The secret anointing of Jehu as the new king of Israel, and the establishing of his reign, is certainly a messy story. As the story unfolded, Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Jezebel all wanted peace with Jehu (II Kings 9:22, 9:31): but “what peace can there be” (9:22) in the face of whoredom, sorcery, and idolatry?

King Jehu killed Jehoram with his own weapon; his soldiers mortally wounded Ahaziah, and sympathizers threw Jezebel down from the palace tower (9:23-26; 9:27; 9:30-33). Jehu negotiated the beheading of the remaining seventy sons of Ahab (10:6-7); he killed – presumably by commanding his men to do it, though the text simply says “he killed” – all of Ahab’s close friends and priests (10:11, 17), and some 42 relatives of Ahaziah (10:13-14). He then arranged the slaughter of all the prophets, priests, and followers of Baal that he could round up (10:19-25).

It is an impressive amount of bloodshed. It removed all the potential rivals to Jehu’s kingship, even while he could attribute all these deaths to his “zeal for the Lord” (10:16). Yet killing his enemies, or the enemies of Yahweh, turns out to have been the easy part. In all his zeal Jehu did not succeed in devoting himself exclusively to the service of the Lord, but found himself still enmeshed in idolatry: “Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he caused Israel to commit” (10:29). Nor did he manage to follow the law of the Lord in his heart (10:31).

It is difficult to take religious zeal seriously when its violence makes it look so much more like realpolitik than piety. We see no piety or prayerfulness on Jehu’s part: Jehu claimed he was killing off all his rivals as an act of faithfulness, but I find it hard to believe him. Perhaps Jehu was anointed by God as king in preference to the family of Ahab (and indeed, you could be quite terrible and still be preferable to Ahab); yet Jehu is hardly the example of godliness that we would hope for.

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Help us, Lord! We are so prone to imagine that we just need to muster the strength to wipe out all those other sinners. Yet if we could do that, we would still be so far from solving the sin problem that is so desperately established within our own souls. Only you can save us from ourselves!

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