2 Kings 9

Notes on the verses

Chap. IX. Ver. 4. So the young man.—lHannaar hannavee, not, as some would render, “ the servant of the prophet,” but as correctly rendered by our venerable translators, ‘* the young man, the prophet;’’ for hannaar, “ the young man,” is not in regimine, but in apposition with hannavee, “ the prophet.” ]—Bagster. f i Ver. ul. That mad fellow.—That enthusiast! [It is probable, there was something peculiar in the young prophet’s manner and address, similar to the vehement actions sometimes used by the prophets when under the divine influence, which catised them to use this contemptuous language. |—Bagster. Though they did not know his name, they suspected he was a prophet, from his manner, And he said, Thus © and thus spake he to me, i Ps.75.6.

saying, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel. j Lu.18.7,8. 13 Then they hasted, and took every man his * garment, and put 7¢ under him on the top k 1 Ki. lg.4. of the stairs, and blew t with trumpets, saying, 11 Ki.14.10. Jehu “is king. m De.32.36. 14 So Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son 01 Ki.16.5, of Nimshi conspired against Joram. (Now Joram had kept Ramoth-gilead. he and all p 1 Ki.21.23. Israel, because of Hazael king of Syria. q Je.29.26. 15 But king v Joram was returned to be healed Jn. 10.20. in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians Ac. 26.24. 1 Co.4,16. whad given him, when he fought with Hazael r ver.6. king of Syria.) And Jehu said, If it be your 8 Mat.21.7.

minds, then *let none go forth nor escape out of the city to go to tell zt in Jezreel. u reigneth. 16 J So Jehu rode in a chariot, and went to v Jehoram. w smote. Jezreel; for Joram lay there. And Ahaziah x let no escaper go. king of Judah was come down to see Joram. y 2Sa.18.24. 17 And there stood a watchman ”on the tower in Jezreel, and he spied the company movement is made to effect a variety of purposes; so, and much more is it the case, in the vast machinery of divine Chap. IX. Ver. 1—37. Jehu slays both the kings of Israel and Judah, and wives the dead body of Jezebel to the dogs.— This chapter is full of scenes of righteous vengeance on apostateIsrael. Jehu, another of the sons of Jehoshaphat, but an officer in the army of Israel, after being anointed by the prophet, and proclaimed by the army, hastens to Jezreel, to which city Joram had returned, to be healed of his wounds from the Syrians; and whither Ahaziah, king of Judah, had gone to meet him.

He is seen approaching, by the watchmen on the tower, and being known by the fury of his driving, both the kings, in great alarm, go out to meet 71m, and both are slain. Still pressing on, as he approaches, Jezebel, hearing the sound of chariots and of horses, and at first, probably hoping that the confederate king’s had returned victorious, tricked ott in all the vanity of an antiquated prostitute, looked out at the window of her palace, which appears to have been on the wall of the town. Seeing Jehu enter the gate, she rashly reproaches him with the murder of his master; at which, becom- Ver. 13. Every man his garment.—(The spreading of garments in the street before persons to whom it was intended to show particular honour, was an ancient and very general custom; the garments, in these cases, being used for carpets.

In the Agamemnon of ZEschylus, the hypocritical Clytemnestra commands the maids to spread carpets before her ceturning husband, that on his descending from his chariot, he may place his foot on “a purple covered path.” We also find this custom among the Romans. Plutarch relates, that when Cato of Utica left the Macedonian. army, where he had become legionary tribune, the soldiers spread their clothes in the way.——On the top of the stairs.—The ancient fortified cities were generally strengthened with a citadel, (Su. ix. 46, 51.) commonly built on an eminence, to which they ascended by a flight of stairs, ((Nehemiah 3:15).) It is extremely probable, therefore, that Ramoth-gilead, being a frontier town of Israel and Syria, had a tower of this nature; and that Jehu was proclaimed king on the top of the starrs by which they ascended the hill on which the tower stood, i.

e. in the area before the door of the tower, and consequently the most public place in the city.|—R, upon j him; eae 26 Surely I have seen yesterday the «blood engnats of Naboth, and the blood of his sons, saith the} *andoy. Lord; and ‘I will requite thee in this ™ plat, | v1Ki2i. z. saith the Lord. Now therefore take and cast | w Pasa. o. him into the plat of ground, according to the} 161” word of the Lord. a nourish- 27 | But when Ahaziah the king of Judah ing highly incensed, he orders her attendant eunuchs to throw her down. This being instantly complied with, her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and her carcass trod beneath the feet of Jehu’s horses. Regardless of her fate, Jehu now enters the palace, and feasts himself on royal dainties.

After having gratified his appetite, he begins to inquire after the carcass of Jezebel, and finds that the dogs had eaten it, and he immediately recollects the prophecy of Elijah; “In the portion (or district) of Jezreel (embracing what had been Naboth’s vineyard) shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel,” which was now literally fulfilled. (See (1 Kings 21:19).) lt may be proper to remark here, that in eastern countries, Vet. 21. Make ready.—i. e. fasten the horses to the chariots. Ver. 27. Fied by the way of the garden house.—This house was in Samaria, where, according to the parallel place in Chronicles, Ahaziah hid himself. But Jehu still pursued him, till he was found in the toad to Gur; there they shot him, but he still went on to Megiddo, where he died; and then they brought him back, and buried him.

The apparent discrepancies arise from the brevity of the narrative in each. Our account differs a little from that of Dr. Lightfoot. Ver. 29. In the eleventh year of Joram the son o Ahab, began Ahaziah to reign over Judah.—Our translators here subjoin the followin judicious note in the margin: ‘* Then he began to reign as Viceroy to his father, in his sick. peas;” (2 Chronicles 21:18-19). But in Joram’s 12th year, he began to reign alone; ehap. viii. 25. Ver. 30. She painted her face.—[The word puch, translated painting, is rendered by the LX X. and Vulgate, stibiwm, either antimony or black lead. *“ Upon the principle of strengthening the sight,” says Dr. Russell, ‘as well as an ornament, it has become a general practice among the women to black the inside of their eyelids, by applying a powder called Ised.—Their method of doing it is by a cylindrical piece of si ver, steel, or ivory, about 2 inches long, made very smooth, and about the size of a common probe.

This they wet with water, in order that the powder may stick to it, and applying the middle part horizontally to the eye, they shut their eye-lids upon it, and so drawing it through between them, it blacks the po bl leaving a narrow black rim all sound the edge.” |—Bagster. 1 Jehu, by his letters, causeth ey of Ahab’s children to be beheaded. 8 He ex cnseth the fact by the prophecy of Elijah, 12 At the shearing-house he slayeth two and forty of Ahaziah’s brethren. 15 e taketh Jehonadab into his company. 18 By sins. 32 Hazael oppresseth Israel. Jehoahaz succeedeth Jehu. subtlety he destroyeth all the eonlippes of Baal. 29 Jehu follow Nees Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote letters, and sent to Samaria, unto the rulers of Jezreel, to the elders, and to * them that brought up Ahab’s children, 2 Now as soon as this letter cometh to you, dogs are not tamed and domesticated as with us; but rove at large, and are little better than wolves, living on the carrion of the streets and fields; but we should also ad d, that the whole animal creation, as well as man, are occasionally employed to fulfil the divine decrees.

This wretched woman was not only murdered in the very spot foretold, and refused a burial; but her body is torn to ieces, and her bones scattered, so that ‘This is Jezebel !”’ they could not say,