Jehu at once set out with a host to Jezreel, that no tidings might precede him. The watchmen of the tower told the king that a troop was coming in great haste, and apparently led by Jehu. Thinking that Jehu was bringing news of the army, the wounded Joram went to meet him with his guest, Ahaziah, king of Judah. "Is it peace?" cried Joram to Jehu. "What peace," he replied, "while the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?" In terror Joram cried out, "There is treachery, O Ahaziah," and turned his horses to escape by flight. But Jehu smote him with an arrow in the back through the shoulders, so that the point reached the heart. Joram fell dead from the chariot. Ahaziah escaped. From the window of her palace at Jezreel Jezebel saw the death of the king, her second son. By this her own fate was decided. But her courage failed not. As Jehu approached she called to him from the window, "Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?" Jehu made no answer, but called out, "Who is on my side?" Two or three eunuchs answered, "We are." Then Jehu commanded, "Throw the queen down." They threw the widow of Ahab out of the window, so that her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on Jehu's horses, and the ruthless murderer drove over the corpse. She had survived Ahab ten years. Jehu went into the palace, ate and drank, and sent a message to the elders of the tribes and the captains of the fortresses: "If ye are on my side and obey my voice, slay the sons of Ahab who are with you, and send their heads to Jezreel." The elders feared the murderer to whom Joram and Jezebel had succumbed, and did as he bade them. Seventy sons and grandsons of Ahab were slaughtered; their heads were thrown in two heaps before the palace at Jezreel by Jehu's orders. Then he spoke in scorn to the people, "I have slain one; but who slew all these?" Still unsatisfied with blood, he caused all the kindred of the royal house, all the councillors, friends, and priests of Joram to be slain (843 B.C.). Jehu had caused the king of Judah to be closely pursued on that day. At Jibleam the arrows of the pursuers reached Ahaziah; wounded to the death, he came to Megiddo, and there he died. Thus the prospect was opened to Jehu of becoming master of the kingdom of Judah also. With this object in view, he caused the brothers and relatives of the murdered Ahaziah to be massacred, so far as he could take them; in all they were 42 men.[457] But meanwhile the mother of the murdered Ahaziah, Athaliah, heard in Judah of the death of her son in Israel, and seized the reins of government there. She determined to retain them against every one; and on her side also destroyed all who stood in her way. She did not spare even her own grandsons, the sons of Ahaziah; it was with difficulty that the king's sister succeeded in saving Joash, the infant son of her brother.[458]