One can pity Jezebel as her flesh was eaten by the dogs and her carcass was made as dung on the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel, and we almost shudder with horror as we think that she was to be so torn to pieces that none should be able to say: “This is Queen Jezebel.” But all this is wasted sentiment, unless we reason from it toward spiritual conclusions. We are so much the victims of our senses that we can pity with great compassion those who are smitten with bodily disease, or are torn limb from limb in consequence of some wicked deed; but it seems impossible for us to rise to the conception of the terrible penalty which is to fall upon the soul for violating God’s commandments and defying God’s power. Instead of being appeased by the fate of Jezebel, Jehu sends out a decree that the whole family of Ahab shall be massacred--that the kinsmen of Ahaziah and the Baal worshipers shall be extirpated from the face of the Earth. He takes a new point of departure when he challenges the sons of Ahab, saying: “Look even out the best and meetest of your master’s sons, and set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.” All this was a declaration of warlike intention on the part of Jehu. But Jehu’s character as a soldier was too well known to permit the rulers of Jezreel and the elders to entertain the thought of encountering him in open battle. So they made this answer: “We are thy servants, and will do all that thou shalt bid us; we will not make any king. Do thou that which is good in thine eyes.” Then Jehu set up a test of their obedience. He did impose on them hard work. He said: “If ye be mine, and if ye will hearken unto my voice, take ye the heads of the men your master’s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time.” The word was enough. The heads of seventy men were put into baskets and sent to Jehu at Jezreel. Jehu pronounced the men who had beheaded the sons of Ahab guiltless in respect of their deaths, because what they did had been done judicially, under royal command. Some think that Jehu wished to make them guilty of the massacre of the princes, while he had slain but one king. On the whole, however, it is better to consider that Jehu exculpates the men who had only executed his command. The slaughter of the priests is one of the most dramatic incidents in all this portion of biblical history. Jehu proceeded by way of strategy. It is impossible to justify the spirit of the policy of Jehu in this matter. He said he would serve Baal “much.” It has been thought that he was thinking of his intended holocaust of human victims; but, whatever his thoughts, it is impossible to deny that the impression he produced was that Jehu was about to become a worshiper of Baal. This reading is imported into the narrative in these words: “But Jehu did it in subtilty, to the intent that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal.”