One is struck by the obedience of Jehu to the heavenly call. There was no hesitation. Men but show themselves to be yet under bondage when they hesitate regarding the calls which God addresses to them.
Jehu was determined to make complete work of his mission. Not one was to escape or go forth out of the city to tell what he was about to do to those who were in Jezreel.
Springing into his chariot and calling for a detachment of cavalry, Jehu set out on his journey of sixty or seventy miles. You can see him almost flying down from Ramoth, which was about three thousand feet above the sea level. Swiftly he crosses the Jordan, and then, turning to the north, he fled over the spurs of Ephraim; then he darted up the Valley of Trembling, made famous in the day of Gideon, and finally he came to the Plain of Esdraelon, where was Jezreel.
Jehoram was unaware of the approach of Jehu. One messenger after another was sent out to make inquiry, but the messengers were ordered behind, and Jehu came forward until he and the king met at the vineyard of Naboth.
The king asked what news was being brought--news of peace or of war.
The question was answered with another question: “What peace can there be so long as the idolatrous whoredoms of thy mother, Jezebel, and her witchcrafts are so many?”
Jehu thus referred to fundamental wrongs. Instead of trifling with details he went straight to the fountainhead, and by the delivery of a profoundly religious message he excited the alarm of those who heard him.
Jehoram was weak and feeble and sought to flee, but Jehu drew a bow with his full strength and smote between his arms, and the arrow went out at the king’s heart, and he sank down in his chariot.
Then Jehu ordered his captain, or squire, to take up Jehoram and cast him into the portion of the field of Naboth, the Jezreelite, that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled.
And when Ahaziah, the king of Judah, saw this he sought to flee, but Jehu followed him, saying: “Smite him also in the chariot.” After a hot pursuit Ahaziah was struck at the declivity of Gur, where his chariot was forced to slacken its speed.
Then came the most tragical of all the acts.
No sooner was Jehu come to Jezreel than Jezebel, now old and withered, heard of it, and her blood tingled at the news. She was not one who was easily deterred.
According to the custom of Oriental ladies, Jezebel painted her eyebrows and lashes with a pigment composed of antimony and zinc. The intention of the dark border was to throw the eye into relief and make it look larger. She adorned her head with a tire, or a headdress, and after donning her royal dress she looked out at a window, designing to impress Jehu.
As Jehu looked up to the window he exclaimed: “Who is on my side?” He ordered the two or three eunuchs who looked out to throw down the painted woman. Jehu knew that the cruel queen was intensely hated by the palace officials.
The two or three eunuchs who had been accustomed to crouch before her in servile dread now saw that Jehu was in the ascendant, and in obedience to the demand of the regicide they threw her out of the window.
Such has ever been the policy of sycophants--the rats of court--who only linger there with a view of seeing how much they can appropriate or destroy.
No sooner was Jezebel thrown down than some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and she was trodden under foot.
Here, again, we see the end of wickedness. For a time there is escape, but in the long run there is ruin.
Look at Jezebel, and learn the fate of the wicked. No such fate, in a merely physical sense, may await the iniquitous now; but all those intermediate punishments simply point to the last great penalty: “The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment.”
One can pity Jezebel as her flesh was eaten by the dogs and her carcass was made as dung on the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel, and we almost shudder with horror as we think that she was to be so torn to pieces that none should be able to say: “This is Queen Jezebel.”
But all this is wasted sentiment, unless we reason from it toward spiritual conclusions.
We are so much the victims of our senses that we can pity with great compassion those who are smitten with bodily disease, or are torn limb from limb in consequence of some wicked deed; but it seems impossible for us to rise to the conception of the terrible penalty which is to fall upon the soul for violating God’s commandments and defying God’s power.
Instead of being appeased by the fate of Jezebel, Jehu sends out a decree that the whole family of Ahab shall be massacred--that the kinsmen of Ahaziah and the Baal worshipers shall be extirpated from the face of the Earth. He takes a new point of departure when he challenges the sons of Ahab, saying:
“Look even out the best and meetest of your master’s sons, and set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.”