Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.
Today’s passage begins with the acts Jehu took to consolidate his control over Israel, the Northern Kingdom. One of the key things we learn about Jehu’s desire to serve God comes from his interaction with Jehonadab, whose descendants are later held up by Jeremiah as examples of faithfully following God. The passage tells us that Jehu completely wiped out Baal worship in Israel. Unfortunately, he was unwilling to get rid of the calf idols which Jeroboam had constructed and continued the practice of worshiping them. Which suggests that, those who lived in the Northern Kingdom, Israel, considered that those who worshiped according to the practices established by Jeroboam thought they were following the covenant which God had established with their ancestors. I suspect that leaders, such as Jehu, knew better, but convinced themselves otherwise out of political expediency.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.
Once Jehu had killed King Joram and his mother Jezebel, he sent word to the officials acting as guardians for the remaining sons of the house of Ahab (I understand this to be sons and grandsons of Ahab). It seems likely that at least some, and perhaps all, of them would have been adults. Jehu had those officials kill them. I find it interesting that the number of sons of the house of Ahab was seventy, the same number as the sons of Gideon killed by Gideon’s son, Abimelech. In addition, Jehu killed some relatives of King Ahaziah of Judah, who had come to Israel on what was most likely “idolatry tourism”, and probably also with the intention of doing things which would have ruined their reputations if done in Jerusalem. I think of those forty-two individuals as being similar to the various prestigious people who regularly visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
Having killed off the entire government structure associated with Ahab and his family, Jehu then entered into an alliance with Jehonadab to serve God. This alliance suggests that Jehu sought to serve God, despite refusing to turn away from the worship of Jeroboam’s golden calves. Jehonadab’s descendants were praised by Jeremiah during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem for their dedication to the teachings of Jehonadab and thus to God. With Jehonadab, Jehu wiped out Baal worship in Israel. The way that the writer of this passage writes it, I believe that Jehu wished to serve God, but felt that he needed to keep the worship of the golden calves for expediency.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.
I want to start by looking at two things in this passage which connect to ideas about the worship of God which I have touched upon from time to time. The passage mentions that when Jehu came upon Jehonadab he asked if he was in accord with him. The context suggests that Jehu was referring to worshiping God and eliminating Baal worship (and possibly worship of all other gods). What is interesting about this is that Jehonadab was not an Israelite. He was a Kenite, a nomadic group of people who lived among the Israelites (and possibly elsewhere in the Middle East). This tells us that while we don’t have much of a record of the religious practices of others who worshiped God during this time, the Israelites were not the only ones who did so. The existence of other peoples who worshiped God is consistent with what one would expect to see if the Genesis account is true.
I also want to look at what Jehu did when he called the assembly to honor Baal. Once he had the Baal worshipers gathered, he asked the leaders of Baal worship to make sure there were no worshipers of God present. This confirms two things which we see throughout the Old Testament: many worshipers of God were seduced into Baal worship by being convinced that Baal was just another name for God, and those who were fully into Baal worship knew this was not true. On the first point, we also see throughout the Old Testament that while many worshipers of God were convinced that Baal was just another name for God, many saw through this deception. This incident is probably the clearest example of the second point. However, there is also the incident where King Ahab knows what Jehoshaphat is looking for when he asks for a prophet of the Lord after Ahab tried to pass off prophets of Baal as such.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.
I have commented on this several times, but it is worth noting again. The account of King Jehu’s actions after he took the throne of the Northern Kingdom show us that the people of that land still respected God. They sought to worship Him, despite the attempts by their leaders to turn them to idolatry. God rewarded King Jehu for destroying Ahab’s family and the worship of Baal. Nevertheless, Jehu continued to encourage the people of Israel to worship at the golden calves which Jeroboam had set up. He almost certainly did this for political reasons; he was afraid that if the people went to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship they would turn their loyalty to the king in of Judah who ruled in Jerusalem. So, the account we have suggests that Jehu was not a godly man, but he appears to have revolted against King Ahab’s son because of the latter’s Baal worship. One thing that is not clear to me is whether he worshiped God according to what he understood to be correct and did not seek a better understanding, or if he chose to worship as he did because it was politically expedient.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.
Once Jehu had killed King Jehoram and his mother Jezebel, he consolidated his power by having the leaders of Samaria kill all of King Ahab’s remaining sons. Jehu then proceeded to kill all of Ahab’s remaining relatives, except for Athaliah, Ahab’s daughter who had married Jehoshaphat’s son (more on her shortly). The story mentions that Jehu encountered some relatives of King Ahaziah, the king of Judah who was Ahab’s grandson and whom Jehu had killed when he killed King Jehoram. Why did Jehu kill these men? Perhaps it was just because they were relatives of King Ahaziah and on the way to visit with the family of the king he had just deposed, but I suspect there was more to it than that. It seems to me that we need to consider why these men were visiting the sons of Ahab and the sons of the queen mother (I assume they meant Jezebel). These were wealthy, politically connected men who were likely visiting the Northern Kingdom to take part in activities which would have been frowned upon in Judah. In short, I think they were sex tourists. At the very least, they had traveled to the Northern Kingdom to more openly partake in Baal worship and Jehu killed them as part of his pogrom against Baal worship.
Meanwhile, Athaliah, King Ahaziah’s mother and Ahab’s daughter, moved to seize power in Judah by killing the rest of the royal family. However, Ahaziah’s sister (who may not have been Athaliah’s daughter) hid Ahaziah’s infant son, Joash, in the Temple. Jehoiada, a priest (perhaps the high priest, he certainly became the high priest), raised Joash and taught him to serve God. After seven years, Jehoiada organized a rebellion against Athaliah and placed Joash on the throne. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Jehoiada led the people to rededicate themselves to worshiping God and to destroy the temple of Baal in Jerusalem. King Joash showed his youthful devotion to God by ordering the priests to use some of the money offered in the Temple for Temple repairs. When it became obvious that the priests were unable, or unwilling, to manage such repairs, Joash worked with Jehoiada to arrange for offerings to go directly to workmen who worked to repair the Temple. Joash serves as an example of the influence of a righteous upbringing.
Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 10-12.
As soon as Jehu gained power he proceeded to kill all of the remaining family of Ahab in Israel (the northern kingdom). He also killed members of King Ahaziah’s family who had come to visit the sons of Ahab. We tend to read this as a group who was visiting family that got caught up in the revolution. However, they were probably coming from Judah to Israel to take part in worship ceremonies which would have hurt their standing if they had been seen to be involved in them by the common people of Judah. This is similar to the way in which the extremely wealthy and members of high levels of government hold conferences in exotic locations to avoid the eyes of the common people and enjoy things which might harm their reputations if they were commonly know to enjoy them. Jehu followed this up by holding a national festival of Baal worship…at which he had all of the priests and worshipers killed.
So, we discover that Jehu was motivated to act by the words of the prophets of God and acted decisively to eliminate Baal worship in Israel. Yet, he did not destroy the gold calves which Jeroboam had built and appears to have continued the worship of them. This tells me that Jehu did not see a conflict between worshiping God and worshiping at the gold calves, although he did see that Baal worship was not consistent with worshiping God. Or to put it another way, all of this suggests that the sect which worshiped at the gold calves worshiped in a manner similar to the sect which worshiped at the Temple in Jerusalem. It also suggests that the teachings of the two groups were similar as well. Furthermore, we see that the Baal worshipers tried to pass themselves off as just another variation on the same theme. All three groups, the Jerusalem sect, the “gold calves” sect, and the Baal worshipers, were fully aware that the first two were similar and related sects, but the Baal worshipers were something else entirely.
