2 Kings 9:15-29
SUMMARY
The succession of an army commander to Israel’s throne is, as one might imagine, gory.
ANALYSIS
When modern nations devolve into civil war, it is often precipitated by a power struggle between the army and the government. Such struggles can be bloody, involving a number of casualties. Ancient succession battles were no different. JehuAnointed king by Elisha, Jehu overthrew the dynasty of Ahab and Jezebel. More rides to battle against his own incumbent ruler. One might wonder why God would have spurred into motion such a violent shift in power. Jehu answers this query with the question he repeatedly poses to the riders that King Joram sends to meet him: “What have you to do with peace?” (2 Kings 9:18, 19). This enigmatic query is clarified in Jehu’s response to Joram: “What peace can there be, so long as the many whoredoms and sorceries of your mother JezebelQueen who promoted worship of Baal and who opposed Elijah. More continue?” (2 Kings 9:22). (“Whoredom” should not be taken here as a literal description, but as a figurative metaphor for idolatry.)
In other words, Jehu asserts that the “peace” that King Joram has established is peace in name only, built on the backs of the vulnerable and sustained by the repression of the powerless. Such a peace was abhorrent in God’s eyes since it undermined the very foundation of their relationship with the divine. Centuries later, the Romans established a similar kind of “peace” during Jesus’ time, wherein only those in power were well and truly safe.
