The purge continues…

Jehu has been anointed to destroy the entire dynasty of Ahab. And when a king has a bunch of wives, the result is many children.

At this point, it’s been 14 years since the death of Ahab. Assuming he fathered a child just before he went to battle where he was fatally shot, (which may not have happened), then the youngest any son of Ahab could be is 14. And the oldest would probably be close to 40. Most would be in their 20s & 30’s.

Jehu issues a challenge:

Pick out one of Ahab’s sons, make him king, and put together an army to defend yourselves because I’m coming for the household of Ahab.

He gives them fair warning.

But the court advisors and tutors of these young men chicken out. Jehu has already taken out Joram and Ahaziah- the kings of Judah and Israel. The advisors switch sides really quickly and comply with Jehu’s demand to execute the sons of Ahab. It doesn’t end well for them. Most of them are eliminated as well because their “loyalty” means nothing.

Interesting to note that Ahab’s sons had their heads removed. And what was the only part left of Jezebel? Her head and hands and feet. That’s weird.

But… the picture of 2 heaps of heads at either side of the city gate… it’s barbaric.

😨 No kidding! This is one of those Rated R Bible stories. It’s like a scene out of a horror film. 70 heads!

☝🏼🤓 Well, during the French Revolution, there were days when the guillotine took off 70 heads… in one hour. So there’s the progress of civilization for you.

😳

Perhaps the piles of heads were some kind of psychological warfare meant to shock people into rethinking the direction of the nation. Displaying severed heads was a practice in many ancient and not-so-ancient cultures. From around 1300-1660, the decapitated heads of criminals were displayed on pikes on London Bridge. I think most who saw that would think twice before committing a crime.

Jehu employed some rather sketchy methods to purge the evil from Israel. In fact, in these chapters, Jehu is kind of like a Joshua-figure; purging the wicked from the Promised Land.

Jehu sets up a test to find out who would rather die than worship Baal.

Attendance at his phony festival for Baal wasn’t “requested,” it was more like demand from the Mafia. Anyone who disobeyed was serious about their refusal to worship Baal.

Remember how God told Elijah…

“Anyone who escapes from Hazael will be killed by Jehu, and those who escape Jehu will be killed by Elisha! Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him!”
‭‭1 Kings‬ ‭19‬:‭17‬-‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

There are still faithful people in Israel. And Jehu sorts them out from the rest.

Jehu is not a loose canon. If you just opened 2 Kings 10 and read it, it kind of appears that he’s just another bloodthirsty tyrant. But he isn’t. God has called and anointed him to be this ferocious warrior. Now mind you, Jehu was called by the same God Who said,

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭43‬-‭44‬ ‭NLT‬‬

For many people, this change from Old Testament to New is so drastic that they speak of “The God of the Old Testament” as if He is a different Being than “The God of the New Testament.” But Yahweh says,

“I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed.”
‭‭Malachi‬ ‭3‬:‭6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

And… “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

And…

“in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature…”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭3‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

So if God doesn’t change and Jesus is the exact representation of His nature, why did He have a Jehu in the OT lopping off heads and throwing the queen out of the window, but in the NT, He tells us to be harmless, love our enemies, and turn the other cheek?

And consider this:

“Jesus answered, ‘My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.’”
‭‭John‬ ‭18‬:‭36‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So Jesus said His followers don’t fight because His kingdom is not of this world, but in the OT the LORD appoints Jehu TO fight.

I wish I had some brilliant theological and philosophical arguments to explain the change between the testaments. Someone out there has probably already tackled it in 700 page doctoral dissertation. Here’s all I’ve got for ya:

• If Jesus said, “my kingdom is not an earthly kingdom,” then it never was an earthly kingdom. It was always a spiritual one. So the land of Israel (then or now) does not equal the kingdom of God & Christ.
  • That’s why it’s a really big deal when “the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,” Rev. 11:15.
  • Jehu isn’t fighting for the kingdom. Not exactly.
• God does not change, but the way He interacts with humans has changed over time. We’ve already seen it just in the first half of the Bible: Eden, Noah, Babel, the Patriarchs, Moses and the Law, the Judges, the Kings…
• God made everything and everyone. He does not need permission for their time on earth to be over. There is no committee He needs to sign off on the time or manner of anyone’s death.
• He is always just and good and kind, even in His judgment.
  • This is a faith statement. It is a statement of trust. I believe what God says about Himself and what He has revealed of Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. I do not exalt my own judgment in opposition to God’s- certainly over a biblical event that clearly asserts a violent act as God’s righteous judgment. In other words, I don’t say, “Now hold on a second… God says He is just and good but MY moral compass says He is cruel.”
• When Jesus rose from the grave a whole lot of HUGE things took place in the spiritual realm.
  • Jesus stripped the principalities and powers of their celestial authority. He holds ALL power and dominion.
  • That was not the case before the resurrection. Those powers still held humanity in utter bondage. It’s a system of death. And they reign over the dead. But Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,” John‬ ‭11‬:‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬. Jesus is the victory over death. In Him, we are detached from sin and its result.
  • I’m not exactly sure how (technically), but I think that the spiritual bondage to the rebel powers has something to do with the problem of Baal worship in Yahweh’s land- like, why it cannot be tolerated. The evil entity being worshiped as “Baal” was taking the people that Yahweh had made from scratch (Abraham & Sarah = Isaac). Israel was made to be Yahweh’s people. They could not belong to any other. They were made for the purpose of bringing Messiah into the world. And they were actively being seduced and stolen by Baal. So Yahweh stops it.
  • There was no way out (yet) of the death system mentioned above. The Holy Spirit was not present in the Church being a light in the darkness and convicting the world of sin. There was no Gospel yet to bring people out of bondage to the rebel powers. So if human hearts were bent on sin and could not be turned, the only way to stop their cancerous influence was to remove the agents of evil from the world. And that’s what Jehu did.
  • These drastic measures are perhaps the only way to stop the complete derailment of the plan of God for the salvation of the world. If the seed of the Messiah is cut off (like VERY nearly happened with Athaliah – daughter of Ahab) then all hope is lost. This is war for the souls of men. WAR, not a friendly game of checkers.
  • But Christ has won the war. It truly is FINISHED.
• And that’s why we love our human “enemies” now. Because the war is over. They just don’t know it. They are still in bondage to sin and death. They can be freed just as we have. Their slave masters have been defeated but the propaganda is still telling them lies. And in Christ we (humans!!) can directly confront the rebel powers in the name of Jesus Christ, through His blood, and with the Word of God.
  • “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
    ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭6‬:‭12‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬
  • “We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.”
    ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭10‬:‭3‬-‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

And I’m sorry that’s the best I can do to attempt to explain why Jehu could fight for Yahweh with a sword of bronze and now we fight with the sword of scripture.

I hope it helped. Even a little.