May 2, 2023 Bible Study — Jehu Sought To Serve God, But Allowed Political Expediency To Get In The Way

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.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.