Text -- 2 Kings 10:18-36 (NET)

Jehu Executes the Prophets and Priests of Baal

10:18 Jehu assembled all the people and said to them, “Ahab worshiped Baal a little; Jehu will worship him with great devotion. 10:19 So now, bring to me all the prophets of Baal, as well as all his servants and priests. None of them must be absent, for I am offering a great sacrifice to Baal. Any of them who fail to appear will lose their lives.” But Jehu was tricking them so he could destroy the servants of Baal. 10:20 Then Jehu ordered, “Make arrangements for a celebration for Baal.” So they announced it. 10:21 Jehu sent invitations throughout Israel, and all the servants of Baal came; not one was absent. They arrived at the temple of Baal and filled it up from end to end. 10:22 Jehu ordered the one who was in charge of the wardrobe, “Bring out robes for all the servants of Baal.” So he brought out robes for them. 10:23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Rekab went to the temple of Baal. Jehu said to the servants of Baal, “Make sure there are no servants of the Lord here with you; there must be only servants of Baal.” 10:24 They went inside to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed eighty men outside. He had told them, “If any of the men inside get away, you will pay with your lives!” 10:25 When he finished offering the burnt sacrifice, Jehu ordered the royal guard and officers, “Come in and strike them down! Don’t let any escape!” So the royal guard and officers struck them down with the sword and left their bodies lying there. Then they entered the inner sanctuary of the temple of Baal. 10:26 They hauled out the sacred pillar of the temple of Baal and burned it. 10:27 They demolished the sacred pillar of Baal and the temple of Baal; it is used as a latrine to this very day. 10:28 So Jehu eradicated Baal worship from Israel.

A Summary of Jehu’s Reign

10:29 However, Jehu did not repudiate the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat had encouraged Israel to commit; the golden calves remained in Bethel and Dan. 10:30 The Lord said to Jehu, “You have done well. You have accomplished my will and carried out my wishes with regard to Ahab’s dynasty. Therefore four generations of your descendants will rule over Israel.” 10:31 But Jehu did not carefully and wholeheartedly obey the law of the Lord God of Israel. He did not repudiate the sins which Jeroboam had encouraged Israel to commit. 10:32 In those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel’s territory. Hazael attacked their eastern border. 10:33 He conquered all the land of Gilead, including the territory of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh, extending all the way from the Aroer in the Arnon Valley through Gilead to Bashan. 10:34 The rest of the events of Jehu’s reign, including all his accomplishments and successes, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel. 10:35 Jehu passed away and was buried in Samaria. His son Jehoahaz replaced him as king. 10:36 Jehu reigned over Israel for twenty-eight years in Samaria.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:18

¹ tn Or “served.

² tn Or “serve.”

³ tn Heb “much” or “greatly.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:19

¹ tn Heb “and now, all the prophets of Baal, all his servants and all his priests summon to me.”

² tn Heb “acted with deception [or, ‘trickery’].”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:20

¹ tn Heb “set apart”; or “observe as holy.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:21

¹ tn Heb “and the house of Baal was filled mouth to mouth.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:22

¹ tn Heb “and he said to the one who was over the wardrobe.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:23

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “Search carefully and observe so that there are not here with you any servants of the Lord, only the servants of Baal.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:24

¹ tn Heb “The man who escapes from the men whom I am bringing into your hands, [it will be] his life in place of his life.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:25

¹ tn Heb “runners.”

² tn Heb “and they threw.” No object appears. According to M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 116), this is an idiom for leaving a corpse unburied.

³ tn Heb “and they came to the city of the house of Baal.” It seems unlikely that a literal city is meant. Some emend עִיר (’ir), “city,” to דְּבִיר (dÿvir) “holy place,” or suggest that עִיר is due to dittography of the immediately preceding עַד (’ad) “to.” Perhaps עִיר is here a technical term meaning “fortress” or, more likely, “inner room.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:27

¹ tn Or “pulled down.”

² tn The verb “they demolished” is repeated in the Hebrew text.

³ tn Heb “and they made it into.”

⁴ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has the hapax legomenon מַחֲרָאוֹת (makhara’ot), “places to defecate” or “dung houses” (note the related noun חרא (khr’)/חרי (khri), “dung,” HALOT 348-49 s.v. *חֲרָאִים). The marginal reading (Qere) glosses this, perhaps euphemistically, מוֹצָאוֹת (motsa’ot), “outhouses.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:28

¹ tn Heb “destroyed Baal.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:29

¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

² tn Heb “Except the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat which he caused Israel to commit, Jehu did not turn aside from after them – the golden calves which [were in] Bethel and which [were] in Dan.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:30

¹ tn Heb “Because you have done well by doing what is proper in my eyes – according to all which was in my heart you have done to the house of Ahab – sons of four generations will sit for you on the throne of Israel.” In the Hebrew text the Lord’s statement is one long sentence (with a parenthesis). The translation above divides it into shorter sentences for stylistic reasons.

sn Jehu ruled over Israel from approximately 841-814 b.c. Four of his descendants (Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, and Zechariah) ruled from approximately 814-753 b.c. The dynasty came to an end when Shallum assassinated Zechariah in 753 b.c. See 2 Kgs 15:8-12.

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:31

¹ tn Heb “But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart.”

² tn Heb “He did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam which he caused Israel to commit.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:32

¹ tn Heb “began to cut off Israel.”

² tn Heb “Hazael struck them down in all the territory of Israel, from the Jordan on the east.” In the Hebrew text the phrase “from the Jordan on the east” begins v. 33.

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:33

¹ tn Heb “all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassehites, from Aroer which is near the Arnon Valley, and Gilead, and Bashan.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:34

¹ tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jehu, and all which he did and all his strength, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Israel?”

NET Notes: 2Ki 10:35

¹ tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”

² map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.