IIe was now master of Jezreel, which was, next to Samaria, the chief town of the kingdom ; but he could not feel secure while the capital itself was in the hands of the royal family, and of those who might be supposed to feel strong at tachment to the house of Ahab. The force of the blow which he had struck was, however, felt even in Samaria. When therefore he wrote to the persons in authority there the somewhat ironical but designedly intimidating counsel, to set up one of the young princes in Samaria as king and fight out the matter which lay between them, they sent a very submissive answer, giving in their adhesion, and professing their readiness to obey in all things his commands. A second letter from Jehu tested this profession in a truly horrid and exceedingly Oriental manner, requiring them to appear before him on the morrow, bringing with them the heads of all the royal princes in Samaria. A fallen house meets with little pity in the East; and when the new king left his palace the next morning, he found seventy human heads piled up in two heaps at his gate. There, in the sight of these heaps, Jehu took occasion to explain his conduct, declaring that he must be regarded as the appointed minister of the divine decrees, pronounceo long since against the house of Ahab by the prophets, not one of whose words should fall to the ground. He then continued his pro scriptions by exterminating in Jezreel not only all in whose veins the blood of the condemned race flowed, but also—by a considerable stretch of his commission—those officers, ministers, and crea tures of the late government, who, if suffered to live, would most likely be disturbers of his own reign. He then proceeded to Samaria. So rapid had been these proceedings that he met some of the nephews of the king of Judah, who were going to join their uncle at Jezreel, and had as yet heard nothing of the revolution which had taken place. These also perished under Jehu's now fully awakened thirst for blood, to the number of forty two persons.
On the way he took up into his chariot the pious Jehonadab the Rechabite, whose austere virtue and respected character would, as he felt, go far to hallow his proceedings in the eyes of the multitude. At Samaria he continued the extirpation of the persons more intimately connected with the late government. This, far from being in any way singular, is a common circumstance in eastern revolutions. But the great object of Jehu was to exterminate the ministers and more devoted ad herents of Baal, who had been much encouraged by Jezebel. There was even a temple to this idol in Samaria ; and Jehu, never scrupulous about the means of reaching objects which he believed to be good, laid a snare by which he hoped to cut off the main body of Baal's ministers at one blow. He professed to be a more zealous servant of Baal than Ahab had been, and proclaimed a great fes tival in his honour, at which none but his true ser vants were to be present. The prophets, priests, and officers of Baal assembled from all parts for this great sacrifice, and sacerdotal vestments were given to them, that none of Jehovah's worshippers might be taken for them. When the temple was
full, soldiers were posted so that none might escape ; and so soon as the sacrifice had been offered, tbe word was given by the king, the soldiers entered the temple, and put all the worshippers to the sword. The temple itself was then demolished, the images overthrown, and the site turned into a common jakes.
Notwithstanding this zeal of Jehu in exterminat in,g the grosser idolatries which had grown up under his immediate predecessors, he was not prepared to subvert the policy which had led Jeroboam and his successors to maintain the schismatic establishment of the golden calves itt Dan and Beth-el. The grounds of this policy are explained in the article JEROBOAM, a reference to which will shew the grounds of Jehu's hesita tion in this matter. This was, however, a crime in him—the worship rendered to the golden calves being plainly contrary to the law ; and he should have felt that He who had appointed him to the throne would have maintained him in it, notwith standing the apparent dangers which might seem likely to ensue from perrnitting his subjects to repair at the great festivals to the metropolis of the rival kingdom, which was the centre of the theocratical worship and of sacerdotal service. Here Jehu fell short : and this very policy, ap parently so prudent and far-sighted, by which he hoped to secure the stability and independence of his kingdom, was that on account of which the term of rule granted to his dynasty was shortened, For this, it was foretold that his dynasty should extend only to four generations ; and for this, the divine aid was withheld from him in his wars with the Syrians under Hazael on the eastern frontier. Hence the war was disastrous to him, and the Syrians were able to maintain themselves in the possession of a great part of his territories beyond the Jordan. Ile died in R.C. 856, and was buried in Samaria, leaving the throne to his son Jelioahaz.
There is nothing difficult to understand in the character of Jehu. He was one of those decisive, terrible, and ambitious yet prudent, calculating, and passionless men, wctoni God from time to time raises up to change the fate of empires and execute his judgments on the earth. He boasted of his zeal—` come and see my zeal for the Lord '—but at the bottom it was zeal for Jehu. His zeal was great So long as it led to acts which squared with his own interests, but it cooled marvellously when required to take a direction in his judgment less favourable to-them. Even his zeal m extirpating the idolatry of Baal is not free from suspicion. The altar of Baal was that which Ahab had associ ated with his throne, and in overturning the latter he could not prudently let the former stand, sur rounded as it was by attached adherents of the house which he had extirpated (2 Kings ix.-x.) 2. The son of Hanani, a prophet, who was sent to pronounce upon Baasha, king of Israel, and his house, the same awful doom which had been al ready executed upon the house of Jeroboam (1 Kings xvi. 1.7). The same prophet was, many years after, commissioned to reprove Jehoshaphat for his dangerous connection with the house of Ahab (2 Chron. xix. 2).—J. K.