The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of KingsFarrar, F. W. (Frederic William)
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings
Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William)
Bible. Kings, 2nd -- Commentaries
The answer was unmistakable. This was a revolt, a revolution.
"Treachery, Ahaziah!" shouted the terrified king, and instantly wheeled
round his chariot to flee.[176] But not so swiftly as to escape the
Nemesis which had been stealing upon him with leaden feet, but now smote
him irretrievably with iron hand. Without an instant's hesitation, Jehu
snatched his bow from his attendant charioteer, "filled his hands with
it," and from its full stretch and resonant string sped the arrow, which
smote Jehoram in the back with fatal force, and passed through his
heart.[177] Without a word the unhappy king sank down upon his
knees[178] in his chariot, and fell face forward, dead.
"Take him up," cried Jehu to Bidkar,[179] "and fling him down where he
is,--here in this portion of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. Here,
years ago, you and I, as we rode behind Ahab,[180] heard Elijah utter
his oracle on this man's father, that vengeance should meet him here.
Where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth and his sons, let dogs lick
the blood of the son of Ahab."[181]
But Jehu was not the man to let the king's murder stay his
chariot-wheels when more work had yet to be done. Ahaziah of Judah,
too, belonged to Ahab's house, for he was Ahab's grandson, and
Jehoram's nephew and ally. Without stopping to mourn or avenge the
tragedy of his uncle's murder, Ahaziah fled towards Bethgan or
Engannim,[182] the fountain of gardens, south of Jezreel, on the road
to Samaria and Jerusalem. Jehu gave the laconic order, "Smite him
also";[183] but fright added wings to the speed of the hapless King of
Judah. His chariot-steeds were royal steeds, and were fresh; those of
Jehu were spent with the long, fierce drive from Ramoth. He got as far
as the ascent of Gur before he was overtaken.[184] There, not far from
Ibleam, the rocky hill impeded his flight, and he was wounded by the
pursuers. But he managed to struggle onwards to Megiddo, on the south
of the plain of Jezreel, and there he hid himself.[185] He was
discovered, dragged out, and slain. Even Jehu's fierce emissaries did
not make war on dead bodies, any more than Hannibal did, or Charles V.
They left such meanness to Jehu himself, and to our Charles II. They
did not interfere with the dead king's remains. His servants carried
them to Jerusalem, and there he was buried with his fathers in the
sepulchre of the kings, in the city of David. As there was nothing
more to tell about him, the historian omits the usual formula about
the rest of the acts of Ahaziah, and all that he did. His death
illustrates the proverb _Mitgegangen mitgefangen_: he was the comrade
of evil men, and he perished with them.
Jehu speedily reached Jezreel, but the interposition of Jehoram and
the orders for the pursuit of Ahaziah had caused a brief delay, and
Jezebel had already been made aware that her doom was imminent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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