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2 KINGS 10

PARAGRAPH DIVISIONS OF MODERN TRANSLATIONS

READING CYCLE THREE (see "Bible Interpretation Seminar")

FOLLOWING THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S INTENT AT THE PARAGRAPH LEVEL

This is a study guide commentary, which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.

Read the chapter in one sitting. Identify the subjects. Compare your subject divisions with the five translations above. Paragraphing is not inspired, but it is the key to following the original author's intent, which is the heart of interpretation. Every paragraph has one and only one subject.

1. First paragraph
2. Second paragraph
3. Etc.

CONTEXTUAL INSIGHTS

1. The military coup performed by Jehu was instigated and predicted by both the prophets, Elijah, 1 Kgs. 21:21,29; and Elisha, 2 Kings 9.
   
   
2. The year of this revolt seems to be 842 B.C.
   
   
3. The rabbis say that Jehu was of the tribe of Manesseh, fulfilling Gen. 48:19.

WORD AND PHRASE STUDY

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:1-11
  ¹Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria, to the rulers of Jezreel, the elders, and to the guardians of the children of Ahab, saying, ²"Now, when this letter comes to you, since your master's sons are with you, as well as the chariots and horses and a fortified city and the weapons, ³select the best and fittest of your master's sons, and set him on his father's throne, and fight for your master's house." ⁴But they feared greatly and said, "Behold, the two kings did not stand before him; how then can we stand?" ⁵And the one who was over the household, and he who was over the city, the elders, and the guardians of the children, sent word to Jehu, saying, "We are your servants, all that you say to us we will do, we will not make any man king; do what is good in your sight." ⁶Then he wrote a letter to them a second time saying, "If you are on my side, and you will listen to my voice, take the heads of the men, your master's sons, and come to me at Jezreel tomorrow about this time." Now the king's sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who were rearing them. ⁷When the letter came to them, they took the king's sons and slaughtered them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him at Jezreel. ⁸When the messenger came and told him, saying, "They have brought the heads of the king's sons," he said, "Put them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning." ⁹Now in the morning he went out and stood and said to all the people, "You are innocent; behold, I conspired against my master and killed him, but who killed all these? ¹⁰Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord, which the Lord spoke concerning the house of Ahab, for the Lord has done what He spoke through His servant Elijah." ¹¹So Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his acquaintances and his priests, until he left him without a survivor.

10:1 "Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria" This was a round number which would include all male descendants and relatives (i.e., Jdgs. 9:5; 12:14).

SPECIAL TOPIC: SYMBOLIC NUMBERS IN SCRIPTURE, #4

▣ "Jehu" This is a form of the sacred name YHWH (cf. Exod. 3:14). This particular form seems to mean "He is."

SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY, D.

▣ "wrote letters and sent them to. . ." Notice the different groups.

1. the rulers (BDB 978)
   1. chieftain
   2. ruler
   3. official
   4. captain
   5. prince
2. the elders (BDB 278, see SPECIAL TOPIC: ELDERS)
3. the guardians (BDB 52, KB 63, Qal PARTICIPLEe, "those who nourish")
4. this group of leaders is labeled in a different way in v. 5

▣ "to the rulers of Jezreel" The Septuagint has "the rulers of Samaria." There is a problem in the Hebrew text because it is incongruent that Jehu, who was in Jezreel, would write to Jezreel.

The JPSOA footnote suggests an emendation from "of Jezreel" to "of the city" (Vulgate). Another possibility is that the leaders of Jezreel fled to Samaria with the relatives of Ahab and Jezebel.

10:2 Jehu is attempting to have the male descendants of Ahab killed, but to do it in such a way as not to draw the displeasure of the populace to himself.

10:4 "the two kings did not stand before him" This is the rationalization of the leaders of Samaria in surrendering to Jehu. The two rulers referred to are Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah (cf. chapter 9).

10:6 "take the heads of the men, your master's sons, and come to me at Jezreel tomorrow about this time" Beheading was a common practice of the day from the Assyrian documents. Jezreel was about 20 miles from Samaria, which meant that these guardians had to act immediately to fulfill Jehu's request, without time to think.

10:8 "Put them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning" Jehu wanted to

1. make a public display of the prophetic fulfillment of the fall of Ahab's house
2. this was an action known in the ANE to discourage treason

▣ "heap" The root (BDB 840) is usually used of gathering grain into bundles after cutting. Here, and only here, it is used of a pile of severed human heads.

10:9 "you are innocent" Jehu is trying to remove the guilt of bloodshed (cf. Deut. 21:1-9). There is some question whether the guardians themselves are later killed (v. 11). This is a specialized sense of the ADJECTIVE "righteous" (BDB 843) as innocent (i.e., Gen. 20:4; Deut. 25:1; 1 Kgs. 8:32; 2 Chr. 6:23; Prov. 17:15,26; 18:5). They (and he) are innocent because YHWH had ordered the death of Ahab's family.

10:10 "Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord" This is an idiom (cf. Josh. 21:45; 23:14; 1 Sam. 3:19; 1 Kgs. 8:56) of the trustworthiness of YHWH's revelations (NIDOTTE, vol 3, p. 129, #3).

SPECIAL TOPIC: INSPIRATION

SPECIAL TOPIC: PROPHECY (OT)

SPECIAL TOPIC: THE BIBLE (its uniqueness and inspiration)

10:11 Notice the different people connected to the house of Omri that Jehu killed.

1. all his great men
2. all his acquaintances
3. all his priests
4. from vv. 1-8, all the kings "sons," which included all relatives

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:12-14
  ¹²Then he arose and departed and went to Samaria. On the way while he was at Beth-eked of the shepherds, ¹³Jehu met the relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah and said, "Who are you?" And they answered, "We are the relatives of Ahaziah; and we have come down to greet the sons of the king and the sons of the queen mother." ¹⁴He said, "Take them alive." So they took them alive and killed them at the pit of Beth-eked, forty-two men; and he left none of them.

10:12 "Beth-eked" The place name (BDB 112) means "the house of binding." This refers to the place where the sheep were sheared and during the process their feet were bound.

10:13 "Jehu met the relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah" King Ahaziah was a grandson of Jezebel and part of the prophet's prediction about the destruction of Ahab's entire house. We learn of the fate of most of his family from 2 Chr. 21:17; 22:1. Apparently these were 42 of his nephews (cf. 2 Chr. 22:8) who had not heard of the slaughter.

▣ "the queen mother" This refers to Jezebel.

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:15-17
  ¹⁵Now when he had departed from there, he met Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him; and he greeted him and said to him, "Is your heart right, as my heart is with your heart?" And Jehonadab answered, "It is." Jehu said, "If it is, give me your hand." And he gave him his hand, and he took him up to him into the chariot. ¹⁶He said, "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord." So he made him ride in his chariot. ¹⁷When he came to Samaria, he killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, until he had destroyed him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to Elijah.

10:15 "Jehonadab the son of Rechab" We learn more of this unique tribal group from 1 Chr. 2:55 and Jer. 35:1-19 (NIDOTTE, vol. 4, pp. 1126-1127). They are related to Moses' father-in-law, Jethro (cf. Genesis 18), apparently Kenites or Midianites. They were strict "YHWHists" and nomads. They are present in the northern ten tribes in Jdgs. 4:17-22. Josephus, Antiq. 9.6.6, says "Jehu and Jehonadab who had been his friend of old." However, this tradition was never mentioned in the Bible. See Roland deVaux, Ancient Israel, pp. 14-15.

▣ "If it is, give me your hand" This idiom is used in several senses (NIDOTTE, vol. 3, p. 210, #3, b).

1. friendship ‒ Gen. 38:28
2. formal alliance ‒ Ezra 10:19; Lam. 5:6; Ezek. 17:18
3. denotes loyalty ‒ 1 Chr. 29:24

In this context any one of the above could fit.

SPECIAL TOPIC: HAND

▣ "heart" See SPECIAL TOPIC: HEART.

10:16 "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord" This shows the faith of Jehonadab and the stated purpose of Jehu's actions.

▣ "he" The MT has the PLURAL but the LXX, Peshitta, and Vulgate have the SINGULAR.

10:17 It is uncertain who of Ahab and Jezebel's family, friends, servants remained.

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:18-24
  ¹⁸Then Jehu gathered all the people and said to them, "Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much. ¹⁹Now, summon all the prophets of Baal, all his worshipers and all his priests; let no one be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal; whoever is missing shall not live." But Jehu did it in cunning, so that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal. ²⁰And Jehu said, "Sanctify a solemn assembly for Baal." And they proclaimed it. ²¹Then Jehu sent throughout Israel and all the worshipers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left who did not come. And when they went into the house of Baal, the house of Baal was filled from one end to the other. ²²He said to the one who was in charge of the wardrobe, "Bring out garments for all the worshipers of Baal." So he brought out garments for them. ²³Jehu went into the house of Baal with Jehonadab the son of Rechab; and he said to the worshipers of Baal, "Search and see that there is here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but only the worshipers of Baal." ²⁴Then they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed for himself eighty men outside, and he had said, "The one who permits any of the men whom I bring into your hands to escape shall give up his life in exchange."

10:18-24 This was a calculated plot by Jehu to gather and destroy all the priests and followers of Ba'al. Ba'al was the male fertility god of Canaan and Phoenicia.

SPECIAL TOPIC: FERTILITY WORSHIP OF THE ANE

10:19 "all the prophets of Baal. . .all his priests" There was a role distinction made between priests and prophets both in Egypt and in Phoenicia. There seems to be a distinction made in the OT (cf. 1 Kgs. 18:19; 22:6). Ba'al and Asherah were worshiped in every locality, on every high hill, throughout Canaan. Ahab had constructed one large temple in Samaria. It was to this central shrine that all local priests and prophets were summoned to a special royal inauguration service where Ba'al was to be acknowledged as the god of Israel (i.e., vv. 18-19). This did not include local adherents to Ba'al and Asherah because no building was big enough for that. These were the leaders.

10:21 "the house of Baal" Ahab built this large temple in Samaria (cf. 1 Kgs. 16:32).

▣ "filled from one end to the other" The MT has the idiom "mouth to mouth" (BDB 805, #5) here, meaning "extremity" or "end-to-end."

1. of a temple ‒ here
2. of a city ‒ 2 Kgs. 21:16
3. of a land ‒ Ezra 9:11

10:22 "wardrobe" This term (BDB 547, KB 594) appears only here and possibly Jer. 38:11. Apparently there were special garments that signified a purification process. Their color is uncertain but in some cases, Ba'al priests wore black robes (cf. Zephaniah 1). The Tyndale Commentary (OT) suggests "red" or "white." This could refer to

1. a robe
2. a vestment (BDB 528)
3. other special clerical garment

10:24 "shall give up his life in exchange" The Hebrew word for "life" is nephesh. If a guard lost his prisoner he must take the penalty himself.

SPECIAL TOPIC: NEPHESH

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:25-27
  ²⁵Then it came about, as soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the royal officers, "Go in, kill them; let none come out." And they killed them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the royal officers threw them out, and went to the inner room of the house of Baal. ²⁶They brought out the sacred pillars of the house of Baal and burned them. ²⁷They also broke down the sacred pillar of Baal and broke down the house of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day.

10:25 "threw them out" This VERB (BDB 1020, KB 1527, Hiphil IMPERFECT with waw) is an idiom for the slain bodies of the Ba'al worshipers being taken outside the Ba'al temple and left unburied (cf. 1 Kgs. 13:25; Isa. 14:19).

10:26 "pillars of the house of Baal and burned them" We learn from archaeology that the Phoenician pantheon was represented by smooth conical stones with no carving. The phrase "and burned them" must relate to the Asherah which was next to the pillars of Ba'al, which was the female symbol, a carved wooden stake or possibly olive tree (i.e., Asherah).

This root (BDB 351, KB 348) appears only here. It is the same consonants as "dung." It was a cultural way in the ANE to curse a place and make it unclean. See NIDOTTE, vol. 2, p. 257.

▣ "to this day" This is a recurrent textual marker of a later editor or scribe.

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:28-31
  ²⁸Thus Jehu eradicated Baal out of Israel. ²⁹However, as for the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin, from these Jehu did not depart, even the golden calves that were at Bethel and that were at Dan. ³⁰The Lord said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in executing what is right in My eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in My heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel." ³¹But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart; he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel sin.

10:29 "the golden calves that were at Bethel and that were at Dan" All the prophets condemned the golden calf worship set up by Jeroboam I (1 Kgs. 12:25-33; NIDOTTE, vol. 3, p. 320). It was not that they were initially idolatrous (cf. 1 Kgs. 12:28-29) but they

1. broke the commandment of no graven images of Deity
2. split the worship of YHWH away from Jerusalem (i.e., the place YHWH caused His name to dwell)

10:30 "My eyes. . .My heart" This is anthropomorphic language to describe Israel's Deity.

SPECIAL TOPIC: ANTHROPOMORPHIC LANGUAGE TO DESCRIBE GOD

10:31 Jehu, like many of the kings of Israel and Judah, started off well but did not

1. follow YHWH with a whole heart
2. follow YHWH all their lives

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:32-33
  ³²In those days the Lord began to cut off portions from Israel; and Hazael defeated them throughout the territory of Israel: ³³from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites and the Reubenites and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan.

10:32 "Hazael" He is mentioned on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III as a very stubborn military adversary of Assyria. We learn of Shalmaneser III's advance even as far as the seacoast of Judah from 2 Kgs. 12:17-18.

10:33 Israel lost the entire trans-Jordan area by YHWH's direction (v. 32).

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 10:34-36
  ³⁴Now the rest of the acts of Jehu and all that he did and all his might, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? ³⁵And Jehu slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. And Jehoahaz his son became king in his place. ³⁶Now the time which Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

10:34 "all his might" This is a very unusual phrase to describe Israeli kings. It is unusual in that it is used of a man who had such major military losses. We learn from the Black Obelisk that tribute was paid by Jehu to Assyria.

10:36 "twenty-eight years" This was one of the longest, most stable reigns in Israel. The only longer reign was that of Jeroboam II that lasted 41 years.

SPECIAL TOPIC: KINGS OF THE DIVIDED MONARCHY

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

This is a study guide commentary which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator.

These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought-provoking, not definitive.

1. Why is Jehu condemned by the prophet Hosea (Hos. 1:4) for what seems to be predicted prophecy concerning the house of Ahab? (See Hard Sayings of the Bible, p. 236, and Gleason Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, pp. 207-209)
2. Why did Jehu not want to kill Ahab's sons in Samaria?
3. Why did Jehu want the support of Jehonadab, the son of Rachab? (v. 15)
4. Why was Jehu so concerned about Ba'al worship but not concerned about the golden calf worship?

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