All this was a declaration of warlike intention on the part of Jehu. But Jehu’s character as a soldier was too well known to permit the rulers of Jezreel and the elders to entertain the thought of encountering him in open battle. So they made this answer:
“We are thy servants, and will do all that thou shalt bid us; we will not make any king. Do thou that which is good in thine eyes.”
Then Jehu set up a test of their obedience. He did impose on them hard work. He said:
“If ye be mine, and if ye will hearken unto my voice, take ye the heads of the men your master’s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time.”
The word was enough. The heads of seventy men were put into baskets and sent to Jehu at Jezreel. Jehu pronounced the men who had beheaded the sons of Ahab guiltless in respect of their deaths, because what they did had been done judicially, under royal command.
Some think that Jehu wished to make them guilty of the massacre of the princes, while he had slain but one king. On the whole, however, it is better to consider that Jehu exculpates the men who had only executed his command.
The slaughter of the priests is one of the most dramatic incidents in all this portion of biblical history. Jehu proceeded by way of strategy. It is impossible to justify the spirit of the policy of Jehu in this matter. He said he would serve Baal “much.”
It has been thought that he was thinking of his intended holocaust of human victims; but, whatever his thoughts, it is impossible to deny that the impression he produced was that Jehu was about to become a worshiper of Baal. This reading is imported into the narrative in these words: “But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal.”
Now a solemn assembly for Baal was proclaimed. From all Israel the devotees of Baal came, so that there was not left a man that came not. The house of Baal was full from one end to the other. And they were all clothed with appropriate vestments.
Jehu was careful that not one worshiper of Jehovah should be in the assembly, but those of Baal only.
When the worshipers went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings Jehu stationed fourscore men without, and said: “If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him.”
Then came the moment of massacre.
“And they smote them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal.”
Jehu’s guards, having completed their bloody work in the court of the temple, hastened up the steps into the sanctuary itself, which, like the Temple of Solomon, was made after the pattern of a fortress.
The images of Baal were brought forth out of the house of Baal and burned. The image of Baal was broken down, and his house was broken down, and the whole scene was utterly dishonored and desecrated.
“Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel.”
But the way was wrong. Perhaps, for the period within which the destruction took place, it was the only ministry that was possible. The incident, however, must stand in historical isolation, being utterly useless as a lesson or guide for our imitation.
We are called upon to destroy Baal out of Israel, but not with sword or staff or implement of war.
“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds of Satan.”
Jehu did his rough-and-ready work--a work, as we have said, adapted to the barbaric conditions under which he reigned. But there must be no Jehu in the Christian Church, except in point of energy, decision, obedience and single-mindedness of purpose. A Christian persecution is a contradiction in terms.
When Christians see evil, they are not to assail it with weapons of war; they are to preach against it, to argue against it, to pray about it, to bring all possible moral force to bear upon it, but in no case is physical persecution to accompany the propagation of Christianity. Not only so. Any destruction that is accomplished by physical means is a merely temporary destruction. There is in reality nothing in it.
When progress of a Christian kind is reported it must not be tainted by the presence of physical severity. We can not silence evil speakers by merely closing their mouths. So long as we can hold those mouths there may indeed be silence, but not until the spirit has been changed--not until the very heart has been converted and born again--can the evil-doer be silenced and his mouth be dispossessed of wicked speech and filled with words of honesty and pureness. Jehu himself was not a good man. “From the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them.”
For reasons of state policy, Jehu maintained the worship of Bethel and Dan.