The Expositor's Bible Part 12

[169] 2 Kings ix. 14: "So Jehu _conspired_ against Joram." The same word is used in 2 Chron. xxiv. 25, 26.

[170] 2 Kings ix. 15, R.V.: "If this be your mind."

[171] So far as we know, he never returned to Ramoth-Gilead, of which indeed we hear no more.

[172] Tristram, _Land of Moab_.

[173] Heb., _Shiph'hath_, "a dust-storm" (LXX., ??????t??, a?. ?????; Vulg., _glob.u.m_), not as in A.V. and R.V., "a company." Comp. Isa. lx.

6; Ezek. xxvi. 10.

[174] Clearly the rendering "he driveth furiously" is right. The word "furiously" is _beshigga'on_ (Vulg., _praeceps_), and is connected with "mad," ver. 11. LXX., ?? pa?a??a??. Arab. Chald., "quietly." Josephus, "leisurely, and in good order." Such an approach would not, however, have been at all in accordance with the perilous urgency of his intent.

[175] Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, is named from his grandfather Nimshi, who seems to have been the founder of the greatness of his house.

[176] 2 Kings ix. 23: "Turned his hands." Comp. 1 Kings xxii. 34.

[177] Ver. 24. Vulg., _inter scapulas_.

[178] LXX., reading ????????? ???.

[179] Bidkar, perhaps Bar-dekar, "Son of stabbing." Comp. 1 Kings iv. 9.

[180] Heb., _ts'madim_, "in pairs"; LXX., ?p?e???te? ?p? ?e???. It is uncertain whether Jehu and Bidkar were in the same chariot as Ahab, as Josephus says (?a?e??????? ?p?s?e? t?? ??at??), or in a separate chariot.

[181] 2 Kings ix. 26: "Saith the Lord." Ephraem Syrus omits these words. He says that the night before Jehu had seen the blood of Naboth and his sons in a dream. Comp. Hom., _Od._, iii. 258: ?? ?e ?? ??d?

?a???t? ??t?? ?p? ?a?a? ??e?a? '???' ??a t???e ???e? te ?a? ??????

?at?da?a? ?e?e??? ?? ped??.

[182] A.V., "By the way of the garden-house." LXX., ?a?????.

[183] The text is a little uncertain.

[184] Thenius supposes "Gur" to mean "a caravanserai." Comp. 2 Chron.

xxvi. 7, _Gur-Baal_; Vulg., _Hospitium Baalis_.

[185] The account of the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxii. 9) differs from that of the earlier historian. It may, however, be (uncertainly) reconciled with it as in the text, if we suppose the words "he was hid in Samaria" to mean in Megiddo, in the territory of Samaria.

Obviously, however, the traditions varied. There are difficulties about the story, for Ibleam is on the west towards Megiddo, and not between Jezreel and Samaria.

[186] ??????, "Lead-glance." A mixture of pulverised antimony (_stibium_) and zinc is still used by women in the East for this purpose. _In calliblepharis dilatat oculos_ (Plin., _H. N._, x.x.xiii.).

Keren-Happuk, the name given by Job to one of his daughters, means "horn of stibium." The object could hardly have been to _attract_ Jehu (as Ephraem Syrus thinks), for Jezebel had already a _grandson_ twenty-three years old (viii. 26).

[187] A.V., "_Tired_ her head." Comp. _tiara_. Lit., "made good"; LXX., ??????e.

[188] Josephus gives the sense very well: ?a??? d????? ? ?p??te??a?

t?? desp?t?? (_Antt._, IX. vi. 4). The same question might have been addressed to Baasha, Shallum, Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea; but at least Jehu might plead a prophet's call.

[189] "Two or three." Lit., "two three," like the old English "two three" for "several."

[190] Ver. 33. Heb., "He trod her underfoot." LXX., S??ep?t?sa? a?t??; Vulg., _Conculcaverunt eam_.

[191] Liv., i. 46-48.

[192] Prov. xi. 10. Compare the remark of Voltaire, who saw "le peuple ivre de vin et de joie de la mort de Louis XIV."

[193] 1 Kings xvi. 31. At this time Ethbaal was dead. He reigned probably from B.C. 940-908, and died at the age of sixty-eight (Jos., _Antt._, VIII. xiii. 1, IX. vi. 6; _c. Ap._, i. 18).

[194] 1 Kings xxi. 23.

[195] Comp. Psalm lx.x.xiii. 10. Her name remained a by-word till the latest days (Rev. ii. 20), and the Spanish Jews called their persecutress Isabella the Catholic "Jezebel."

CHAPTER XII

_JEHU ESTABLISHED ON THE THRONE_

B.C. 842-814

2 KINGS x. 1-17

"The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose."

SHAKESPEARE.

But the work of Jehu was not yet over. He was established at Jezreel; he was lord of the palace and seraglio of his master; the army of Israel was with him. But who could be sure that no civil war would arise, as between the partisans of Zimri and Omri, as between Omri and Tibni? Ahab, first of the kings of Israel, had left many sons. There were no less than seventy of these princes at Samaria. Might there not be among them some youth of greater courage and capacity than the murdered Jehoram? And could it be antic.i.p.ated that the late dynasty was so utterly unfortunate and execrated as to have none left to do them reverence, or to strike one blow on their behalf, after more than half a century of undisputed sway?[196] Jehu's _coup de main_ had been brilliantly successful. In one day he had leapt into the throne. But Samaria was strong upon its watch-tower hill. It was full of Ahab's sons, and had not yet declared on Jehu's side. It might be expected to feel some grat.i.tude to the dynasty which Jehu had supplanted, seeing that it owed to the grandfather of the king whom he had just slain its very existence as the capital of Israel.

He would put a bold face on his usurpation, and strike while the iron was hot. He would not rouse opposition by seeming to a.s.sume that Samaria would accept his rebellion. He therefore wrote a letter to the rulers of Samaria[197]--which was but a journey of nine hours'

distance from Jezreel--and to the guardians of the young princes, reminding them that they were masters in a strong city, protected with its own contingent of chariots and horses, and well supplied with armour. He suggested that they should select the most promising of Ahab's sons, make him king, and begin a civil war on his behalf.

The event showed how prudent was this line of conduct. As yet Jehu had not transferred the army from Ramoth-Gilead. He had doubtless taken good care to prevent intelligence of his plans from reaching the adherents of Jehoram in Samaria. To them the unknown was the terrible.

All they knew was that "Behold, two kings stood not before him!" The army must have sanctioned his revolt: what chance had they? As for loyalty and affection, if ever they had existed towards this hapless dynasty, they had vanished like a dream. The people of Samaria and Jezreel had once been obedient as sheep to the iron dominance of Jezebel. They had tolerated her idol-abominations, and the insolence of her army of dark-browed priests. They had not risen to defend the prophets of Jehovah, and had suffered even Elijah, twice over, to be forced to flee for his life. They had borne, hitherto without a murmur, the tragedies, the sieges, the famines, the humiliations, with which during these reigns they had been familiar. And was not Jehovah against the waning fortunes of the Beni-Omri? Elijah had undoubtedly cursed them, and now the curse was falling. Jehu must doubtless have let it be known that he was only carrying out the behest of their own citizen the great Elisha, who had sent to him the anointing oil. They could find abundant excuses to justify their defection from the old house, and they sent to the terrible man a message of almost abject submission:--Let him do as he would; they would make no king: they were his servants, and would do his bidding.

Jehu was not likely to be content with verbal or even written promises. He determined, with cynical subtlety, to make them put a very b.l.o.o.d.y sign-manual to their treaty, by implicating them irrevocably in his rebellion. He wrote them a second mandate.

"If," he said, "ye accept my rule, prove it by your obedience. Cut off the heads of your master's sons, and see that they are brought to me here to-morrow by yourselves before the evening."

The ruthless order was fulfilled to the letter by the terrified traitors. The king's sons were with their tutors, the lords of the city.

On the very morning that Jehu's second missive arrived, every one of these poor guiltless youths was unceremoniously beheaded. The hideous, bleeding trophies were packed in fig-baskets and sent to Jezreel.[198]

When Jehu was informed of this revolting present it was evening, and he was sitting at a meal with his friends.[199] He did not trouble himself to rise from his feast or to look at "death made proud by pure and princely beauty." He knew that those seventy heads could only be the heads of the royal youths. He issued a cool and brutal order that they should be piled in two heaps[200] until the morning on either side the entrance of the city gates. Were they watched? or were the dogs and vultures and hyaenas again left to do their work upon them? We do not know. In any case it was a scene of brutal barbarism such as might have been witnessed in living memory in Khiva or Bokhara;[201] nor must we forget that even in the last century the heads of the brave and the n.o.ble rotted on Westminster Hall and Temple Bar, and over the Gate of York, and over the Tolbooth at Edinburgh, and on Wexford Bridge.

The day dawned, and all the people were gathered at the gate, which was the scene of justice. With the calmest air imaginable the warrior came out to them, and stood between the mangled heads of those who but yesterday had been the pampered minions of fortune and luxury. His speech was short and politic in its brutality. "Be yourselves the judges," he said. "Ye are righteous. Jezebel called me a Zimri. Yes! I conspired against my master and slew him: but"--and here he casually pointed to the horrible, bleeding heaps--"who smote all these?" The people of Jezreel and the lords of Samaria were not only pa.s.sive witnesses of his rebellion; they were active sharers in it. They had dabbled their hands in the same blood. Now they could not choose but accept his dynasty: for who was there besides himself? And then, changing his tone, he does not offer "the tyrant's devilish plea, necessity," to cloak his atrocities, but--like a Romish inquisitor of Seville or Granada--claims Divine sanction for his sanguinary violence. This was not _his_ doing. He was but an instrument in the hands of fate. Jehovah is alone responsible. He is doing what He spake by His servant Elijah. Yes! and there was yet more to do; for no word of Jehovah's shall fall to the ground.

With the same cynical ruthlessness, and cold indifference to smearing his robes in the blood of the slain, he carried out to the bitter end his task of policy which he gilded with the name of Divine justice.

Not content with slaying Ahab's sons, he set himself to extirpate his race, and slew all who remained to him in Jezreel, not only his kith and kin, but every lord and every Baal-priest who favoured his house, until he left him none remaining.

But what a frightful picture do these scenes furnish us of the state of religion and even of civilisation in Jezreel! There was this man-eating tiger of a king wallowing in the blood of princes, and enacting scenes which remind us of Dahomey and Ashantee, or of some Tartary khanate where human hands are told out in the market-place after some avenging raid. And amid all this savagery, squalor, and Turkish atrocity, the man pleads the sanction of Jehovah, and claims, unrebuked, that he is only carrying out the behests of Jehovah's prophets! It is not until long afterwards that the voice of a prophet is heard repudiating his plea and denouncing his bloodthirstiness.