_JEHU ESTABLISHED ON THE THRONE_
B.C. 842-814
2 KINGS x. 1-17
"The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose."
SHAKESPEARE.
But the work of Jehu was not yet over. He was established at Jezreel;
he was lord of the palace and seraglio of his master; the army of
Israel was with him. But who could be sure that no civil war would
arise, as between the partisans of Zimri and Omri, as between Omri and
Tibni? Ahab, first of the kings of Israel, had left many sons. There
were no less than seventy of these princes at Samaria. Might there not
be among them some youth of greater courage and capacity than the
murdered Jehoram? And could it be anticipated that the late dynasty
was so utterly unfortunate and execrated as to have none left to do
them reverence, or to strike one blow on their behalf, after more than
half a century of undisputed sway?[196] Jehu's _coup de main_ had been
brilliantly successful. In one day he had leapt into the throne. But
Samaria was strong upon its watch-tower hill. It was full of Ahab's
sons, and had not yet declared on Jehu's side. It might be expected
to feel some gratitude to the dynasty which Jehu had supplanted,
seeing that it owed to the grandfather of the king whom he had just
slain its very existence as the capital of Israel.
He would put a bold face on his usurpation, and strike while the iron
was hot. He would not rouse opposition by seeming to assume that
Samaria would accept his rebellion. He therefore wrote a letter to the
rulers of Samaria[197]--which was but a journey of nine hours'
distance from Jezreel--and to the guardians of the young princes,
reminding them that they were masters in a strong city, protected with
its own contingent of chariots and horses, and well supplied with
armour. He suggested that they should select the most promising of
Ahab's sons, make him king, and begin a civil war on his behalf.
The event showed how prudent was this line of conduct. As yet Jehu had
not transferred the army from Ramoth-Gilead. He had doubtless taken
good care to prevent intelligence of his plans from reaching the
adherents of Jehoram in Samaria. To them the unknown was the terrible.
All they knew was that "Behold, two kings stood not before him!" The
army must have sanctioned his revolt: what chance had they? As for
loyalty and affection, if ever they had existed towards this hapless
dynasty, they had vanished like a dream. The people of Samaria and
Jezreel had once been obedient as sheep to the iron dominance of
Jezebel. They had tolerated her idol-abominations, and the insolence
of her army of dark-browed priests. They had not risen to defend the
prophets of Jehovah, and had suffered even Elijah, twice over, to be
forced to flee for his life. They had borne, hitherto without a
murmur, the tragedies, the sieges, the famines, the humiliations, with
which during these reigns they had been familiar. And was not Jehovah
against the waning fortunes of the Beni-Omri? Elijah had undoubtedly
cursed them, and now the curse was falling. Jehu must doubtless have
let it be known that he was only carrying out the behest of their own
citizen the great Elisha, who had sent to him the anointing oil. They
could find abundant excuses to justify their defection from the old
house, and they sent to the terrible man a message of almost abject
submission:--Let him do as he would; they would make no king: they
were his servants, and would do his bidding.
Jehu was not likely to be content with verbal or even written
promises. He determined, with cynical subtlety, to make them put a
very bloody sign-manual to their treaty, by implicating them
irrevocably in his rebellion. He wrote them a second mandate.
"If," he said, "ye accept my rule, prove it by your obedience. Cut off
the heads of your master's sons, and see that they are brought to me
here to-morrow by yourselves before the evening."
The ruthless order was fulfilled to the letter by the terrified
traitors. The king's sons were with their tutors, the lords of the city.
On the very morning that Jehu's second missive arrived, every one of
these poor guiltless youths was unceremoniously beheaded. The hideous,
bleeding trophies were packed in fig-baskets and sent to Jezreel.[198]
When Jehu was informed of this revolting present it was evening, and he
was sitting at a meal with his friends.[199] He did not trouble himself
to rise from his feast or to look at "death made proud by pure and
princely beauty." He knew that those seventy heads could only be the
heads of the royal youths. He issued a cool and brutal order that they
should be piled in two heaps[200] until the morning on either side the
entrance of the city gates. Were they watched? or were the dogs and
vultures and hyænas again left to do their work upon them? We do not
know. In any case it was a scene of brutal barbarism such as might have
been witnessed in living memory in Khiva or Bokhara;[201] nor must we
forget that even in the last century the heads of the brave and the
noble rotted on Westminster Hall and Temple Bar, and over the Gate of
York, and over the Tolbooth at Edinburgh, and on Wexford Bridge.
The day dawned, and all the people were gathered at the gate, which
was the scene of justice. With the calmest air imaginable the warrior
came out to them, and stood between the mangled heads of those who but
yesterday had been the pampered minions of fortune and luxury. His
speech was short and politic in its brutality. "Be yourselves the
judges," he said. "Ye are righteous. Jezebel called me a Zimri. Yes! I
conspired against my master and slew him: but"--and here he casually
pointed to the horrible, bleeding heaps--"who smote all these?" The
people of Jezreel and the lords of Samaria were not only passive
witnesses of his rebellion; they were active sharers in it. They had
dabbled their hands in the same blood. Now they could not choose but
accept his dynasty: for who was there besides himself? And then,
changing his tone, he does not offer "the tyrant's devilish plea,
necessity," to cloak his atrocities, but--like a Romish inquisitor of
Seville or Granada--claims Divine sanction for his sanguinary
violence. This was not _his_ doing. He was but an instrument in the
hands of fate. Jehovah is alone responsible. He is doing what He spake
by His servant Elijah. Yes! and there was yet more to do; for no word
of Jehovah's shall fall to the ground.
With the same cynical ruthlessness, and cold indifference to smearing
his robes in the blood of the slain, he carried out to the bitter end
his task of policy which he gilded with the name of Divine justice.
Not content with slaying Ahab's sons, he set himself to extirpate his
race, and slew all who remained to him in Jezreel, not only his kith
and kin, but every lord and every Baal-priest who favoured his house,
until he left him none remaining.
But what a frightful picture do these scenes furnish us of the state
of religion and even of civilisation in Jezreel! There was this
man-eating tiger of a king wallowing in the blood of princes, and
enacting scenes which remind us of Dahomey and Ashantee, or of some
Tartary khanate where human hands are told out in the market-place
after some avenging raid. And amid all this savagery, squalor, and
Turkish atrocity, the man pleads the sanction of Jehovah, and claims,
unrebuked, that he is only carrying out the behests of Jehovah's
prophets! It is not until long afterwards that the voice of a prophet
is heard repudiating his plea and denouncing his bloodthirstiness.
"An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek--
A goodly apple rotten at the core."
FOOTNOTES:
[196] Omri, 12 years; Ahab, 22; Ahaziah, 18; Jehoram, 12.
[197] The reading of 2 Kings x. 1, "Unto the rulers of _Jezreel_," is
clearly wrong. The LXX. reads, "Unto the rulers of Samaria." Unless
"Jezreel" be a clerical error for Israel, we must read, "He sent
letters from Jezreel unto the rulers of Samaria."
[198] Fig-baskets, Jer. xxiv. 2. The word _dudim_ is rendered "pots"
in 1 Sam. ii. 14. LXX., ἐν καρτάλλοις; Vulg., _in cophinis_. In Psalm
lxxxi. 6 the LXX. has ἐν τῷ κοφίνῳ.
[199] Jos., _Antt._, IX. vi. 5.
[200] Heb., _Tsibourîm_; LXX., βουνούς.
[201] Comp. 1 Sam. xvii. 54; 2 Macc. xv. 30.
[202] Hos. i. 4.