Jehu becomes king over Israel and reigns
9
📚And Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets 📖, and said to him, “Tuck up your robe in your belt, and take this flask of oil 📖 in your hand and go to Ramoth-Gilead. 2 📚And when you arrive there, look for Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and have him stand up among his brethren, and take him to an inner room.9:2 1 Kings 19:16-17. This Jehu was not the prophet who had the same name (1 Kings 16:1); and this Jehoshaphat was not the same as the king of Judah (2 Kings 8:16).⚜
3 📚Then take the flask of oil, and pour the oil on his head, and say, Thus says the LORD, ‘I have anointed you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and flee, and do not wait”.
4 So the young man, the young man the prophet, went to Ramoth-Gilead 📖. 5 📚And when he arrived, there were the commanders of the army sitting, and he said, “I have a message for you, O commander!” And Jehu said, “To which one of all of us?” And he said, “To you, O commander”.
6 📚And he arose and went into the house; and he poured the oil on his head, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘I have anointed you king over the people of the LORD, over Israel. 7 📚And you shall strike the house of Ahab 📖 your master, so that I may avenge 📖 the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel. 8 📚For the whole house of Ahab will perish; and I will cut off from Ahab every male person 📖, both bond and free in Israel.
9:8 2 Kings 10:17; 1 Kings 14:10; 1 Kings 21:21. There was not one of Ahab’s descendants who was righteous and God-fearing, who deserved to be spared.⚜
9 📚And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah. 10 📚And the dogs will eat Jezebel 📖 in the plot of ground in Jezreel, and there will be no one to bury her.’ ” And he opened the door and fled.
11 📚Then Jehu came out to the servants of his lord; and one of them said to him, “Is all well? Why did this mad fellow 📖 come to you?”
And he said to them, “You know the man and his talk”.
12 And they said, “That is not true! Tell us now”.
And he said, “Thus and thus he told me, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: I have anointed you king over Israel.’ ”
13 📚Then each one of them hurriedly took his cloak, and put it under him on the top of the stairs, and blew with trumpets 📖, saying, “Jehu is king!”
Jehu kills Joram and Ahaziah
14 📚So Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. (Now Joram had been guarding Ramoth-Gilead, he and all Israel, because of Hazael king of Syria. 15 📚But king Joram 📖 had returned to Jezreel to be healed of the wounds which the Syrians had given him, when he fought with Hazael king of Syria.) And Jehu said, “If you are so minded, then let no one go out or escape from the city to go to tell it in Jezreel 📖. 16 📚So Jehu rode in a chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram lay there. And Ahaziah king of Judah had come down to see Joram.
17 📚And a watchman stood on the tower in Jezreel, and he saw the troop of Jehu as he was coming, and said, “I see a troop”.
And Joram said, “Take a horseman and send him to meet them, and have him say, ‘Is it peace?’ ”
18 📚So someone went on horseback to meet him, and said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’ ”
And Jehu said, “What have you to do with peace? Turn in behind me”. And the watchman reported this, saying, “The messenger went to them, but he is not coming back”.
19 Then he sent out a second man on horseback, who went to them and said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’ ”
And Jehu answered, “What have you to do with peace? Turn in behind me”.
20 📚And the watchman reported this, saying, “He also went to them, and is not coming back. And the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he drives furiously”.
21 📚And Joram said, “Make ready”. And his chariot was made ready. And Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah set out, each in his chariot, and they went out against Jehu, and met him in the plot of ground of Naboth 📖 the Jezreelite. 22 📚And it came about when Joram saw Jehu that he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” And he answered, “What peace, as long as the acts of prostitution of your mother Jezebel 📖 and her acts of witchcraft are so many?”
23 📚And Joram turned his hands and fled, and said to Ahaziah, “There is treachery, Ahaziah!”
9:23 2 Kings 11:14. They who are traitors toward God, should not be surprised when men rise against them. Compare Ps 18:25-26.⚜
24 📚And Jehu drew a bow with his full strength, and hit Jehoram between his shoulders, and the arrow went out through his heart, and he sank down in his chariot. 25 📚Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, “Take him up and throw him in the plot of ground of Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember when you and I were riding together behind his father Ahab that the LORD laid this burden on him: 26 📚‘I have certainly seen yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, says the LORD, and I will repay you in this plot, says the LORD.’ Now, therefore, take him and throw him into that plot of ground, in accordance with the word of the LORD”.
27 📚But when Ahaziah the king of Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house 📖. And Jehu followed him, and said, “Strike him down too, in the chariot”. And they did so at the ascent to Gur, which is at Ibleam. And he fled to Megiddo, and died there. 28 📚And his servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb with his ancestors in the city of David. 29 📚And in the eleventh year of Joram, the son of Ahab, Ahaziah began to reign over Judah.
The death of Jezebel
30 📚And when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head, and looked out at a window.
9:30 Jer 4:30; Ezek 23:36-40. Paint and well-arranged hair cannot keep God’s judgment away from women of depraved heart. Compare Isa 3:16-24.⚜
31 📚And as Jehu came in at the gate, she said, “Did Zimri, who killed his master, have peace?”
9:31 Zimri had murdered king Elah – 1 Kings 16:9-10.⚜
32 📚And he raised his face to the window, and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” And two or three eunuchs looked out at him. 33 📚And he said, “Throw her down”. So they threw her down; and some of her blood splattered on the wall and on the horses; and he trampled her under foot.
34 📚And when he had come in, he ate and drank, and said, “Go, see now to that cursed woman, and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter”. 35 📚And they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. 36 📚Therefore they came back and told him. And he said, “This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘In the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will eat the flesh of Jezebel.
37 📚And the corpse of Jezebel will be like dung on the surface of the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that they will not say, This is Jezebel.’ ”
9:37 In this way God showed His hatred of all that in which Jezebel delighted. Compare Ps 83:9-10; Isa 5:25; Jer 8:2; 9:22; 16:4; 25:33; Luke 16:15.⚜