9:1-10 In these and the like events, we must acknowledge the secret working of God, disposing men to fulfil his purposes respecting them. Jehu was anointed king over Israel, by the Lord's special choice. The Lord still had a remnant of his people, and would yet preserve his worship among them. Of this Jehu was reminded. He was commanded to destroy the house of Ahab, and, as far as he acted in obedience to God, and upon right principles, he needed not to regard reproach or opposition. The murder of God's prophets is strongly noticed. Jezebel persisted in idolatry and enmity to Jehovah and his servants, and her iniquity was now full.

Verse 7. - And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master. This is plainly a command, not a prophecy. Jehu is expressly ordered by God to "smite," i.e. destroy utterly, the whole house of Ahab. This command he carried out (vers. 24, 33; 2 Kings 10:1-11); and his obedience to it obtained for him the temporal reward that his children to the fourth generation should sit on the throne of Israel (2 Kings 10:30). Yet still his conduct in destroying the house of Ahab is spoken of by the Prophet Hosea as a sin, and God declares, by Hosea's mouth, that he will "avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu" (Hosea 1:4). It is naturally asked - "How could Jehu's shedding this blood, at God's command and in fulfillment of his will, be a sin?" And it is rightly answered, "Because, if we do what is the will of God for any end of our own, for anything except God, we do in fact our own will, not God's. It was not lawful for Jehu to depose and slay the king his master, except at the express command of God, who, as the supreme King, sets up and puts down earthly rulers as he wills. For any other end, and done otherwise than at God's express command, such an act is sin. Jehu was rewarded for the measure in which he fulfilled God's commands, as Ahab, 'who had sold himself to work wickedness,' had yet a temporal reward for humbling himself publicly, when rebuked by God for his sin, and so honoring God, amid an apostate people. But Jehu, by cleaving, against the will of God, to Jeroboam's sin (2 Kings 10:29, 31), which served his own political ends, showed that, in the slaughter of his master, he acted, not as he pretended, out of zeal for the will of God (2 Kings 10:16), but served his own will and his own ambition only. By his disobedience to the one command of God, he showed that he would have equally disobeyed the other, had it been contrary to his own will or interest. He had no principle of obedience. And so the blood which was shed according to the righteous judgment of God, became sin to him that shed it in order to fulfill, not the will of God, but his own" (see Dr. Pusey's 'Minor Prophets, with a Commentary,' p. 9, col. 1). That I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets. Comp. 1 Kings 18:4 and 1 Kings 19:14. Elijah believed all the prophets of Jehovah, except himself, to have been either slain or banished under Ahab, as we see from 1 Kings 18:22 and 1 Kings 19:10, 14. And the blood of all the servants of the Lord. There had evidently been a general persecution of the followers of Jehovah, and not merely a persecution of the prophets. It was only after a number of martyrdoms that the followers of Jehovah in Israel were reduced (1 Kings 19:18) to the scanty number of "seven thousand." At the hand of Jezebel. Jezebel was at the bottom of all the persecutions. Sometimes she took matters into her own hands, gave her own orders, and saw them carried out (1 Kings 18:13; 1 Kings 21:8-14). At other times she was content to "stir her husband up" (1 Kings 21:25) and incite him to evil courses.

And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master,.... For Jehu was one of Ahab's captains, as he was now one of his son's, as appears from 2 Kings 9:25, but this was to be no objection with him to the destroying of his house, as being an act of high treason, since he had an order for it from the King of kings, and Lord of lords; which otherwise would have seemed unlawful and criminal, and what follows will sufficiently vindicate the justice of God in it:

that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel; who killed the prophets of the Lord, and caused to be put to death Naboth the servant of the Lord, and now their blood was to be avenged on her and her son Joram, and all her family.

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