UNROLL
First light over Samaria's broad, rounded hill standing alone in its ring of green valleys: a plain pale stone wall, flat roofs climbing inside, the royal enclosure on the summit, and a single thin column of gray smoke rising straight up from inside the walls into a calm dawn sky.

The Book of

2 Kings 10

“Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD!” Jehu ends Baal’s worship in Israel, and the LORD says he has done well. So why is the chapter’s last word about his heart?

36 verses≈ 8 min4 peopleBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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In this chapter

Where we are

  1. 1–8ElishaThe prophet's double portion
  2. 9–12JehuThe house of Ahab fallsChapter 10
  3. 13–17Last kings of IsraelSamaria falls
  4. 18–20HezekiahTrust in the LORD
  5. 21–23JosiahThe Book found
  6. 24–25ExileJerusalem falls

Ahab’s Seventy Sons Killed

A lamplit room in the royal house at Jezreel: a scribe in a plain linen robe ties a cord round a rolled scroll and presses a small clay seal on the knot, two more sealed scrolls on the low table; Jehu, standing in his bronze scale coat and deep-red cloak, hands one to a courier in a short traveling tunic.

Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the officials of Jezreel, to the elders, and to the guardians of the sons of Ahab, saying: “When this letter arrives, since your master’s sons are with you and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weaponry, select the best and most worthy son of your master, set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.”

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But they were terrified and reasoned, “If two kings could not stand against him, how can we?”

So the palace administrator, the overseer of the city, the elders, and the guardians sent a message to Jehu: “We are your servants, and we will do whatever you say. We will not make anyone king. Do whatever is good in your sight.”

Then Jehu wrote them a second letter and said: “If you are on my side, and if you will obey me, then bring the heads of your master’s sons to me at Jezreel by this time tomorrow.” Now the sons of the king, seventy in all, were being brought up by the leading men of the city.

And when the letter arrived, they took the sons of the king and slaughtered all seventy of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu at Jezreel.

When the messenger arrived, he told Jehu, “They have brought the heads of the sons of the king.” And Jehu ordered, “Pile them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning.”

The next morning, Jehu went out and stood before all the people and said, “You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him. But who killed all these?

Know, then, that not a word the LORD has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail, for the LORD has done what He promised through His servant Elijah.”

2 Kings 10:10

So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his great men and close friends and priests, leaving him without a single survivor.

Then Jehu set out toward Samaria. At Beth-eked of the Shepherds,

Jehu

Jehu met some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah and asked, “Who are you?”

Ahaziah’s relatives

“We are relatives of Ahaziah,” they answered, “and we have come down to greet the sons of the king and of the queen mother.”

Jehu

Then Jehu ordered, “Take them alive.”

So his men took them alive, then slaughtered them at the well of Beth-eked—forty-two men. He spared none of them.

A stony road through the hill country at midday: a small two-wheeled chariot halted on it, and Jehu in his bronze scale coat and deep-red cloak leans down from the car to grip the hand of Jehonadab, a lean, gray-bearded older man in a plain dark goat-hair robe with a staff, who steps up to join him; soldiers on foot wait behind.

When he left there, he found Jehonadab son of Rechab, who was coming to meet him. Jehu greeted him and asked, “Is your heart as true to mine as my heart is to yours?” “It is!” Jehonadab replied. “If it is,” said Jehu, “give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand, and Jehu helped him into his chariot,

saying, “Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD!” So he had him ride in his chariot.

0:24

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

When Jehu came to Samaria, he struck down everyone belonging to Ahab who remained there, until he had destroyed them, according to the word that the LORD had spoken to Elijah.

Reflect

See my zeal

Jehu told Jehonadab, “Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD!” Zeal for God is good. Zeal that wants to be watched is something else. Where are you tempted to serve God so that others will notice? What would it look like to do the same thing quietly, for Him alone?

Jehu Kills the Priests of Baal

Dusk, seen from a palace terrace across Samaria's flat rooftops: a new stone temple with a walled court and a large stone altar before it sends up smoke, a few tiny figures in the court.

Then Jehu brought all the people together and said, “Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu will serve him a lot. Now, therefore, summon to me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests. See that no one is missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal. Whoever is missing will not live.”

But Jehu was acting deceptively in order to destroy the servants of Baal.

And Jehu commanded, “Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal.” So they announced it.

And they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed eighty men outside and warned them, “If anyone allows one of the men I am delivering into your hands to escape, he will forfeit his life for theirs.”

When he had finished making the burnt offering, Jehu said to the guards and officers, “Go in and kill them. Do not let anyone out.” So the guards and officers put them to the sword, threw the bodies out, and went into the inner room of the temple of Baal.

Years later, morning: the tumbled ruin of a plain stone temple inside a broken court wall in Samaria, its walls pulled down to knee height, a broken standing stone lying across the rubble, a blackened patch on the paving, weeds and thistles grown up between the stones.

They brought out the sacred pillar of the temple of Baal and burned it. They also demolished the sacred pillar of Baal. Then they tore down the temple of Baal and made it into a latrine, which it is to this day.

Question

Quick question

Jehu gathered every servant of Baal in Israel into Baal’s own temple in Samaria.

What was done to the temple of Baal in Samaria?

Jehu Repeats Jeroboam’s Sins

Mid-morning on Bethel's stony hilltop, seen from below at a distance: a broad raised platform of squared stones with a big stone altar sending up a thin line of smoke, and at the back on a pedestal a small golden young bull catching the sun.

Thus Jehu eradicated Baal from Israel, but he did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit—the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.

Nevertheless, the LORD said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in My sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in My heart, four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.”

Yet Jehu was not careful to follow the instruction of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart.

2 Kings 10:31

Dusk on the high, open plateau of Gilead: across the stubble fields, far off, the many goat-hair tents and campfire smoke of an Aramean army camped before a small walled Israelite town of fieldstone, horses picketed in rows.

He did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit.

In those days the LORD began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory from the Jordan eastward through all the land of Gilead (the region of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh), and from Aroer by the Arnon Valley through Gilead to Bashan.

To DamascusBashanGileadGadReubenArnonJordan RiverAroerSamaria

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

Hazael takes the land east of the Jordan

Hazael king of Aram took everything Israel held east of the Jordan, the land Moses had given to Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh: “from Aroer by the Arnon Valley through Gilead to Bashan.” Samaria and the hill country west of the river were what remained to Jehu.

Jehoahaz Succeeds Jehu in Israel

Israel

Jehu of Israel · 28 years

  1. His acts and might recorded

    As for the rest of the acts of Jehu, along with all his accomplishments and all his might, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

  2. Buried in Samaria; Jehoahaz reigns

    And Jehu rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and his son Jehoahaz reigned in his place.

  3. Twenty-eight years in Samaria

    So the duration of Jehu’s reign over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

Jehu: God’s command, Jehu’s zeal

Anointed byGod’s word9:6–10Elijah’s wordkept9:36; 10:10, 17Baal wiped out10:28“you have donewell”Four generations(10:30)“see my zeal”Zeal on show (10:16)Deceit andblood10:19; Hosea 1:4Not with allhis heartThe calves kept(10:29, 31)

Whiteboard

Jehu did what the LORD commanded, and the LORD said so: “you have done well.” But he did it with lies and blood, for his own throne, and he never turned from Jeroboam’s calves. Doing one great thing for God is not the same as giving Him the whole heart.

Pray

The whole heart

Thank the LORD that He keeps every word He speaks and sees every heart. Ask Him for an undivided heart, careful to follow Him in the quiet things as well as the public ones. Ask for zeal that seeks His glory and not your own. And ask His mercy for the places where, like Jehu, you have kept your own ‘calves’ while doing good things for Him.

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2 Kings 10

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A verse to carry with you

Yet Jehu was not careful to follow the instruction of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart.

2 Kings 10:31

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