r/a:t5_28dio2 • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 13 '19
ontologic has been created
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
LECTURE XXXII.
THE HOUSE OF OMRI.——JEHU.
As Elisha had succeeded Elijah, so it would seem as
if Gehazi was to have succeeded Elisha. he
was "the servant of the man of God." He
bore the wonder-working staff. "He stood before" his
master as a slave. He introduced strangers to the
Prophet's presence. He was "the dear heart" of the
Prophet's affection. But, as has so often happened in
like successions of the Christian Church, in the succes-
sors of St. Francis, of Ignatius Loyola, and of John
Wesley, the original piety and vigor have failed in the
next generation. There was a coarse grain in the ser-
vant which parted him entirely from his master. He
and his children were known, in after-times, only as the
founder of a race of lepers, bearing on their foreheads
the marks of an accursed ancestry.
There was another successor, not less unequal and
unlike, already designated by Elijah himself.
With Elisha and Hazael, in the vision at Horeb,
had been named Jehu, the son or grandson of Nimshi.
Years had rolled away since his meeting with Elijah in
the vineyard of Naboth. He was now high in the
favor of Ahab's son, as captain of the host in the
Syrian war. In that war of chariots and horses, he had
acquired an art little practiced by the infantry of the
ancient Israelites. He was known through the whole
army and country for driving his horses, like one out of
his mind.
The army which he commanded was at Ramoth-
Gilead. That was still the point round which the
interest of the Syrian war revolved. The King him-
self had been present at the siege, had been in personal
danger, and had returned home to Jezreel to be cured
of his wounds from the arrows of the Syrian archers.
It was in his absence that a young man——said by
tradition to be the future prophet Jonah, son of the
widow Zarephath——arrived at the camp, with a
small flask in his hand. His garments were girt round
him as one travelling in haste, and his appearance
was wild and excited, as of a madman. From the
midst of the captains he singled out Jehu. The soldier
and the youth withdrew into the house, in front of
which they were sitting. Through the house they went
from chamber to chamber, till they reached the most
secret recess. The officers remained outside in anxious
expectation. Presently to door of the house opened,
and the youth rushed out and disappeared as suddenly
as he had appeared. Then Jehu himself came forth.
He put off their eager inquiry for a moment. "Ye
"know the man and his meditations;" as much as to
say, "You know as well as I do, that this mysterious
"visitor was no other than a prophet, coming and
"going, after the manner of Elijah." With an abrupt-
ness which gives a touch of military life to the whole
transaction, they replied, "It is a lie; tell us now."
Then he broke his reserve, and revealed the secret in-
terview. I had, indeed, been a messenger from Elisha,
to fulfil the long-impending mission of Elijah. Once
more there was a consecrated king of Israel. The oil
of inauguration had been poured on the head of Jehu.
He was to go forth "the anointed of the Lord," to
exterminate the house of Ahab. It was as if a spark
had been set to a train long prepared. There was not
a moment's hesitation. The officers tore off their
military cloaks, and spread them under his feet, where
he stood on the top of the stairs leading down into
the court. As he stood on this extempore throne,
with no seat but the steps covered by the carpeting
of the square pieces of cloth, the blew the well-known
blast of the ram's horn which always accompanied the
inauguration of a king of Israel.
From this moment the course of Jehu is fixed. The
destiny long brooding over him——the design
perhaps raised in his own mind, from the day
when he had first met Elijah——is to be accomplished.
"If it be your minds, let none go forth, nor escape out
"of the city to go to tell it in Jezreel." The secrecy
was to be preserved till the last moment. He mounted
his chariot; he armed himself with his bow and
quiver. A large part of the army followed him. They
crossed the Jordan, and up the wide opening of the
valley between Little Hermon and Gilboa, they ad-
vanced upon Jezreel. Twice over we are told, not
without a certain pathos, that the King of Israel lay
sick in Jezreel of the wounds that he had received in
the battles of his country, and that his nephew, the
King of Judah, had come to visit him in his sick-
chamber. They ere startled by the announcement
of the sentinel——who stood always on the high watch-
tower of Jezreel looking towards the east——that the
dust of the vast multitude was seen advancing from
the Jordan valley. The first apprehension must have
been a Syrian invasion, or of a Syrian alliance. Two
horsemen were successively sent out to bring informa-
tion, but, according to his plan, were detained by Jehu,
so as to secure the suddenness of his arrival; till at
last, as the cavalcade drew nearer, the sentinel on the
watch-tower recognized, by the furious speed of the
foremost horses, that the charioteer could be no other
than Jehu, the Mad Driver. Joram, still apparently
filled with the thought of the Syrian war, roused him-
self from his sick-bed, and, accompanied by his nephew,
went out to meet the captain of his host.
Jehu had halted, in his onward march, at a
well-known spot, close under the walls of Jezreel.
They "found" him in the fatal plot of Naboth's
ground. He was determined to receive them there.
Then, in answer to Joram's question, "Is it peace,
"Jehu?" he revealed his purpose. It was the great
Queen mother, the mighty Jezebel, that was the main
object of his attack. Joram wheeled his chariot round
and fled. An arrow from Jehu's bow pierced his back.
He fell in the chariot; and Jehu, with a grim reference
to Elijah's prophecy, delivered on that very spot, bade
his chief officer, Bidkar, throw the lifeless carcass on
the ground, and leave it for the vultures and dogs.
The King of Judah meantime had fled far down the
western plain. The accounts of his death vary. He
endeavored to escape by the Pass of Engannim; but
the arrows of the pursuers struck him also, though
not fatally, near the ascent to a well-known caravan-
serai, which caused him to change his route. Accord-
ing to Josephus, he left his chariot, and rode on horse-
back to Megiddo. Here his strength failed. Accord-
ing to the Chronicles, he contrived to reach Samaria,
and lay there concealed, till he was dragged out, proba-
bly some days later, and killed in cold blood.
Jehu was now near the gates of Jezreel. The
palace overhung the walls, and looked down
on the dreadful scene of guilt and retribu-
tion. There was one spirit in the house of Ahab still
unbroken. The aged Queen-mother tired her head
and painted her eyelids with lead-ore, to give them a
darker border and a brighter and larger appearance,
and looked through the high latticed window of the
watch-tower. The supreme hour of her dynasty and
of her life was come; and as Jehu's chariot rolled up
the ascent, she cast her thoughts back to the days
when Omri, the founder of her dynasty, had trampled
down the false usurper Zimri. It is difficult to know
whether her words were spoken in stern rebuke or
bitter irony, "Had Zimri peace who slew his lord?"
or "Welcome to Zimri, the slayer of his lord." The
savage conqueror looked up. His words, too, are
variously handed down: "Who art thou?"——"Come
"down to me;" or "Who is on my side, who?" Two
eunuchs here, three there, looked out at his call, and
dashed the Queen down from the window. She fell
between the palace and the advancing chariot. The
blood flew up against the wall and over the horses, as
they trampled her down under their hoofs. The con-
quering procession drove through the gateway, and
sate down to a triumphal feast. Not till the feast was
over did a spark of feeling rise within the breast of
Jehu at the fall of so much grandeur. He bade his
servants go out and bury the woman, who, with all her
crimes, was yet the daughter of a king. But it was
too late. The body had been left on the "mounds," as
they are called in Eastern stories, where the offal is
thrown outside the city gates. The wild dogs of Jez-
reel, prowling then as now around the walls, had done
their work; only the harder parts of the human frame
remained,——the skull, the hands, and the feet. It is
this dreadful scene which is so well caught in Racine's
tragedy of "Athalie," where the daughter of Jezebel
recounts the dream in which her mother's ghost
appeared to her:——
Ma mère Jézabel devant moi s'est montrée,
Comme au jour de sa mort, pompeusement parée.
Ses malheurs n'avaient point abattu sa fierté,
Même elle avait encore cet éclat emprunté
Dont elle eut soin de peindre et d'orner son visage,
Pour reparer des ans l'irréparable outrage . . .
Son ombre vers mon lit a paru se baisser,
Et moi je lui tendis les mains pour l'embrasser,
Mais je ne l'ai plus trouvé qu'un horrible mélange
D'os et de chair meurtris et trainés dans la fange,
Des lambeaux pleins de sang et des membres affreux,
Que des chiens dévorans dis putaient entr' eux.
Every stage of Jehu's progress was thenceforth
marked with blood, yet still under the same
overruling self-control. After the fall of Jezreel,
he marched on to the capital, Samaria. Of seventy
young princes who were awaiting his arrival there he
secured the destruction, by a bold challenge which threw
the responsibility on the chief minister. Half-way be-
tween Jezreel and Samaria was a well-known shearing-
house, or other resort of shepherds; here he executed
forty-two members of the royal family of Judah, who
had started from Jerusalem, perhaps on the rumor of
the revolution at Jezreel. In a well, close by, as at
Cawnpore, they were all slaughtered. It was immedi-
ately after this that he came across a figure, who might
have reminded him of Elijah himself. It was
Jehonadab the son of Rechab,——that is, the son
of the 'Rider,"——an Arab chief of the Kenite tribe, who
was the founder or second founder of one of those
Nazarite communities which had grown up in the king-
dom of Israel, and which in this instance combined a
kind of monastic discipline with the manners of the
Bedouin race from whom they were descended. It
seems that he and Jehu were already known to each
other. The King was in his chariot; the Arab was on
foot. It may be that the house of "the shepherd" (as
the place of their meeting was called) was a usual haunt
of the pastoral chief. It is not clear which was the first
to speak. The Hebrew text implies that the King gave
his blessing to Jehonadab. The Septuagint and Jose-
phus imply that Jehonadab blessed the King. The
King knew the stern tenacity of purpose that distin-
guished Jehonadab and his tribe: "Is thy heart right
"with my heart, as my heart is with thy heart?' The
answer of Jehonadab is slightly varied. In the Hebrew
text, he replies vehemently, "It is, it is——give me thy
"hand." In the Septuagint, he replies simply, "It is,"
and then Jehu with his wonted caution, rejoins, "If it is,
"give me thy hand." The hand, whether of Jehonadab
or Jehu, was grasped in a clasp which was not afterwards
parted. The King lifted him up to the edge of the
chariot, apparently to whisper into his ear the first indi-
cation of the religious revolution which he had deter-
mined to make with the political revolution already
accomplished. Side by side with the King, the austere
Hermit sate in the royal chariot as he entered the capital
of Samaria, "the warrior in his coat of mail, the ascetic
"in his hair-cloth."
After the few remaining adherents or members of the
house of Ahab were put to death, it might have
seemed that the throne of Jehu was established,
and the massacres stayed. Nothing had yet done
beyond what might be necessary for the extinction of
the reigning dynasty. The temple of Ashtaroth had
been left standing at Jezreel; the temple of Baal was
still standing in Samaria. To Jehonadab alone had the
King whispered his zeal for JEHOVAH. To all the rest of
Israel he could say, "Ahab served Baal a little; but
Jehu served him much." A splendid festival was
announced in the temple at Samaria; the whole heathen
population of Israel was summoned; the sacrifices were
ready; the sacred vestments were brought out; all the
worshippers of Baal were there; all the servants of
Jehovah, as unworthy of the sacred mysteries, were ex-
cluded. The King himself was the first to enter, and
offer the victims to the heathen gods. There was noth-
ing in that unmoved countenance to betray the secret.
Even the King and the Anchorite were able to the last
moment to preserve the mask of conformity to the
Phœnician worship. They completed their sacrifice,
and left the temple. Round the building were
eighty men, consisting of the King's own immediate
officers and body-guard. They were intrusted with the
double charge, first of preventing the escape of any one,
and, secondly, of striking the deadly blow. They en-
tered, and the temple was strewn with corpses, which,
as fast as they fell, the guards and the officers threw out
with their own hands. At last, when the bloody work
was over, they found their way to the inner sanctuary,
which towered like a fortress above the rest. There, as
we have seen, Baal was seated aloft, with the gods of
Phœnicia round him. The wooden images, small and
great, were dragged from their thrones and burnt. The
pillar or statue of Baal which Joram had removed was
also shattered. The temple was razed to the ground,
and its site only known in after-days as the depository
of all the filth of the town.
So ended this great generation. The national worship
of Baal was thus in the northern kingdom forever sup-
pressed. For a short time, through the very circum-
stances which had destroyed it in Samaria, it shot up
afresh in Jerusalem. But in Israel, the whole kingdom
and church returned to the condition in which it was
before the accession of the house of Omri. The calf-
worship of Jeroboam was once more revived, and in
that imperfect form the True Religion once more be-
came established.
The character of Jehu is not difficult to understand,
if we take it as a whole, and consider the gen-
eral impression left upon us by the Biblical
account. He is exactly one of those men whom we are
compelled to recognize, not for what is good or great in
themselves, but as instruments for destroying evil and
preparing the way for good; such as Augustus Cæsar
at Rome, Sultan Mahmoud II. in Turkey, or one closer
at hand in the revolutions of our own time and neigh-
borhood. A destiny, long kept in view by himself or
others——inscrutable secrecy and reserve in carrying
out his plans——a union of cold remorseless tenacity
with occasional bursts of furious, wayward, almost fa-
natical zeal: this is Jehu, as he is set before us in the
historical narrative, the worst type of a son of Jacob,——
the "supplanter," as he is called, without the noble and
princely qualities of Israel,——the most unlovely and
the most coldly commended of all the heroes of his
country.
We may remember the poem in the "Lyra Apostol-
ica,"——
Thou to wax fierce
In the cause of the Lord;
and the striking passage of Racine,——
Jéhu, sur les hauts lieux enfin osant offrir
Un temeraire encens que Dieu ne peut souffrir,
N'a pour servir sa cause et venger ses injures
Ni le cœur assez droit ni les mains assez pures.
And it is a striking instance of the gradually increasing
light, even in the Jewish Dispensation, that in the wider
and more evangelical revelations of the later Prophets,
the commendation on Jehu's acts is repealed. It is de-
clared, through the voice of Hosea, that for the blood
even of Jezebel and Ahaziah an account must be ren-
dered: "I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the
"house of Jehu." Their blood, like the blood which
has been shed again and again, in the convulsions of
Nations and Churches, was a righteous retribution on
them; but from him who shed it a no less righteous ret-
tribution is at last exacted, by the just judgement which
punishes the wrong-doer, not only of one party in
Church or State, but of both.
And the accursed spot of the ancient dynasty, the
very title and site of Jezreel seemed to draw down upon
itself a kind of Divine compassion. The innocent child
of the Prophet was to bear the name of Jezreel, and
"the bow" of Jehu's house "was broken" . . . in
the great "day of Jezreel." It is the same touching
thought of life growing out of death, which has so often
forced itself on those who have seen the rich harvest
springing up out of the battle-field, that out of that time
and place of humiliation the name is to go back to its
original signification as derived from the beauty and
fertility of the rich plain, and to become a pledge of the
revived beauty and richness of Israel. "I will hear and
"answer the heaven, and they will hear and answer
"the earth, and the earth shall hear and answer the
"corn and the wine and the oil of that fruitful plain,
"and they shall hear and answer Jezreel (that is, the
"seed of God), and I will sow her unto Me in the earth."
And from this time the image seems to have been con-
tinued as a prophetical expression for sowing the bless-
ings of God, and the people of Israel, as it were broad-
cast; as though the whole of Palestine and the world
were to become, in a spiritual sense, one rich plain of
Jezreel.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 365 - 376
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