He dies and is buried in Samaria.  His son Jehoahaz reigns in his place.