Jehu Annihilates Ahab's Descendants

The last person that Elijah was told to anoint was installed into office in today's reading. Back in 1 Kings 19, he anointed Elisha, Hazael of Aram, and Jehu son of Nimshi. Before Jehu seized the throne, he was told by a prophet of the Lord to destroy the family of Ahab, specifically all of his male descendants. Jezebal was also mentioned by name. This was to avenge Ahab's killing of all of the prophets of God during his reign. He starts off by killing Joram (also spelled Jehoram which was the name of Jehoshaphat's evil son who married one of Ahab's daughters and led Judah into idolatry). The king of Judah (Ahaziah, who was Jehoram's son and Jehoshphat's grandson) happened to be visiting King Joram at the time. Since Ahaziah's father had married one of Joram's sisters, I suppose this made Joram the uncle of Ahaziah. Anyway, he got caught up inthe killing spree and though Jehu had not been told to kill Ahaziah, he did anyway. The accounts of his death in Kings and Chronicles differ, but are not mutually exclusive. It seems that neither account told the whole story and both chose to highlight different aspects. Somehow, he was wounded but escaped the first attack, went and hid in a cave but was later found by Jehu's men and brought to Jehu for execution.

From there, Jehu had all of Ahab's sons killed, as well as Jezebel. He went on to kill some of Judah's officials and Ahaziah's relatives, simply because he happened upon them. Then Jehu killed all the priests of Baal, which may have seemed like a good idea, but was not a directive from God. I was struck by the viciousness and volume of killing that went on in these passages, and felt ill at ease that this was considered the Lord's work. But reading ahead a bit, I found out that God was very displeased with Jehu for his excessive and brutal vengeance. Jehu will have to answer for stepping far beyond what God had commanded him to do, which was only to take out Ahab's sons and Jezebel. At the close of 2 Kings chapter 10, the Lord did say to Jehu that he had done well in "following my instructions to destroy the family of Ahab". He said nothing about the other killings that had transpired, but would render His judgement for that later on.

Jehu's tirade did have one shining moment I must say. Did you not love the fact that he destryoed the temple of Baal and turned it into a public toilet! He did not however, destroy the golden calves that were the original source of idolatry ushered into Israel by Jeroboam son of Nebat. This too would play into God's displeasure with him. The final sentence of the reading states that "he refused to turn from the sins that Jeroboam had led Israel to commit". This sentence is a peek into the heart of Jehu and lets the reader know that he was not a man after God's own heart. He was used as an instrument of God's judgement against Ahab, but he was never really God's man.

tomorrow's reading: 2 Kings 11:1-21, 12:1-16, 10:32-36; 2 Chron. 22:10-12, 23:1-21, 24:1-22