Jehu

From New World Encyclopedia


Jehu son of Omri kneeling at the feet of Shalmaneser III on the Black Obelisk.

Jehu (יְהוּא, Yehu—"The Lord is he") was king of Israel, 842–815 B.C.E. Our principal source for the events of his reign comes from 2 Kings 9-10.


the son of Jehoshaphat [1],

j.e.

with the cooperation of the prophetic party intent upon making an end of Baal-worship and the Phenician atrocities in vogue in the Northern Kingdom under Jezebel's influence (I Kings xix. 16; II Kings ix. 1; see Elijah; Elisha), Jehu, profiting by the absence of King Jehoram, who had gone to Jezreel to be healed of the wounds which the Syrians had inflicted on him at Ramah (II Kings viii. 29), had himself proclaimed king by the soldiers in garrison at Ramothgilead (ib. ix. 13). Taking precautions that the news should not leak out, Jehu hastened to Jezreel, where he met Jehoram in company with his visitor Ahaziah, King of Judah, who had come out to greet him. Jehu slew Jehoram with his own hands, casting the body into a portion of the field of Naboth; while Ahaziah, overtaken in flight, was mortally smitten at his command (ib. ix. 21-27). Jezebel was by his orders thrown out of the window by the eunuchs, and he trod her under foot, leaving her body to be "as dung upon the face of the field" (ib. ix. 30-37).

His next care was to exterminate the house of Ahab and its adherents (ib. x.). Meeting, on his triumphal march to Samaria, Ahaziah's brethren, he caused them to be put to death (ib. x. 13-15); and in Samaria he continued his policy of annihilating Ahab's family and party (ib. x. 17). True to the intentions of the prophetic partizans, aided by Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, he, pretending to be a worshiper of Baal, succeeded in gathering the priests, devotees, and prophets of Baal in Baal's temple, where he had them put to death by his soldiers, and then destroyed the sanctuary and the sacred pillars (ib. x. 18 et seq.). The "golden calves" at Dan and Beth-el he did not remove (ib. 29-31).

One of Jehu's first cares was to cultivate the good graces of Shalmaneser II., King of Assyria (see the Black Obelisk, second line from top on the four sides; Schrader, "K. B." p. 151; III Rawlinson, 5, No. 6, 40-65; Schrader, "K. A. T." 2d ed., p. 210). It is not unlikely that Assyria had a hand in the revolution that carried Jehu to the throne ("K. A. T." 3d ed., p. 43): Assyria at least promised to be a protector against Damascus and Hazael. Assyria did not keep Damascus in check, however, and so Jehu lost (after 839) to Hazael the control over the district east of the Jordan (II Kings x. 32).

The war must have been waged with great cruelty. The Damascenes penetrated also into the Southern Kingdom and beyond (II Kings xii. 17, 18). Amos refers to the atrocities then committed, while Jehu's assassination of Jezebel and her son is mentioned with horror by Hosea (i. 4). Jehu was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz. Bibliography: Commentaries to Kings; histories of Israel by Ewald, Stade, Winckler, and Guthe; Schrader, K. A. T. 3d ed., pp. 255-258, and the references given in the notes thereto.E. G. H.

2.

Son of Hanani; a prophet. He denounced Baasha for the idolatry practised by him, and predicted the downfall of his dynasty (I Kings xvi. 1, 7). He censured also Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, for his alliance with Ahab (II Chron. xix. 2, 3). Jehu's father was probably the Hanani who prophesied against Jehoshaphat's father, Asa (II Chron. xvi. 7). Jehu must have either lived to a very great age or begun his prophetical career very young; for between his two prophecies there is an interval of thirty years. Besides, he survived Jehoshaphat, and wrote the latter's life (II Chron. xx. 34). Jerome (in the Vulgate) adds a gloss to I Kings xvi. 7, representing Jehu as having been killed by Baasha.


article

File:Jehu-summoned.jpg
Elisha's prophetic messenger prepares to anoint Jehu.

Jehu's story begins when he was serving as a commander of chariots under Jehoram, after the Battle of Ramoth-Gilead against the army of the Arameans, also called Syrians. There, Jehoram had been wounded and returned to Jezreel to recover. Jehoram's ally and nephew, King Ahaziah of Judah, had also gone Jezreel to attend on Jehoram (2 Kings 8:28f). While the commanders of the army were assembled and Ramoth-Gilead, the prophet Elisha, who considered Jehoram too tolerant of Baal-worship, sent one of his disciples to anoint Jehu as the future king of Israel. The young man found Jehu meeting with other officers and him away from his peers. Pouring oil on Jehu's head, the young prophet declared God's words:

You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the Lord's servants shed by Jezebel. The whole house of Ahab will perish. (2 Kings 9:1-10).

Jehu's companions, inquiring after the object of this mysterious visit, greated the news of prophetic support for Jehu with enthusiasm, blowing their trumpets and proclaiming him king (2 Kings 9:11-14).

Jehu and his supporters promptly rode to Jezreel, where Jehoram was recovering from his wounds. "Do you come in peace, Jehu?" the king asked. Jehu replied: "How can there be peace, as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?" Jehu then shot Joram in the back with an arrow as he turned to flee. Jehu ordered the murder of Ahaziah in the coup.

Seeing his duty to destroy the entire "house of Ahab," Jehu turned next to Joram's monther Jezebel, Ahab's widow. The queen-mother died after being thrown down from a high window by her own eunuchs at Jehu's command. Following this, Jehu engineered the killing of 70 of Ahab's male descendants, ordering their heads left in piles at the gates of Jezreel.

Turning toward the northern capital of Samaria, Jehu encountered 42 relatives of Ahaziah coming from Judah to pay their respects to Joram and Jezebel. These too, he slaughtered. Arriving at Samaria, Jehu continued the bloodbath: "He killed all who were left there of Ahab's family." (2 Kings 10:17)

Carrying Elisha's program to its logical conclusion, Jehu then summoned the priests of Baal, whom Joram had tolerated, to a solemn assembly in the capital. His invitation declared: "Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much." Once they assembled in Baal's temple, Jehu proceeded to have them all slaughtered, demolishing the temple, and turning it into a public latrine.

Despite his uncompromising zeal for Yahweh, Jehu's reign does not receive the complete endorsement of the authors of the Books of Kings. He is particularly criticized for failing to destroy the shrines at Dan and Bethel, which competed with Judah's central shrine at Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the biblical writers preserve a prophecy in which God tells Jehu:

Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. (2 Kings 10:30)

The prophet Hosea, on the other hand, took the opposite view to that of the author of Kings, indicating that God would not reward but would instead punish the House of Jehu for the slaughter of Ahab's family at Jezreel:

So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then the Lord said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. (Hosea 1:3-4)

Militarily, Jehu was hard pressed by Hazael of Syria. Paradoxically, this enemy of Israel hismelf had been anointed to his office by none other than the prophetic kingmaker Elisha. The biblical account admits that Jehu's army was defeated by Hazael "throughout all of the territories of Israel" beyond the Jordan river, in the lands of Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh (10:32). This would explain why the one extra-biblical mention of Jehu, the the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III depicts him Jehu as offering tribute to the Syrian king.

historical view

However, Nadav Na'aman of Tel Aviv University has interpreted the evidence of archaeological excavations at the site of the city of Jezreel to show it had been taken by a successful siege, perhaps by the Aramean army of Hazael. Further, the author of the Dan Stele (found in 1993 and 1994 during archaeological excavations of the site of Laish) claimed to have slain both Ahaziah, and Jehoram; the most likely author of this monument is Hazael of the Arameans. Although the inscription is a contemporary witness of this period, kings of this period were inclined to boast and make exaggerated claims; it is not clear whether Jehu killed the two kings (as the Bible reports) or Hazael (as the Dan Stele reports). This suggests that this memorable scene was created (perhaps as a tradition) long after the principals of the coup had died.


Following Jehu's slaughter of the Omrides, he met Jehonadab the Rechabite, whom he took into his chariot, and they entered the capital together. This adds support to the inference that, at least at the beginning of his reign, Jehu was supported by the pro-Yahweh faction. Once in control of Samaria, he summoned all of the worshippers of Baal to the capital, slew them (2 Kings 10:19-25), and destroyed the temple of that deity (10:27).

Jehu in sources

Aside from the Hebrew Bible, Jehu appears in Assyrian documents, notably in the Black Obelisk where he is depicted as kissing the ground in front of Shalmaneneser III. In the Assyrian documents he is simply referred to as "Jehu son of Omri," that is, Jehu of the House of Omri, an Assyrian name for the Kingdom of Israel.

Notes

  1. Jehu’s father was not the roughly contemporaneous King Jehoshaphat of Judah, whose own father was King Asa of Judah. “Generally Jehu is described as the son only of Nimshi, possibly because Nimshi was more prominent or to avoid confusing him with the King of Judah (R’Wolf)”. Scherman, Nosson, ed., “I-II Kings”, The Prophets, 297, 2006. See (2 Kings 9:2)
  • The name Jehu has also been adopted by natives of Ghana, who previously went by the name 'Appiah'. In order to separate themselves from other Appiahs in Ghana, they chose to extend their surname to the double barrelled name Jehu-Appiah. The founding Minister of one of the biggest and most renowned churches in Ghana, the Musama Disco Christo Church, (MDCC), translated to mean the Army of the Cross of Christ, was also a Jehu-Appiah, who went by the name of Jemisimiham Jehu-Appiah, Akaboah I.


Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

House of Jehoshaphat
Preceded by:
Jehoram
King of Israel
Albright: 842 B.C.E. – 815 B.C.E.
Thiele: 841 B.C.E. – 814 B.C.E.
Galil: 842 B.C.E. – 815 B.C.E.
Succeeded by: Jehoahaz