Jehu

Quick summary of what we did today with Kenneth

1 Kings 19:15-18-

Elijah who is on Mount Horeb is told to...

• go back to Damascus
• anoint Hazael king over Syria
• anoint Jehu king over Israel
• appoint Elisha to be prophet

but he only does two of the tasks, he returns to Damascus and he appoints Elisha, and then it's Elisha who does the anointing. Were Elijah's tasks passed on to Elisha when he was anointed??

Now this is all happening in the days of Ahab, that evil guy with an evil wife and an evil daughter who then went over to Judah's line and messed around there as well... but she got killed.

Jehu was the commander of the army. We read 2 Kings 9 ourselves and wrote down bits about it, so I'll share mine.

• Elisha sends sons of the prophets with oil to Ramoth-Gilead
• they find Jehu and go to an inner chamber
• THEY (not Elisha) anoint him King with the oil
• Jehu told to strike down the house of Ahab, so that avenge on Jezebel the blood of servants
• Dogs will eat Jezebel
• Jehu conspired against Joram
• as Jehu approaches, Joram sends out a messenger but he doesn't return and sticks with Jehu. Joram sends another, and the same happens again
• Jehu shot Joram with an arrow and pierced his heart
• they threw him on the plot belonging to Naboth - (to give context, Naboth and all his sons are already dead)
• Jezebel gets pretty. her people with her throw her out the window and she gets eaten by dogs.

I often find it difficult to remember things until I can visualise it properly, wh

ich is why it was great when Jon sort of acted out the bit when Joash aged 7 is anointed and Athaliah bursts in yelling TREASON!! because now i can always remember that. And today, Kenneth sort of acted -told the story well. In some of his words...

Elijah is all depressed and has been sent up to Mount Horeb. He gets these tasks he has to do.. 1, head back to Damascus. 2, anoint Hazael king over Syria. 3, anoint Jehu king over Israel. 4, appoint Elisha.

Dum de dum, he appoints Elisha. Elisha gets the sons of the prophets - I wonder, could these be any of the prophets that were hidden in the caves?. Elisha says, 'right, ru

n! you gotta go to these people and pick out Jehu from among them. Take him to another room and tell him this, that the Lord is appointing him King over Israel! and use the oil you've got, pour it over his head. and then flee!'

This all happens, and Jehu goes back to his people, who are asking "what was all that about" and Jehu is like "you've set me up. come on, what was that really about?" - and his guys are saying "no, no, really, we didn't do anything! what is it??"

and Jehu shrugging his shoulders,, he's just casually saying "they said they had been sent by a prophet. and - well.... you know, i'm King in Israel."

and then all the guys in the room shout for joy!! Lay down their cloaks, this guy is the new KING!! They gather up a load of people and head over to Joram's place - he's the current King of Israel, but has just been injured in battle against Hazael king

of Syria and so they've carried him back to Jezreel to try and get better. Joram doesn't come out to meet Jehu as he approaches, he sends a messenger on horse

back to say "Thus says the king, 'Is it peace?'", but he doesn't return to Joram, he sticks with and joins Jehu's people.

"What! What's he doing??"

So Joram sends another guy. and the same happens again. Why are they all sticking with Jehu?

Ahaziah of Judah (Joram's... what is it... ah, Joram of ISRAEL is Uncle to this Ahaziah of JUDAH. It's confusing, because there's a J(eh)oram and an Ahaziah in both Judah and Israel.)

I'll explain that actually. Maybe easier drawing a picture.

So, I've circled the people I'm talking about.

Anyway, Joram and Ahaziah get ready and come out to meet Jehu at Naboth's property.

2 Kings 9 ²²And when Joram saw Jehu, he said, "Is it peace, Jehu?" He answered, "What peace can there be, so long as the whorings and the sorceries of your mother Jezebel are so many?"

This I imagine to be like today's "So's your face." "So's your mum", Jehu is just insulting Joram's mum Jezebel.

²³Then Joram reined about and fled, saying to Ahaziah, "Treachery, O Ahaziah!" ²⁴And Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and shot Joram between the shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart, and he sank in his chariot.

Ahaziah ran away, but Jehu chased him and some of Jehu's people shot him at the ascent of Gur. Ahaziah kept going on to Megiddo and died there.

After this, Jehu goes back to Jezreel on his horse and sees Jezebel at a window, she's made her eyes all pretty. He goes near and shouts up "Who is on my side? Who?" and a couple of eunuchs with her look out the window - Debbie said its like they're saying "Me!"

"Who is on my side?".. pop their heads out... *Pop* *Pop* .. "Me?"

and Jehu tells them to push her out. and SPLAT goes Jezebel. What God said became true

¹⁰And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her."

³⁵But when they went to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. ³⁶When they came back and told him, he said, "This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, 'In the territory of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel, ³⁷and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, This is Jezebel.'

Jehu was incredibly influential and powerful, it seemed like a lot of people were listening to him. Either he was doing what the people wanted and therefore they were supporting him, or they were scared of him because he was a commander and now King. They listened to him and followed him.

Nearer the start of the lesson I'd asked if Joram had any sons- they'd be pretty mad if they didn't get to be King and some commander got to instead... so we looked at the start of 2 Kings 10. Here it says that Ahab had 70 sons in Samaria, but sometimes this can mean sons & grandsons etc. In some places Jehu is called 'Jehu son of Nimshi, son of Jehoshaphat'; and in other places just 'Jehu son of Jehoshaphat' when reeeally it's saying 'grandson of Jehoshaphat'. So can we apply this to Ahab's 70 sons - some of them being Joram's sons?

Ahab's 70 sons were killed, and Ahaziah of Judah's 42 were killed. These two guys were such bad influences that all the sons had to be killed as well.

All in all... Jehu did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, he wiped out Baal from Israel (also by getting a load of the Baal worshippers in the house of Baal together and then killing them all), but he didn't take away the golden calves that Jeroboam had set up in Bethel and Dan... and ³¹But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin.

So on our David - Ahab scale, we've put Jehu around the middle between those two.

Ahab; Athaliah & Jehoram & Ahaziah

Right, well seeing the blog hasn't been updated in a fairly long time, I decided to share some of the notes that I have taken.

Please other people add notes or thoughts as well...

On the first of November, we looked at Ahab. I Kings 16:29 He started reigning in Israel in the 38th year of Asa King of Judah (who was a goodie). Ahab was the opposite, he was very evil, the worst King they'd ever had. he married Jezebel who was the daughter of the King of the Sidonians. and you can remember he's called Ethbaal King of the Sidonians, because Eth-baal: they worshipped Baal. and pretend he had a lisp. Ethbaal, see?

Ahab worshipped Baal and made an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which was built in Samaria. in the third year of Ahab's reign, Elijah shows himself to Ahab. he'd recently been in hiding - Jezebel had been cutting off the prophets of the Lord, and Obadiah whose was over the household hid 100 prophets, 50 in 2 caves, and had been feeding them bread and water. The famine was SEVERE but Obadiah still got them bread and water, he's a nice guy.

One day Obadiah and Ahab go out to find water and grass and save horses and mules before they die. they go their seperate ways, and Obadiah stops when he finds Elijah. Elijah says to tell Ahab that he's here,, but Obadiah knows he'll get killed (this is in 1 Kings 18). Eventually Obadiah goes and tells Ahab, and Ahab comes to see Elijah. they get all the prophets 'who eat at Jezebels table' on Mount Carmel - 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of Asherah, and Elijah by himself. They get 2 bulls - one for Baal's prophets, and one for Elijah. They cut each bull into pieces, and lay it on wood, but don't put fire on it. Baal's prophets keep calling out to their god to get him to light the fire,but nothing happens. When Elijah does it, he first gets the prophets to fill 4 jars full of water and pour it on the offering and the wood, and this is repeated 3 times. Elijah calls to God, and (1 Kings 18:38) "Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench."

In chapter 21, Ahab wants Naboth's vineyard because it's beside his palace and would make a good vegetable garden for Ahab, but Naboth refuses v3 'but Naboth said to Ahab, "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers"'. Naboth understood inheritance. He had sons (note - this is not included in I Kings 21 v 13 where it says 'they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones' - you have to look at 2 Kings 9:26 which reads 'As surely as I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons-declares the Lord- I will repay you on this plot of ground'. This is a type of Christ, Jesus understood inheritance, and the sons of Naboth (those waiting to inherit it) are like the faithful who are in Christ. That inheritance is not lost in Israel however, because God will preserve it.

~~

Next lesson I had (I missed Ahaziah&Jehoram) was named 'the soap opera' - Athaliah, Jehoram and Ahaziah. Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab & Jezebel,, and she was incredibly evil. Her parents obviously had an influence on her for they were both evil, but it doesn't have to be like that you can change it - Athaliah's daughter Jehosheba was good and married a priest (we only looked at that quickly at the end of the lesson - I think that's going to be looked at more next lesson).

The marriage of Jehoram and Athaliah sounds more of an arranged marriage - 2 Chronicles 21:6 'And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife...' (ESV) and in the King James it reads 'for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife'. Jehoram made high places in the hill country and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem 'into whoredom and made Judah go astray'. He killed all his brothers who were better than himself, who he could've learnt from. So... because of all this, the Lord brought a plague upon his people, his children, his wives and all his possessions. There was direct intervention from God - 2 Chr 21:16 'And the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabians who are near the Ethiopians'. You read often in Scripture of direct intervention from God to teach someone a lesson, like when God was angry with Solomon and brought adversaries against him.

God also gave Jehoram an incurable bowel disease and he died two years later when they fell out. The people of Israel seemed pretty glad he was gone, they didn't make a fire in his honour and they didn't bury him with the rest of the kings. (verses 19 & 20).

We ran out of time as usual, and didn't even get to the 'juicy' bit where Athaliah kills everyone, except her grandson Joash who is hidden away in the house of the Lord. And 7 years later, Jehoida the priest has entered a covenant with the commanders of hundreds - Azariah son of Jeroham, Ishmael, Azariah son of Obed, Masseiah and Elishaphat - and they gathered all the Levites from all the cities of Judah (this is in 2 Chr 23) and the heads of fathers' houses of Israel and they all went to Jerusalem. Joash who is only 7 years old is crowned king of Judah.. and suddenly granny Athaliah comes into the house of God and yells "TREASON!" when she sees her daughter who has gone against her, her son-in-law against her, her grandson crowned king, all these people rejoicing... the people can't kill her in the temple, but they chase her and eventually she is killed.

Nehemiah travelled between Jerusalem and Babylon,, where does he fit in all of this? I have no idea. Oh, he's not anywhere near. He's when it's the Persian empire. Hmm. Well, we started to look at Nehemiah, how Nehemiah talks about inter-marrying, and how Solomon was loved by God, but 'foreign women did make him to sin' (Neh 13: 26). The people he visited were losing their identity, he'd pulled out their hair when he saw they'd married women of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. The Jewish people could not even speak their own language, they were going to the language of these of other people.

It's about who you're influenced by, we have to be careful who we spend a lot of our time with, not people who will lead us astray. Even though people can call themselves Christadelphians, its not calling themself a Christadelphian that makes it alright to date and then go on to marry them... it's how they are, you have to find out what sort of person they are and if they are on the same path as you. A while ago meetings would disfellowship someone who married outside the meeting, and so people in this situation - their other half would get baptised but maybe their heart wasn't true. And they'd come along to the meeting for a bit, but eventually both of them would grow away from the meeting. So we have to choose carefully who are friends are and not be influenced badly by them.

Any other thoughts...?