2 Kings 10:31

JEHU THE HEEDLESS—A CHARACTER STUDY

‘Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.’

2 Kings 10:31

Was Jehu, then, a hypocrite? Was all his zeal for the Lord false and affected? Any one who said so would quite miss the point of Jehu’s character and the moral of his history. It is because there is so great a mixture of good and evil in his deeds, because there is so much in his character that deserves to be imitated while there is also, at the same time, a deadly flaw in it which mars its beauty, that his history is worthy of particular study.

I. Notice, first, that in the double mission which Jehu was called to perform—the destruction of the house of Ahab and of the worship of Baal—there was no self-denial necessary on his part.—The duty to which he was called was not one which violently crossed any propensity, or stood in the way of any selfish feeling. His words to Jehonadab, ‘Come and see my zeal for the Lord,’ are a key to the state of Jehu’s mind when he set himself to reform the religion; his zeal was to be the prominent object to be looked at; the awful spectacle of God’s people revolted from the worship of Jerusalem, the painful duty of slaughtering thousands of the followers of Baal was to be as nothing compared with the spectacle exhibited to Jehonadab by Jehu’s zeal.

II. Jehu’s zeal burnt brightly, and scorched up everything before it, as long as it was fanned by the excitement of self-interest and a naturally stormy temperament; but the whole heart was not in it; it was ‘zeal for God when it answers my purpose,’ not ‘zeal for God, cost me what it may.’ He was a man who would serve God as long as by so doing he could serve himself. The truth which Jehu did not see, and which we ought to see, is that God, if He be served at all, should be served with all our heart, and soul, and strength; that our service must be complete and free, as from those who feel that all they can do must fall infinitely short of a perfect worship of the infinite God.

—Bishop Harvey Goodwin.

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‘Jehu’s dealings with the house of Omri, which are commended in 2 Kings, were denounced in the eighth century b.c. by Hosea: “yet a little while and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu”—and the denunciation, it may be, faithfully reflects not only the prophetic, but the popular verdict upon the character and career of this monarch. It is idle to suggest in his defence that the end justified the means. There can be but one judgment upon his treachery, his remorselessness, his bloodthirsty violence, his murderous ferocity. His qualities are, with one exception, in utter contrast to those of the true servants of God. And yet he possesses a single characteristic which connects him with the highest ministry. This savage, barbarous fighter—who was checked by no considerations of mercy or pity, who never allowed himself to be turned aside from his purpose, who was willing to purchase success at any cost—was thorough, up to his lights. His ideals were incomplete; but, as far as they went, they dominated his policy. And it is this one consideration which renders him, in any acceptable sense of the phrase, a biblical hero.’