2 Kingschapter 9
37 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Quickly, each man took his garment and put it under Jehu on the bare steps. Then they blew the ram’s horn and proclaimed, “Jehu is king!”
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter carries out a sentence spoken a generation earlier, and it does so through a soldier. It was written for readers who remembered a stolen vineyard and waited to see whether God had forgotten it. The first hearers knew what an anointing meant and how an army proclaimed a new king. Listen for the words of the old sentence returning on the lips of the man who fulfils it. Listen also for the plot of ground where the chapter's deaths fall. A later prophet called this bloodshed a charge against the house that shed it, and a reader should hold both in view.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had waited a generation for the sentence on Ahab's house to fall
- What
- An account of Jehu anointed king of Israel and of his swift killing of Joram, Ahaziah of Judah and Jezebel.
- Where
- The army camp at Ramoth-gilead, the road to Jezreel, and the royal residence at Jezreel.
- When
- 841 BC, a year fixed from outside the Bible by Assyrian records of Jehu's tribute.
- Why
- To show the sentence spoken against Ahab's house carried out in full, on the ground where the wrong was done.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Jehu, a commander of the army holding the border post at Ramoth-gilead, and to an unnamed young prophet sent by Elisha. The year is 841 BC, which the Assyrian record fixes at the other end by the tribute Jehu paid in the same year.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The places are an army camp in Gilead and the royal residence at Jezreel, about forty-five miles apart. The occasion is a wounded king recovering at Jezreel while his army stands at the border.
A first hearer knew what an anointing was and what it cost. Oil came in a flask and was poured on the head with the commission spoken over the man. Doing it in the back room of an army camp, by a messenger who then runs for his life, is a measure of the danger.
The officers' answer is the recognised ritual of acclamation. Clothing laid on the bare steps under a man's feet made a throne dais out of a stairway, and the ram's horn published it.
A first hearer also knew the ground. The plot named twice in this chapter is Naboth's field, taken by false witness in Ahab's day, and the meeting between the two kings and Jehu falls on it.
Jezebel painting her eyes with kohl and dressing her hair is a queen meeting her death in full royal presentation, and her greeting names Zimri, the usurper who lasted seven days. Later in the same year Jehu appears in Assyrian art on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, kneeling with tribute. It is the closest thing that survives to a contemporary portrait of a ruler named in the Bible.
Significance
The first hearers heard Elijah's sentence come back word for word, spoken by the man carrying it out. Nothing had been forgotten in the years since the vineyard.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The chapter is also a warning about the instrument. Jehu is doing what God commanded. The deceit, the speed and the relish of it are what make a later prophet call the blood of Jezreel a charge against Jehu's own house at Hosea 1:4.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus keeps seven notes on this chapter, all of them Rashi in the Metsudah Tanach translation of Lakewood, New Jersey, under a CC-BY licence, and it carries seventeen linked notes against them, so the balance here tips further toward the unquotable material than in any chapter of this half except 13. Rashi opens by fixing the moment. The prophet called his disciple at the same time that the northern king lay ill at Jezreel (Rashi on II Kings 9:1:1), which ties the anointing to the wound the chapter before it reported. The young man sent with the oil Rashi identifies through the Targum as the disciple of Elisha the prophet, explaining the doubled word in the verse, and the Metsudah footnote gives Malbim's alternative that he was a prophet in his own right (Rashi on II Kings 9:4:1).
The reaction of the officers to the messenger is the passage where the tradition says the most about how a prophet was seen. Rashi reads their words as recognition of a known type, that they knew the man to be insane, and the footnote sets out two accounts of that, Metzudat David's that prophets under the influence of prophecy sometimes lost control of themselves and acted strangely, with a cross reference to Saul, and Radak's that followers of Baal were making these derogatory remarks about prophets (Rashi on II Kings 9:11:1). The two readings pull in opposite directions, one explaining the insult from the prophet's own bearing and one from the mouths it came out of, and the corpus prints both. Jehu's first answer to them Rashi reads as an accusation of concealment, that they are telling him he is hiding what was said, and he supplies Jehu's motive, that he wanted to conceal the prophecy and wait for a better time to reveal it (Rashi on II Kings 9:12:1).
The acclamation on the steps draws the longest note in the chapter, and it is about what the steps were. Rashi gives the Targum's rendering and explains that these were steps made to correspond to the hours of the day, a kind of sundial where the shade descends one step in an hour, and he then works the Hebrew word for the step itself as an expression of a notch, tracing the same root into a term in the laws of ritual slaughter and giving an Old French word beside it (Rashi on II Kings 9:13:1). A reader who meets the shadow on the dial at chapter 20 should know that the tradition has already found a stepped hour-marker here at chapter 9. Jehu's condition to the officers Rashi completes from the context, that what he means is that he reign (Rashi on II Kings 9:15:1), and the company seen from the tower he glosses as a troop, with Ralbag's alternative of a multitude of people in the footnote (Rashi on II Kings 9:17:1).
Seventeen further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Radak on II Kings 9:2:1, 9:3:1, 9:6:1, 9:7:1, 9:8:1, 9:10:1, 9:14:1, 9:18:1, 9:20:1, 9:22:1, 9:23:1 and 9:24:1, Malbim on II Kings 9:9:1, 9:16:1 and 9:19:1, and Metzudat David on II Kings 9:5:1 and 9:21:1. Twelve of the seventeen are Radak, which is the largest run of one commentator's linked notes in this half of the book, and they cover the anointing charge, the killing of the two kings and the words exchanged with the queen. The classical reading of the purge itself therefore has to be followed out through those links.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-five rabbinic locators on this chapter, seventeen Midrash and eight Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The sending of the disciple and the anointing carry the opening run. Horayot 11b:13 stands over verses 1 to 14 together and Keritot 5b:8 over verses 1 to 6, and both of those tractates treat the anointing oil and who may be anointed with it, which is how the tradition files the errand. Sifrei Zuta 12:34:1 stands at the first verse, Bamidbar Rabbah 8:1 at the third, and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 10:1 at the fourth. The messenger's arrival among the captains draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 39:23:1, and the charge itself draws Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 6:1:9 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 357:1. The sentence on the house of Ahab draws Zevachim 31a:12.
Jehu's driving draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 6:18 and Otzar Midrashim, The Aleph Bet of ben Sira 1:30. The shooting of the northern king draws Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 3:2:24, Midrash Tanchuma, Mishpatim 9:1 and Shemot Rabbah 31:4, and both of those last two expound the laws of damages and of justice given after Sinai. The casting of the body into Naboth's field draws five, Bereshit Rabbah 22:9, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 38:7:3, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 38:10:2, Sanhedrin 48b:9 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 38:3, and three of those expound the deaths of Er and Onan, which is where the tradition works out a death sent in judgment on a named sin.
The queen at the window draws Pesikta DeRav Kahana 18:4 and Pesikta Rabbati 32:1, both of which sit in the cycle of readings of consolation. Her words to Jehu draw Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 14:2. Her fall draws Tractate Soferim 7:1 and the finding of what was left of her draws Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 17:5, with Tractate Soferim 7:2 at the last verse of the chapter. That the tractate about how a scroll is written stands twice in these closing verses is worth a reader's notice, because it is a tractate about the handling of text rather than about the handling of a body. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 9:1:1 to 9:17:1, seven notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Kings 9:2:1, 9:3:1, 9:6:1, 9:7:1, 9:8:1, 9:10:1, 9:14:1, 9:18:1, 9:20:1, 9:22:1, 9:23:1 and 9:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 9:11:1; Malbim, Malbim on II Kings 9:9:1, 9:16:1 and 9:19:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 9:4:1; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 9:5:1 and 9:21:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 9:11:1; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/9.json, the 25 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 17 Midrash and 8 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A flask of oil poured out in an inner chamber
2 Kings 9:1-3
Elisha sends one of the sons of the prophets to Ramoth-gilead with a flask of oil. The anointing is to be done and over before the army around Jehu can ask a question. Jewish tradition names the messenger Jonah the son of Amittai, a reading Gill records without pressing it.
2 Kings 9:1
“And Elisha the prophet called one of the children of the prophets,.... Who the Jews generally say (k) was Jonah the son of Amittai: and said, gird up thy loins; his loose and long garments about his loins, for quicker dispatch in travelling: and take this box of oil in thine hand; for an use after directed to: and go to Ramothgilead; where Joram had left his army with his captains, to keep the city from the Syrians. (k) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 18. p. 47.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Kings 9:1
“Box - Rather, “flask,” or “vial” 1Sa 10:1. Oil and ointment were commonly kept in open-mouthed jars, vases, or bottles made of glass, alabaster, or earthen-ware. Many such vessels have been found both in Egypt and Assyria. The “oil” was the holy oil, compounded after the receipt given in Exodus Exo 30:23-25.”
2 Kings 9:1
“Ramoth-gilead--a city of great importance to the Hebrew people, east of Jordan, as a fortress of defense against the Syrians. Jehoram had regained it (2Ki 8:29). But the Israelitish army was still encamped there, under the command of Jehu.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat: Jehu is named by his father and his grandfather, Jehoshaphat and Nimshi, so the messenger cannot mistake the man. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown place him in command of the army of Israel still camped at Ramoth-gilead. The anointing is to be done in private.
2 Kings 9:2
“His being suddenly animated for the service would be proof sufficient of his being anointed to it. There needed no other proof. The thing signified was the best evidence of the sign. [2.] To do it expeditiously.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Elisha gives the prophet only the opening words of the oracle. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the full message, with its sentence on the house of Ahab, comes at verses 7 to 10. They read the order to run as a guard against capture by the spies and servants.
2 Kings 9:3
“I have anointed thee king over Israel--This was only a part of the message; the full announcement of which is given (2Ki 9:7-10). flee, and tarry not--for fear of being surprised and overtaken by the spies or servants of the court.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:3
“Flee, and tarry not - The probable object of these directions was at once to prevent questioning, and to render the whole thing more striking.”
2 Kings 9:4-6
the young prophet went to Ramoth-gilead: The prophet poured the oil on his head, and the words add a title: king over the LORD’s people Israel. This covenant language, used of David's people, still calls this kingdom the LORD's own. Gill notes that Hosea 1:9, where God disowns Israel as His people, was still to come.
2 Kings 9:4
“The young man the prophet - This should be translated, The servant of the prophet; that is, the servant which Elisha now had in place of Gehazi.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The commanders are sitting together, and Albert Barnes takes the scene as a council of war. Jehu's question makes the messenger name him in front of the others. Matthew Henry saw the point of it: no captain could later say Jehu had seized the honor by speaking first.
2 Kings 9:5
“Perhaps Jehu had some intimation of his business; and therefore, that he might not seem too forward to catch at the honour, he asked, To which of all us? that it might not be said afterwards he got it by speaking first, but they might all be satisfied he was indeed the person designed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:5
“The chief officers - the generals - were assembled together in Jehu’s quarters, perhaps holding a council of war. The place of assembly seems to have been the great court. Hence, Jehu “went into the house” 2Ki 9:6 entered, that is, one of the rooms opening into the court.”
king over the LORD’s people Israel: The words spoken in the room add a title the short form at verse 3 left out: the LORD's people. Adam Clarke read the title as Jehu's charter, to rule by God's law and bring back the pure worship of God in Israel. Israel still belongs to the LORD.
2 Kings 9:6
“And he arose, and went into the house,.... Into the inner chamber in it: and he poured the oil on his head, and said unto him, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel; for though they were fallen into idolatry, and from the pure worship of God, yet the Lord had still a right unto them, and as yet he had not wrote a "Loammi" Hos 1:9 upon them; and there were many among them which had not bowed the knee to Baal.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:6
“King over the people of the Lord - This pointed out to Jehu that he was to rule that people according to God’s law; and consequently, that he was to restore the pure worship of the Most High in Israel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 9:7-10
strike down the house of your master Ahab: The charge is the blood of My servants the prophets, shed by the hand of Jezebel. Ahab's house is the third dynasty condemned in the formula spoken against the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha. At Jezreel the dogs will devour Jezebel.
2 Kings 9:7
“Thou shalt smite the house of Ahab - For their most cruel murders they have forfeited their own lives, according to that immutable law, “He that sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed.” This and the two following verses contain the commission which Jehu received from the Lord against the bloody house of Ahab.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:7
“That they were idolaters was bad enough, and merited all that was brought upon them; yet that is not mentioned here, but the controversy God has with them is for their being persecutors, not so much their throwing down God's altars as their slaying his prophets with the sword.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The whole house of Ahab: Adam Clarke counted this verse and the next as part of the commission Jehu received against the house of Ahab. He grounded the sentence in the law that the man who sheds human blood forfeits his own life. Every male, slave and free, falls under it.
2 Kings 9:8
“For the whole house of Ahab shall perish,.... Be cut off by death, and that in a violent manner, not one should escape: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel; of these phrases; see Gill on 1Ki 14:10, 1Ki 21:21.”
like the houses of Jeroboam: Two ruling houses of the northern kingdom had already been wiped out, Jeroboam's by Baasha and Baasha's by Zimri. Adam Clarke read this verse inside Jehu's commission against the bloody house of Ahab. Ahab's house is the third.
2 Kings 9:9
“And I will make the house of Ahab, The same is threatened; see Gill on 1Ki 21:22.”
the dogs will devour Jezebel: Jezebel is named apart from the rest of Ahab's house, marked for the dogs and denied a grave. Matthew Henry weighed the whole royal line against the blood of the prophets and found it too little to pay for that blood. The young prophet runs as Elisha ordered.
2 Kings 9:10
“The whole stock of royal blood was little enough, and too little, to atone for the blood of the prophets, the saints and martyrs, which, in God's account, is of great price.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 9:11-13
The captains call the messenger this madman, and Jehu answers only, “You know his kind and their babble,” letting them draw their own conclusion. Once he repeats the anointing word plainly, the captains act at once. Quickly, they blew the ram’s horn and proclaimed him king.
2 Kings 9:11
This mad fellow - The captains, seeing his excited look, his strange action, and his extreme haste, call him (as soldiers would) “this wild fellow.”
The captains refuse Jehu's evasion, and Adam Clarke reports that the Chaldee gives their words as a flat charge that he is lying. Matthew Henry notes the risk Jehu ran in telling them: loyalty to Joram or envy of Jehu could have turned any captain against him.
2 Kings 9:12
“They said, It is false - Or, as the Chaldee has it, Thou liest. Or, perhaps, it might be thus understood, “We know he has said nothing but folly and lies, nevertheless, let us hear what he has said.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:12
“He knew not but some of them either out of loyalty to Joram or envy of him, might oppose him, and go near to crush his interest in its infancy; but he relied on the divine appointment, and was not afraid to own it, knowing whom he had trusted: he that raised him would stand by him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
on the bare steps: Albert Barnes describes the outer cloak as a large shawl or blanket, fit to serve as a carpet of state. The steps ran up the house wall from the court to the upper story or the roof. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set Jehu at the top of them.
2 Kings 9:13
“Took every man his garment, and put it under him - The outer cloak of the Jews was a sort of large shawl or blanket, which might well serve for a carpet of state. Such a carpet is commonly represented on the seat of an Assyrian throne in the Nineveh sculptures. The stairs rose against the walI of the house from the pavement of the court to the level of the upper story, or of the roof.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:13
“The popularity of Jehu with the army thus favored the designs of Providence in procuring his immediate and enthusiastic proclamation as king, and the top of the stairs was taken as a most convenient substitute for a throne. Joram had kept Ramoth-gilead--rather, "was keeping," guarding, or besieging it, with the greater part of the military force of Israel.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Driving furiously: an arrow through Joram in Naboth's field
2 Kings 9:14-15
conspired against Joram: The wounded king had returned to Jezreel, leaving Jehu in command. His first order as king seals the city: do not let anyone escape from the city to go and tell it in Jezreel. The news will reach Jezreel only in his chariot, and the conspiracy depends on that silence.
2 Kings 9:14
“Joram had kept Ramoth-gilead - The confederate armies appear to have taken this city; but they were obliged to watch their conquests, as they perceived that Hazael was determined to retake it if possible.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:14
“There he was fighting for the king his master, but received orders from a higher king to fight against him. It does not appear that Jehu aimed at the government, or that he ever thought of it, but the commission given him was a perfect surprise to him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
to recover from the wounds: Adam Clarke held that the allied armies had taken Ramoth-gilead and had to guard it, since Hazael meant to win it back. Joram's wounds from that fighting took him home to Jezreel. The commanders who had just crowned Jehu now held the city.
2 Kings 9:15
“But King Joram was returned to be healed in Jezreel,.... As is recorded, 2Ki 8:29 and here repeated for the reason above given: and Jehu said, if it be your minds; to engage one and all, and heartily, in this conspiracy, and to make me king: then let none go forth nor escape out of the city, to go to tell it in Jezreel; that so Joram might be surprised unawares, and have no opportunity either of fleeing or of preparing for his defence.”
Ahaziah king of Judah had gone down to see him: Jehu rides for Jezreel, and the text sets Judah's king beside Israel's without comment, Ahaziah come down to visit his wounded uncle. Two kings of two houses, bound by marriage into the one house now under sentence, are gathered in the same place on the same day.
2 Kings 9:16
“So Jehu rode in a chariot,.... In great pomp and majesty as a king: and went to Jezreel: set forward on a march thither with his captains, and part of his army at least, from Ramothgilead; which, according to Bunting (n), was twenty four miles: for Jordan lay there; to be cured of his wounds, as before observed: and Ahaziah king of Judah was come down to see Joram; see 2Ki 8:29. (n) Travels, &c. p. 166.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:16
“Jehu - went to Jezreel; for Joram lay there - From the preceding verse we learn, that Joram had been wounded in his attack on Ramoth-gilead, and had gone to Jezreel to be cured; and neither he nor Ahaziah knew any thing of the conspiracy in Ramoth-gilead, because Jehu and his captains took care to prevent any person from leaving the city; so that the two kings at Jezreel knew nothing of what had taken place.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 9:17-20
the watchman standing on the tower in Jezreel: Jehu asks each what he knows about peace and orders him to fall in behind, folding the king's own messengers into his company. The watchman's last report turns on one detail, the charioteer driving like Jehu son of Nimshi, which Clarke calls almost proverbial for the man.
2 Kings 9:17
“A report was made to Joram in his palace below. A messenger on horseback was quickly despatched down into the plain to meet the ambiguous host and to question the object of their approach. "Is it peace?" We may safely assume that this messenger would meet Jehu at the distance of three miles or more.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:17
“A watchman on the tower - These watchmen, fixed on elevated places and generally within hearing of each other, served as a kind of telegraphs, to communicate intelligence through the whole country. But, in some cases, it appears that the intelligence was conveyed by a horseman to the next stage, as in the case before us. At this time, when the armies were at Ramoth-gilead, they were, no doubt, doubly watchful to observe the state of the country, and to notice every movement. See on 2Sa 13:34 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown picture the horseman riding down from Jezreel into the plain and meeting Jehu three miles out. Adam Clarke glossed Jehu's reply as a soldier's dismissal: peace or war is none of the rider's business, and his place is at the rear. The watchman sees him stay.
2 Kings 9:18
What hast thou to do with peace? - “What is it to thee whether there be peace or war? Join my company, and fall into the rear.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the king sent out a second horseman: Joram sends a second rider with the same question. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown place the king in his palace below the watchtower, receiving each report as the watchman called it down. Jehu turns the second man with the same words.
2 Kings 9:19
“Then he sent out a second on horseback, which came to them, and said,.... The same as the first messenger did, and had the same answer, and was bid to do the same as in the preceding verse.”
The watchman knows the driver by his driving. Adam Clarke describes Jehu as a bold, prompt and headlong general whose campaigns had already fixed his character. The Berean gives the same English word, madman, to the captains' taunt about the young prophet at verse 11.
2 Kings 9:20
“He driveth furiously - Jehu was a bold, daring, prompt, and precipitate general. In his various military operations he had established his character; and now it was almost proverbial.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
on the property of Naboth the Jezreelite: Joram and Ahaziah ride out together and meet Jehu on the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. This is the ground Ahab took by false witness and murder, where Elijah once stood to condemn him. A reader who remembers that earlier chapter supplies the rest.
2 Kings 9:21
“Make ready - literally, (as in margin) “Blind,” i. e., “Harness the horses to the chariot.” The king had no suspicion of Jehu’s treason. Probably he imagined that he was bringing him important news from the seat of war. Ahaziah’s accompanying him is significant of the close friendship which united the uncle and the nephew.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:21
“Portion of Naboth - The very sight of that ground was enough to make Jehu triumph and Joram tremble. The circumstances of events are sometimes so ordered by Divine providence, as to make the punishment answer the sin, as face answers face in a glass.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 9:22-23
the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel: When Joram asks whether Jehu comes in peace, Jehu aims his answer past him at his mother. He names her sins and leaves Joram's own unnamed. Joram turns to flee with one cry for his nephew, “Treachery, Ahaziah!”, his first sign of understanding what happened at Ramoth-gilead.
2 Kings 9:22
“What peace, so long as the whoredoms - Though the words whoredom, adultery, and fornication, are frequently used to express idolatry, and false religion, in general; yet here they may be safely taken in their common and most obvious sense, as there is much reason to believe that Jezebel was the patroness and supporter of a very impure system of religion; and to this Jehu might refer, rather than to the calf-worship, to which himself was most favourably disposed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:22
“He mentions not Joram's, but his mother's sins; because they were more notorious and infamous: and because they were the principal cause why God inflicted, and he was come to execute these judgments. The way of sin can never be the way of peace.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Joram turned around and fled: John Gill read the king's turning as a grip on the reins to wheel his horses, or a sign to his driver to head back. Gill took the cry of treachery as Joram's charge that the captains had risen in conspiracy with Jehu at their head.
2 Kings 9:23
“And Joram turned his hand, and fled,.... Taking hold of the horses' reins with it to turn them, or by the motion of it directing the charioteer to turn them back towards Jezreel, whither he fled: and said to Ahaziah, there is treachery, O Ahaziah; a conspiracy formed, and rebellion raised by the captains, at the head of which he supposed Jehu was.”
shot Joram between the shoulders: Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between the shoulders, since the king had turned his chariot to run. One shot ends the reign, the same abruptness with which the anointing in the inner chamber began it. The house of Ahab loses its king on the ground his father stole.
2 Kings 9:24
“Drew a bow with his full strength - The marginal reading is correct: He filled his hand with a bow. That is, “He immediately took up his bow, set his arrow, and let fly.” This is the only meaning of the passage. Between his arms - That is, between his shoulders; for he was now turned, and was flying from Jehu.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 9:25-26
the LORD lifted up this burden against him: Jehu reminds his officer Bidkar that they rode behind Ahab, and orders Joram thrown unburied into the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. Verse 26 adds the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons. Clarke infers that Jezebel's plot removed any heir who could reclaim the vineyard.
2 Kings 9:25
“Rode together after Ahab - The Assyrian sculptures make it probable that Josephus was right in interpreting this “rode side by side behind Ahab in his chariot.” The Assyrian monarchs, when they go out to war, are frequently attended hy two guards, who stand behind them in the same chariot. Burden - Compare the use of the same word in Isaiah (Isa 13:1; Isa 15:1, etc.), and in Lamentations Lam 2:14, for a denunciation of woe.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:25
“For this the house of Ahab must be reckoned with; and that very piece of ground which he, with so much pride and pleasure, had made himself master of at the expense of the guilt of innocent blood, now became the theatre on which his son's dead body lay exposed a spectacle to the world. Thus the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
so will I repay you: The oath names the plot of ground as the place of repayment. Matthew Henry saw the field Ahab had seized with pride and innocent blood become the stage where his son's body lay exposed to all. The LORD's word to Ahab is carried out on Ahab's son.
2 Kings 9:26
“The blood of Naboth, and the blood of his sons - We are not informed in 1 Kings 21 that any of Naboth’s family was slain but himself: but as the object both of Ahab and Jezebel was to have Naboth’s vineyard entirely, and for ever, it is not likely that they would leave any of his posterity, who might at a future time reclaim it as their inheritance. Again, to secure this point, Jezebel had Naboth convicted of treason and atheism; in order that his whole family might be involved in his ruin.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ahaziah shot at the ascent of Gur
2 Kings 9:27-28
he fled up the road toward Beth-haggan: Ahaziah flees toward Judah, is shot on the Ascent of Gur near Ibleam, and dies at Megiddo. Jehu still lets the body go to Jerusalem, where his servants buried him. Gill traces that courtesy to Ahaziah's descent from Jehoshaphat, and Judah's throne still has a David to be buried beside.
2 Kings 9:27
“Ahaziah--was grandnephew to King Joram, and great-grandson to King Ahab. Ibleam--near Megiddo, in the tribe of Issachar (Jos 17:11; Jud 1:27); and Gur was an adjoining hill.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 9:27
“He died - The history is briefly and imperfectly described here, and the defects supplied in (the book of Chronicles, is great part written for that end, to supply things omitted in the book of Kings) out of both it may be thus compleated: he fled first to Megiddo, and thence to Samaria, where he was caught, and thence brought to Jehu, and by his sentence was put to death at Megiddo.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 9:27
“By the way of the garden-house - Or “by the way of Beth-Gan,” which has been conjectured to be another name for En-Gannim, “the spring of the gardens.” Both are considered identical with Ginaea, the modern Jenin, which lies due south of Jezreeh The road from Jezreel (Zerin) to Jenin passes at first along the plain of Esdraelon, but after a while begins to rise over the Samaritan hills. Here probably was “the ascent of Gur, by Ibleam,” which may have occupied the site of the modern Jelama. Whether the soldiers attacked him there or not is uncertain.”
buried him with his fathers: The servants bring Ahaziah by chariot and lay him in his tomb in the City of David. John Gill set this burial beside the burial of Jehoshaphat, Ahaziah's grandfather, with his fathers in the same city at 1 Kings 22:50. Ahaziah dies in the north and is buried in Judah.
2 Kings 9:28
“And his servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem,.... With the leave of Jehu, because he was the grandson of Jehoshaphat, a sincere worshipper of God, 2Ch 22:9, and buried him in his sepulchre with his fathers in the city of David; see 1Ki 22:50.”
the eleventh year of Joram: The chapter dates Ahaziah's accession to Joram's eleventh year, where the previous chapter had given the twelfth. Barnes and Gill both take it as two ways of counting the same short reign. A co-regency year with his father is counted once as eleventh and once as twelfth.
2 Kings 9:29
“In the eleventh year - The twelfth according to 2Ki 8:25. The discrepancy may be best explained from two ways of reckoning the accession of Ahaziah, who is likely to have been regent for his father during at least one year. See 2Ch 21:19.”
Painted eyes at a window, and dogs in the portion of Jezreel
2 Kings 9:30-31
she painted her eyes: Jezebel painted her eyes, adorned her head, and looked down from a window. Her taunt reaches for the one precedent that fits: “Have you come in peace, O Zimri, murderer of your master?” Zimri took Elah's throne by murder and burned in it seven days later.
2 Kings 9:30
“She painted her face, and tired her head - She endeavored to improve the appearance of her complexion by paint, and the general effect of her countenance by a tiara or turban head-dress. Jonathan, the Chaldee Targumist, so often quoted, translates this וכחלת בצדידא עינהא vechachalath bitsdida eynaha: “She stained her eyes with stibium or antimony.” This is a custom in Astatic countries to the present day. From a late traveler in Persia, I borrow the following account: - “The Persians differ as much from us in their notions of beauty as they do in those of taste.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:30
“Jezebel painted her face--literally, "her eyes," according to a custom universal in the East among women, of staining the eyelids with a black powder made of pulverized antimony, or lead ore mixed with oil, and applied with a small brush on the border, so that by this dark ligament on the edge, the largeness as well as the luster of the eye itself was thought to be increased.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The Berean takes her words as a greeting that names Jehu Zimri, a rendering John Gill allowed. Adam Clarke reports that the rabbi Jarchi heard them as a bid for favor, as if killing a master were nothing new. Most of the old versions, Clarke adds, read a mocking salute.
2 Kings 9:31
“And as Jehu entered in at the gate,.... Either of the city of Jezreel, or of the king's palace: she said, had Zimri peace, who slew his master? Elah the son of Baasha king of Israel; no, he had not; he reigned but seven days, and, being besieged, burnt the king's house over him, and died, 1Ki 16:10, suggesting that the like would be his fate, who had slain his master Joram; or the words may be rendered, "O Zimri, the slayer of his master"; calling Jehu so, because of his likeness to Zimri.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:31
“Had Zimri peace, who slew his master? - Jarchi paraphrases this place thus: “If thou hast slain thy master, it is no new thing; for Zimri also slew Elah, the son of Baasha;” which words were rather intended to conciliate than to provoke. But the words are understood by most of the versions thus: Health to Zimri, the slayer of his master!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 9:32-33
Jehu answers her window with a question of his own, who is on my side, close to the psalmist's appeal against evildoers. Two or three eunuchs choose him over her without hesitation. At his order they throw her down, and the horses that trample her finish what the fall began.
2 Kings 9:32
“And the Psalmist ( Ps. xciv. 16 ), Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers? Note, When reformation-work is set on foot, it is time to ask, "Who sides with it?" III.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jezebel dies under the horses of the man she had just taunted. Matthew Henry read her death as the end that pride and cruelty come to, and drew from it that the LORD is righteous. Henry saw the dogs complete her shame, as the prophecy had said.
2 Kings 9:33
“However it was, thus she was most shamefully put to death, dashed against the wall and the pavement, and then trodden on by the horses, which were all besmeared with her blood and brains. See the end of pride and cruelty, and say, The Lord is righteous. The very dogs completing her shame and ruin, according to the prophecy.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 9:34-35
Jehu eats and drinks first, then orders Jezebel's body buried, for she was the daughter of a king. The men sent to bury her found nothing but her skull, her feet, and the palms of her hands. The dogs of Jezreel had done what royal blood could not prevent.
2 Kings 9:34
“She is a king’s daughter - Jezebel was certainly a woman of a very high lineage. She was daughter of the king of Tyre; wife of Ahab, king of Israel; mother of Joram, king of Israel; mother-in-law of Joram, king of Judah; and grandmother of Ahaziah, king of Judah.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
her skull, her feet: The dogs had left three parts of Jezebel. Adam Clarke records the rabbis Jarchi and Kimchi, who tied those remains to her festal dancing on hands and feet. John Gill set beside it a like end that Suetonius records of Ascletarion, a mathematician, in his Life of Domitian.
2 Kings 9:35
“And they went to bury her,.... The servants of Jehu, according to his orders and instructions: but they found no more of her than the scull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands; the flesh, and even all the rest of her bones, being devoured by dogs, so that there was scarce anything of her to be buried, as in 2Ki 9:10, something similar to this happened to Ascletarion, a mathematician, as related by Suetonius (o). (o) In Vita Domitian. c. 15.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 9:35
“The skull - the feet, and the palms of her hands - The dogs did not eat those parts, say Jarchi and Kimchi, because in her festal dances she danced like a dog, on her hands and feet, wantonly moving her head. What other meaning these rabbins had, I do not inquire. She was, no doubt, guilty of the foulest actions, and was almost too bad to be belied. How literally was the prediction delivered in the preceding book, (1Ki 21:23, The dogs shall eat Jezebel, by the wall of Jezreel), fulfilled!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 9:36-37
through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: Jehu names this the word of the LORD, which He spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite. The same formula condemns three houses in Kings, Jeroboam's, Baasha's and Ahab's. Only here does the text deny Jezebel a grave, so that no one can say: This is Jezebel.
2 Kings 9:36
“This is the word of the Lord--(See 1Ki 21:23). Jehu's statement, however, was not a literal but a paraphrased quotation of Elijah's prophecy.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
like dung in the field: Adam Clarke took the dung of the field literally: the body was eaten where it lay and never laid in the earth. He set her rank against her end: a king's daughter and a queen, left without a tomb or even a stone to mark the place.
2 Kings 9:37
“And the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung - As it was not buried under the earth, but was eaten by the dogs, this saying was also literally fulfilled. They shall not say, This is Jezebel - As she could not be buried, she could have no funeral monument. Though so great a woman by her birth, connections, and alliances, she had not the honor of a tomb! There was not even a solitary stone to say, Here lies Jezebel! not even a mound of earth to designate the place of her sepulture!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Historical narrative, a prophetic anointing worked out as a coup in a single day, as Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Is it peace | The question is put four times as Jehu comes up the road, by two horsemen, by Joram and by Jezebel at her window. Jehu answers the messengers with a question of his own and Joram with a charge against his mother. Adam Clarke reads the repeated challenge as the watchman's sequence that lets the reader learn Jehu's identity from his driving before Joram does.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Kings 9:17. | 2 Kings 9:17, 2 Kings 9:19, 2 Kings 9:22, 2 Kings 9:31 |
| According to the word of the LORD | Jehu's order at verse 26 closes with the phrase, and his verdict over Jezebel's remains at verse 36 names both the word and the man who spoke it. The two citations frame the day's killing and measure it against 1 Kings 21 rather than against the new king's ambition. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read verse 36 as the deliberate closing of a sentence Elijah first pronounced in the vineyard.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 2 Kings 9:36. | 2 Kings 9:26, 2 Kings 9:36 |
| Him who is shut up and him who is left | The young prophet's commission at verses 7 to 10 borrows the extermination formula already used against the house of Jeroboam and the house of Baasha. Adam Clarke marks the reuse, so a reader of Kings recognises a third dynasty condemned in the same words. The last item on the list is the dogs eating Jezebel in Jezreel, and the messenger is gone before the door shuts.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Kings 9:8. | 2 Kings 9:8, 2 Kings 9:10 |
| In the plot of ground at Jezreel | Joram rides out to meet Jehu and the meeting falls in the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite, the ground Ahab took by false witness. John Wesley calls the coincidence of ground a kind of preaching, the punishment answering the sin as a face answers a face in a glass. The text names the place and leaves the reader who remembers 1 Kings 21 to supply the rest.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Kings 9:21. | 2 Kings 9:21, 2 Kings 9:25, 2 Kings 9:26 |
The debated concept
7 more paragraphs on the patterns
The first question is who the young prophet was. Jewish tradition names him Jonah the son of Amittai, and John Gill records the reading without pressing it as certain. The text itself leaves him unnamed, and the narrator repeats the phrase the young man the prophet twice in one sentence, which keeps the attention on the errand rather than the man.
The second is the year of Ahaziah's accession, which verse 29 gives as the eleventh of Joram where 2 Kings 8:25 gave the twelfth. Albert Barnes explains the difference from two ways of reckoning, with Ahaziah likely regent for his father for a year, and cites 2 Chronicles 21:19. Adam Clarke gives the same account as a viceroyalty during his father's sickness at 2 Chronicles 21:18 to 19, followed by a sole reign. John Gill adds that the accession fell at the close of one year and the opening of the next. The three readings agree that the two verses count one short reign from two ends.
The third is how far Jehu's commission reached. Verse 26 adds a detail 1 Kings 21 never states outright, the blood of Naboth's sons alongside his own. Adam Clarke reads it as evidence that the plot to secure the vineyard had to remove any heir who could reclaim it. The estate states no verdict on the wider question of Jehu's own conduct, which chapter 10 raises in the text's own words at 10:30 and 10:31.
Where the chapter reaches
Jezebel's name outlives Jezreel. Revelation 2:20 gives it to a teacher inside the church at Thyatira, the same seduction under a borrowed title. The chapter's own closing line explains why the name could travel, that no one will be able to say, this is Jezebel.
Joram's death in Naboth's field answers 1 Kings 21:19 and 21:23 directly, and Jehu names Elijah the Tishbite as the man who spoke it. The extermination formula of verses 8 and 10 had already fallen on the house of Jeroboam at 1 Kings 14:10 and the house of Baasha at 1 Kings 16:11. This chapter is the third and last use of it in the two books.
Jehu's own house is measured in the next chapter, where the reward of four generations is promised at 10:30. Its discharge stands at 2 Kings 15:12, when Zechariah is assassinated after six months.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Kings 9:25; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 2 Kings 9:15 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 9:1.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.