Bloodbath

2 Kings 9-10

            What the Lord had told Elijah to do way back in 1 Kings 19, when the prophet fled to Mt. Horeb, is finally accomplished in today’s reading: Jehu annihilates the house of Ahab. And he does it with bloodthirsty efficiency. He slays Joram, king of Israel, and his men slay Ahaziah, king of Judah, too. (Remember that Ahaziah’s mother, Athaliah, was a daughter of Ahab, so Ahaziah was Ahab’s grandson.) Jehu throws the body of Joram on the plot of ground that Ahab had secured for himself through the murder of Naboth, so that circle is closed. Later he advances to Jezreel, where Jezebel is still living, and her bodyguards throw her out a window to her death. Her eye makeup and arranged hair seem to be one last attempt to project her queenly power and allure, but it doesn’t do her any good and those charged with protecting her are her undoing. This also marks the fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy.

            The next few scenes make one wonder if Jehu went too far. In the first, he arranges the slaughter of 70 of Ahab’s sons (and perhaps grandsons.) The delivery and display of their severed heads is particularly gruesome. Next, he orders the execution of 42 of Ahaziah’s relatives. (Ahaziah was the grandson of Ahab, but he was also of the line of David, so this seems like Jehu going beyond his charge.) Finally, he arranges the extermination of 80 prophets of Baal.

            We know what’s going on here. Ever since the Exodus, we have read about the Lord’s enemies being totally devoted to the Lord, which is just a euphemism for being killed. And we have learned that this violence is to protect Israel from idolatry so that the promise of salvation which she incubates might come to fruition. But it’s still hard to read and to understand.

            It may help a little bit to read Hebrews 9:22, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” That’s not to say that all of these deaths somehow made atonement for sin, but the violence does draw us forward to the cross where the brutal execution of Jesus does make atonement.