2 Kings 9:1-13
Why did this mad fellow come
Anointed indoors and in a hurry. His fellow officers press him until he tells them, and they throw their garments under him on the stairs and blow a trumpet.
People of the Bible
Jehu
Was anointed in a back room, drove like a madman, and destroyed Baal out of Israel without ever leaving the calves of Jeroboam.
Jehu is a commander sitting with the other officers when a young prophet arrives, calls him into an inner chamber, pours oil on his head, says he is king and is to strike the house of Ahab, and then opens the door and runs. His men ask what the mad fellow wanted. Within a day he has killed two kings, ridden into Jezreel, had Jezebel thrown from a window, and written letters to Samaria that end with seventy heads in baskets at the gate. Then he gathers every worshipper of Baal into one building on the pretext of a great sacrifice.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Jehu
- 01
- 02
2 Kings 9:16-26
The driving is like the driving of Jehu
The watchman on the tower reports two messengers who do not come back and then a style of driving he recognises. Joram meets him in Naboth’s portion and asks if it is peace.
- 03
2 Kings 9:30-37
Throw her down
Jezebel meets him at a window painted and dressed. He asks who is on his side, two or three eunuchs answer, and he goes in to eat and drink before ordering her buried.
- 04
2 Kings 10:1-11
Two heaps at the gate
He writes to the guardians of Ahab’s seventy sons daring them to fight. They do not. He has the heads laid in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning and then speaks to the people about righteousness.
- 05
2 Kings 10:18-31
Ahab served Baal a little
He proclaims a great sacrifice, fills the house of Baal from end to end, checks that no servant of the LORD is inside, and posts eighty men outside. Then the text notes the calves were not removed.
Why it matters
Jehu is the instrument that works and the man who stops halfway. He is given four generations on the throne for doing what was right in carrying out the sentence on Ahab, which is the longest dynasty the north gets. And the same chapter says he took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD with all his heart, and did not depart from the golden calves. Hosea later names Jezreel against his house, so even the obedience is weighed and found to have gone too far.
3 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
