---
title: "Clarke"
description: "Verse 2 Kings 10:1. Ahab had seventy sons — As he had several wives, he might have many children. The Israelites, from the earliest part of their history,"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/clarkes-commentary/2-kings/10"
---

Verse [2 Kings 10:1](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/1). ***Ahab had seventy sons*** — As he had several wives, he might have many children. The Israelites, from the earliest part of their history, were remarkably fruitful. How amazingly did they multiply in Egypt, even under the hand of the severest oppression! And as to the individuals of whose families we have an account, they are quite remarkable: *Rehoboam* had *thirty-eight* sons; *Abdon* had *forty; Tola* had *thirty; Ahab, seventy*; and *Gideon,* *seventy-one*.
***Unto the rulers of Jezreel*** — It certainly should be, *unto the* *rulers of Samaria*; for to *them* and to that *city* the whole context shows us the letters were sent. See [2 Kings 10:6](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/6).
***To them that brought up Ahab's*** children] It appears that the royal children of Israel and Judah were intrusted to the care of the nobles, and were brought up by them, (see [2 Kings 10:6](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/6);) and to these, therefore, Jehu's letters are directed. It is supposed Isaiah ([Isaiah 49:23](../../../kjv/isaiah/49/23)) alludes to this custom: *Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing* *mothers*.

Verse [2 Kings 10:2](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/2). ***A fenced city also*** — All here seems to refer to Samaria alone; in it were the magazines and implements of war, c. No reader need be told that these letters were all *ironical*. It was the same as if he had said, "Ye have no means of defence Israel is with *me*: if you yield not up yourselves and the city, I will put you all to the sword."

Verse [2 Kings 10:4](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/4). ***Two kings stood not before him*** — That is Joram and Ahaziah.

Verse [2 Kings 10:5](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/5). ***He that was over the house, &c.*** — Thus all the constituted authorities agreed to submit.
***Will do all that thou shalt bid us*** — They made no conditions, and stood pledged to commit the horrid murders which this most execrable man afterwards commanded.

Verse [2 Kings 10:6](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/6). ***Come to me to Jezreel*** — Therefore the letters were not written to Jezreel, but from Jezreel to Samaria.

Verse [2 Kings 10:7](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/7). ***Put their heads in baskets*** — What cold-blooded wretches were the whole of these people!

Verse [2 Kings 10:8](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/8). ***Lay ye them in two heaps*** — It appears that the heads of these princes had arrived at Jezreel in the *night time*: Jehu ordered them to be left at the gate of the city, a place of public resort, that all the people might see them, and be struck with terror, and conclude that all resistance to such authority and power would be vain.

Verse [2 Kings 10:9](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/9). ***Ye be righteous*** — Another irony, intended partly to excuse himself, and to involve them in the odium of this massacre, and at the same time to justify the conduct of both, by showing that all was done according to the commandment of the Lord.

Verse [2 Kings 10:11](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/11). ***Jehu slew all*** — So it appears that the *great men* who had so obsequiously taken off the heads of Ahab's *seventy* sons, fell also a sacrifice to the ambition of this incomparably bad man.

Verse [2 Kings 10:12](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/12). ***The shearing house*** — Probably the place where the shepherds met for the annual sheep shearing.

Verse [2 Kings 10:13](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/13). ***The brethren of Ahaziah*** — The relatives of his family; for it does not appear that he had any *brethren*, properly so called: but we know that the term brethren among the Jews signified the relatives of the same family, and especially *brothers'* and *sisters'* children: and that these-were such, see [2 Chronicles 22:8](../../../kjv/2-chronicles/22/8).
***We go down to salute, &c.*** — So promptly had Jehu executed all his measures, that even the nearest relatives of the murdered kings had not heard of their death, and consequently had no time to escape. They were all taken as in a net.

Verse [2 Kings 10:14](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/14). ***The pit of the shearing house*** — Probably the place where they washed the *sheep* previously to shearing, or the *fleeces* after they were shorn off.

Verse [2 Kings 10:15](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/15). ***Jehonadab the son of Rechab*** — For particulars concerning this man, his *ancestry*, and *posterity*, see the notes on [Jeremiah 35](../../../kjv/jeremiah/35).
***Is thine heart right*** — With me, in the prosecution of a reform in Israel; *as my heart* is *with thy heart* in the true religion of Jehovah, and the destruction of Baal?
***It is.*** — I wish a reform in the religion of the country; I am his friend who shall endeavour to promote it.
***Give me thine hand.*** — This has been generally considered as exacting a *promise* from Jehonadab; but does it mean any more than his taking him by the hand, to help him to step into his chariot, in which Jehu was then sitting? Jehonadab was doubtless a very honourable man in Israel; and by carrying him about with him in his chariot, Jehu endeavoured to acquire the public esteem. "Jehu must be acting right, for Jehonadab is with him, and approves his conduct."

Verse [2 Kings 10:16](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/16). ***Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord.*** — O thou ostentatious and murderous hypocrite! Thou have zeal for Jehovah and his pure religion! Witness thy calves at Dan and Bethel, and the general profligacy of thy conduct. He who can call another to witness his zeal for religion, or his works of charity, has as much of both as serves his *own* turn.

Verse [2 Kings 10:18](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/18). ***Ahab served Baal a little*** — Jehu had determined to have no worship in Israel but that of the golden calves at Dan and Bethel; therefore he purposes to destroy all the worshippers of Baal: and that he may do it without *suspicion*, he proclaims a great sacrifice; and that he may do it the more *easily*, he gathers them all together into one place.

Verse [2 Kings 10:19](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/19). ***Whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live.*** — Because, as he will thereby show himself without zeal for the service of his God, he will justly forfeit his life. All this was done in the very spirit of deceit.

Verse [2 Kings 10:22](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/22). ***He said unto him that*****was*****over the vestry*** — The word *vestry* comes from *vestiarium*, and that from *vestes, garments*, from *vestio, I clothe*; and signifies properly the *place* where the *sacerdotal robes* and *pontifical ornaments* are kept. The priests of Baal had their robes as well as the priests of the Lord; but the garments were such that one could be easily distinguished from the other.

Verse [2 Kings 10:23](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/23). ***None of the servants of the Lord*** — Though he was not attached to that service, yet he would tolerate it; and as he was led to suppose that he was fulfilling the will of *Jehovah* in what he was doing, he would of course treat his worship and worshippers with the more respect.
He might have ordered the search to be made on pretense of expelling any of those whom they would consider *the profane*, especially as this was "a solemn assembly for Baal," as was the custom with the heathen when any extraordinary exhibition of or for their god was expected; thus Callimachus, (Hymn to Apollo,) after imagining the temple and its suburbs to be shaken by the approach of Apollo, cries out, Εκας, ἑκας, ὁστις, αλιτρος. To prevent any suspicion of his real design, such might have been Jehu's plea, else alarm must have been excited, and perhaps some would have escaped.

Verse [2 Kings 10:25](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/25). ***As soon as he had made an end of offering*** — Had Jehu been a man of any conscientious principle in religion, he would have finished the tragedy before he offered the *burnt-offering*; but to a man of no religion, the worship of Jehovah and of Baal are alike. If he prefers either, it is merely as a *statesman*, for political purposes.
***To the guard and to the captains*** — לרצים ולשלשים *leratsim* *uleshalashim; to the couriers* or *runners, and the shalashim*, the men of the *third rank*, those officers who were next to the nobles, the king and these being only their superiors. The *runners* were probably a sort of *light infantry*.
***The city of the house of Baal.*** — Does not this mean a sort of holy of holies, where the most sacred images of Baal were kept? A place separated from the temple of Baal, as the *holy of holies* in the temple of Jehovah was separated from what was called *the holy* *place*.

Verse 27. ***Made it a draught house*** — A place for human excrement; so all the *versions* understand it. Nothing could be more degrading than this; he made it a *public necessary*.

Verse 30. ***Thy children of the fourth generation*** — These four descendants of Jehu were *Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam* the second, and *Zechariah*; see [2 Kings 14](../../../kjv/2-kings/14) and [2 Kings 15](../../../kjv/2-kings/15). This was all the compensation Jehu had in either world, as a recompense of *his zeal* *for the Lord*.

Verse 31. ***Jehu took no heed*** — He never made it his study; indeed, he never intended to walk in this way; it neither suited his *disposition* nor his *politics*.

Verse 32. ***The Lord began to cut Israel short*** — The *marginal* reading is best: *The Lord cut off the ends*; and this he did by permitting Hazael to seize on the *coasts*, to conquer and occupy the *frontier towns*. This was the commencement of those miserable ravages which Elisha predicted; see [2 Kings 8:12](../../../kjv/2-kings/8/12). And we find from the next verse that he seized on *all the land of Gilead*, and that of *Reuben* and *Gad*, and the *half tribe of Manasseh*; in a word, whatever Israel possessed on the east side of Jordan.

Verse [2 Kings 10:34](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/34). **Are*****they not written in the book of the chronicles*** — We have no chronicles in which there is any thing farther spoken of this bad man. His reign was long, *twenty-eight* years; and yet we know nothing of it but the commencement.
FOR *barbarity* and *hypocrisy* Jehu has few parallels; and the cowardliness and baseness of the *nobles of Samaria* have seldom been equalled. Ahab's bloody house must be cut off; but did God ever design that it should be done by these means? The men were, no doubt, profligate and wicked, and God permitted their iniquity to manifest itself in this way; and thus the purpose of God, that Ahab's house should no more reign, was completely accomplished: see [1 Kings 21:19](../../../kjv/1-kings/21/19); [1 Kings 21:21](../../../kjv/1-kings/21/21); [1 Kings 21:29](../../../kjv/1-kings/21/29). And by this conduct Jehu is said to have executed what was right in God's eyes, [2 Kings 10:30](../../../kjv/2-kings/10/30). The cutting off of Ahab's family was decreed by the Divine justice; the *means* by which it was done, or at least the *manner* of doing, were not entirely of his appointing: yet the commission given him by the young prophet, [2 Kings 9:7](../../../kjv/2-kings/9/7), was very extensive. Yet still many things seem to be attributed to God, as the *agent*, which he does not execute, but only permits to be done.

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