The Living Bible (120 page)

2 Kings
9

Meanwhile Elisha had summoned one of the young prophets.

    
“Get ready to go to Ramoth-gilead,” he told him. “Take this vial of oil with you
²
 and find Jehu (the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi). Call him into a private room away from his friends,
³
 and pour the oil over his head. Tell him that the Lord has anointed him to be the king of Israel; then run for your life!”

    
⁴
 So the young prophet did as he was told. When he arrived in Ramoth-gilead,
⁵
 he found Jehu sitting around with the other army officers.

    
“I have a message for you, sir,” he said.

    
“For which one of us?” Jehu asked.

    
“For you,” he replied.

    
⁶
 So Jehu left the others and went into the house, and the young man poured the oil over his head and said, “The Lord God of Israel says, ‘I anoint you king of the Lord’s people, Israel.
⁷
 You are to destroy the family of Ahab; you will avenge the murder of my prophets and of all my other people who were killed by Jezebel.
⁸
 The entire family of Ahab must be wiped out—every male, no matter who.
⁹
 I will destroy the family of Ahab as I destroyed the families of Jeroboam (son of Nebat) and of Baasha (son of Ahijah).
¹⁰
 Dogs shall eat Ahab’s wife Jezebel at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.’”

    
Then he opened the door and ran.

    
¹¹
 Jehu went back to his friends and one of them asked him, “What did that crazy fellow want? Is everything all right?”

    
“You know very well who he was and what he wanted,” Jehu replied.

    
¹²
 “No, we don’t,” they said. “Tell us.”

    
So he told them what the man had said and that he had been anointed king of Israel!

    
¹³
 They quickly carpeted the bare steps with their coats and blew a trumpet, shouting, “Jehu is king!”

    
¹⁴
 That is how Jehu (son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi) rebelled against King Joram. (King Joram had been with the army at Ramoth-gilead, defending Israel against the forces of King Hazael of Syria.
¹⁵
 But he had returned to Jezreel to recover from his wounds.)

    
“Since you want me to be king,” Jehu told the men who were with him, “don’t let anyone escape to Jezreel to report what we have done.”

    
¹⁶
 Then Jehu jumped into a chariot and rode to Jezreel himself to find King Joram, who was lying there wounded. (King Ahaziah of Judah was there too, for he had gone to visit him.)
¹⁷
 The watchman on the Tower of Jezreel saw Jehu and his company approaching and shouted, “Someone is coming.”

    
“Send out a rider and find out if he is friend or foe,” King Joram shouted back.
¹⁸
 So a soldier rode out to meet Jehu.

    
“The king wants to know whether you are friend or foe,” he demanded. “Do you come in peace?”

    
Jehu replied, “What do you know about peace? Get behind me!”

    
The watchman called out to the king that the messenger had met them but was not returning.
¹⁹
 So the king sent out a second rider. He rode up to them and demanded in the name of the king to know whether their intentions were friendly or not.

    
Jehu answered, “What do you know about friendliness? Get behind me!”

    
²⁰
 “He isn’t returning either!” the watchman exclaimed. “It must be Jehu, for he is driving so furiously.”

    
²¹
 “Quick! Get my chariot ready!” King Joram commanded.

    
Then he and King Ahaziah of Judah rode out to meet Jehu. They met him at the field of Naboth,
²²
 and King Joram demanded, “Do you come as a friend, Jehu?”

    
Jehu replied, “How can there be friendship as long as the evils of your mother Jezebel are all around us?”

    
²³
 Then King Joram reined the chariot horses around and fled, shouting to King Ahaziah, “There is treachery, Ahaziah! Treason!”

    
²⁴
 Then Jehu drew his bow with his full strength and shot Joram between the shoulders; and the arrow pierced his heart, and he sank down dead in his chariot.

    
²⁵
 Jehu said to Bidkar, his assistant, “Throw him into the field of Naboth, for once when you and I were riding along behind his father Ahab, the Lord revealed this prophecy to me:
²⁶
 ‘I will repay him here on Naboth’s property for the murder of Naboth and his sons.’ So throw him out on Naboth’s field, just as the Lord said.”

    
²⁷
 Meanwhile, King Ahaziah of Judah had fled along the road to Beth-haggan. Jehu rode after him, shouting, “Shoot him too.”

    
So they shot him in his chariot at the place where the road climbs to Gur, near Ibleam. He was able to go on as far as Megiddo, but died there.
²⁸
 His officials took him by chariot to Jerusalem where they buried him in the royal cemetery.
²⁹
 (Ahaziah’s reign over Judah had begun in the twelfth year
*
of the reign of King Joram of Israel.)

    
³⁰
 When Jezebel heard that Jehu had come to Jezreel, she painted her eyelids and fixed her hair and sat at a window.
³¹
 When Jehu entered the gate of the palace, she shouted at him, “How are you today, you murderer! You son of a Zimri who murdered his master!”

    
³²
 He looked up and saw her at the window and shouted, “Who is on my side?” And two or three eunuchs looked out at him.

    
³³
 “Throw her down!” he yelled.

    
So they threw her out the window, and her blood spattered against the wall and on the horses; and she was trampled by the horses’ hoofs.

    
³⁴
 Then Jehu went into the palace for lunch. Afterwards he said, “Someone go and bury this cursed woman, for she is the daughter of a king.”

    
³⁵
 But when they went out to bury her, they found only her skull, her feet, and her hands.

    
³⁶
 When they returned and told him, he remarked, “That is just what the Lord said would happen. He told Elijah the prophet that dogs would eat her flesh
³⁷
 and that her body would be scattered like manure upon the field, so that no one could tell whose it was.”

2 Kings
10

Then Jehu wrote a letter to the city council of Samaria and to the guardians of Ahab’s seventy sons—all of whom were living there.

    
^2-3
 “Upon receipt of this letter, select the best one of Ahab’s sons to be your king, and prepare to fight for his throne. For you have chariots and horses and a fortified city and an armory.”

    
⁴
 But they were too frightened to do it. “Two kings couldn’t stand against this man! What can we do?” they said.

    
⁵
 So the manager of palace affairs and the city manager, together with the city council and the guardians of Ahab’s sons, sent him this message:

    
“Jehu, we are your servants and will do anything you tell us to. We have decided that you should be our king instead of one of Ahab’s sons.”

    
⁶
 Jehu responded with this message: “If you are on my side and are going to obey me, bring the heads of your master’s sons to me at Jezreel at about this time tomorrow.”

    
(These seventy sons of King Ahab were living in the homes of the chief men of the city, where they had been raised since childhood.)
⁷
 When the letter arrived, all seventy of them were murdered, and their heads were packed into baskets and presented to Jehu at Jezreel.
⁸
 When a messenger told Jehu that the heads of the king’s sons had arrived, he said to pile them in two heaps at the entrance of the city gate, and to leave them there until the next morning.

    
^9-10
 In the morning he went out and spoke to the crowd that had gathered around them. “You aren’t to blame,” he told them. “I conspired against my master and killed him, but I didn’t kill his sons! The Lord has done that, for everything he says comes true. He declared through his servant Elijah that this would happen to Ahab’s descendants.”

    
¹¹
 Jehu then killed all the rest of the members of the family of Ahab who were in Jezreel, as well as all of his important officials, personal friends, and private chaplains. Finally, no one was left who had been close to him in any way.
*
¹²
 Then he set out for Samaria and stayed overnight at a shepherd’s inn along the way.
¹³
 While he was there he met the brothers of King Ahaziah of Judah.

    
“Who are you?” he asked them.

    
And they replied, “We are brothers
*
of King Ahaziah. We are going to Samaria to visit the sons of King Ahab and of the Queen Mother, Jezebel.”

    
¹⁴
 “Grab them!” Jehu shouted to his men. And he took them out to the cistern and killed all forty-two of them.

    
¹⁵
 As he left the inn, he met Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, who was coming to meet him. After they had greeted each other, Jehu said to him, “Are you as loyal to me as I am to you?”

    
“Yes,” Jehonadab replied.

    
“Then give me your hand,” Jehu said, and he helped him into the royal chariot.

    
¹⁶
 “Now come along with me,” Jehu said, “and see how much I have done for the Lord.” So Jehonadab rode along with him.
¹⁷
 When he arrived in Samaria he butchered all of Ahab’s friends and relatives, just as Elijah, speaking for the Lord, had predicted.

    
Then Jehu called a meeting of all the people of the city and said to them, “Ahab hardly worshiped Baal at all in comparison to the way I am going to!
^18-19
 Summon all the prophets and priests of Baal, and call together all his worshipers. See to it that every one of them comes, for we worshipers of Baal are going to have a great celebration to praise him. Any of Baal’s worshipers who don’t come will be put to death.”

    
But Jehu’s plan was to exterminate them.
^20-21
 He sent messengers throughout all Israel summoning those who worshiped Baal; and they all came and filled the temple of Baal from one end to the other.
²²
 He instructed the head of the robing room, “Be sure that every worshiper wears one of the special robes.”

    
²³
 Then Jehu and Jehonadab (son of Rechab) went into the temple to address the people: “Check to be sure that only those who worship Baal are here; don’t let anyone in who worships the Lord!”

    
²⁴
 As the priests of Baal began offering sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu surrounded the building with eighty of his men and told them, “If you let anyone escape, you’ll pay for it with your own life.”

    
²⁵
 As soon as he had finished sacrificing the burnt offering, Jehu went out and told his officers and men, “Go in and kill the whole bunch of them. Don’t let a single one escape.”

    
So they slaughtered them all and dragged their bodies outside. Then Jehu’s men went into the inner temple,
²⁶
 dragged out the pillar used for the worship of Baal, and burned it.
²⁷
 They wrecked the temple and converted it into a public toilet, which it still is today.
²⁸
 Thus Jehu destroyed every trace of Baal from Israel.
²⁹
 However, he didn’t destroy the gold calves at Bethel and Dan—this was the great sin of Jeroboam (son of Nebat), for it resulted in all Israel sinning.

    
³⁰
 Afterwards the Lord said to Jehu, “You have done well in following my instructions to destroy the dynasty of Ahab. Because of this I will cause your son, your grandson, and your great-grandson to be the kings of Israel.”

    
³¹
 But Jehu didn’t follow the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he continued to worship Jeroboam’s gold calves that had been the cause of such great sin in Israel.

    
^32-33
 At about that time the Lord began to whittle down the size of Israel. King Hazael conquered several sections of the country east of the Jordan River, as well as all of Gilead, Gad, and Reuben; he also conquered parts of Manasseh from the Aroer River in the valley of the Arnon as far as Gilead and Bashan.

    
³⁴
 The rest of Jehu’s activities are recorded in
The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
³⁵
 When Jehu died, he was buried in Samaria; and his son Jehoahaz became the new king.
³⁶
 In all, Jehu reigned as king of Israel, in Samaria, for twenty-eight years.