The Anointing of Jehu
Elisha called one of the sons of the prophets and gave him a flask of oil with specific instructions: go to Ramoth-gilead, find Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi, take him into an inner room, pour oil on his head, and say "Thus says the LORD, I anoint you king over Israel." Then open the door and flee — do not wait. The young prophet went and found the army commanders sitting together. He drew Jehu aside into an inner chamber and poured the oil on his head:
"Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, I anoint you king over the people of the LORD, over Israel. And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD." — 2 Kings 9:6–7 (ESV)
The commission extended to Ahab's entire house — every male, bond and free — to make it like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha. Jezebel specifically was to be devoured by dogs in the field of Jezreel. The word concluded, the young prophet opened the door and fled. The anointing of Jehu was commissioned by Elisha but carried out by an unnamed young prophet who did what he was told and ran. God's word doesn't require important people to deliver it.
Jehu returned to his fellow commanders. They asked what this madman wanted — they recognized the young man as a prophet, identifying him by his manner. When Jehu told them he had been anointed king over Israel, they acted immediately: they spread each man his garment on the bare steps and blew the trumpet and said, "Jehu is king." The speed of the response suggests that discontent with the Omride house ran deep in the army.
The Deaths of Joram and Ahaziah
Jehu ordered the gates sealed so no one could escape to Jezreel with the news, and drove there himself. Joram king of Israel was recuperating in Jezreel from wounds received at Ramoth-gilead fighting the Arameans. Ahaziah king of Judah had come down to visit him. A watchman in the tower of Jezreel saw the company approaching. The watchman reported that the driving was like the driving of Jehu son of Nimshi — "for he drives furiously."
Joram and Ahaziah rode out in their chariots to meet Jehu in the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. Joram called out: "Is it peace, Jehu?" Jehu's answer was the theology of the revolution: "What peace can there be, so long as the whorings and the sorceries of your mother Jezebel are so many?" Joram turned to flee and said to Ahaziah: "Treachery, O Ahaziah!" Jehu drew his bow and struck Joram between the shoulders. The arrow came out at his heart. He sank in his chariot. Jehu ordered his officer Bidkar to throw the body in the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite — and recited the word the LORD had spoken: when you and I rode side by side behind Ahab his father, the LORD spoke this burden against him. The body was thrown there. Joram died in Naboth's field because his father Ahab had murdered Naboth for that field, and the word of the LORD was being fulfilled precisely.
Ahaziah of Judah fled in his chariot and was struck by Jehu's men. He fled to Megiddo and died there. His servants carried him to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb with his fathers.
Jezebel's End
Jehu came to Jezreel. Jezebel heard of it — she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window. Her posture as Jehu came through the gate has been read in different ways: as defiance, as seduction, as the composure of a woman who would die as a queen rather than beg. She called down to him: "Is it peace, you Zimri, murderer of your master?" The invocation of Zimri — who had murdered his king and lasted seven days — was a curse and a taunt simultaneously. Jehu looked up at the window and called: "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. He told them: "Throw her down." They threw her down, and some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled over her.
Jehu went in and ate and drank and said to bury her, for she was a king's daughter. But when they went to bury her, they found nothing but the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands. The dogs had eaten the rest. The word of the LORD through Elijah had come to pass: in the plot of Jezreel the dogs shall devour the flesh of Jezebel, and her corpse shall be like dung on the face of the field so that no one can say, "This is Jezebel."
What strikes us about Jezebel's death is her composure. She painted her eyes and adorned her head. She had been the most powerful force against the prophets of the LORD in the northern kingdom's history. She had orchestrated Naboth's murder, imported the Baal religion as a court institution, and tried to have Elijah killed. And in her final moments, she looked out a window and called Jehu a Zimri. Defiant to the end. The dogs fulfilled every word Elijah had spoken. And no one could say, "This is Jezebel." Not even a marked grave.
The Seventy Sons and the Baal Worshipers
Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. Jehu wrote letters to the rulers of Samaria, to the elders, and to the guardians of Ahab's sons: choose the best and most qualified of your master's sons, set him on his father's throne, and fight for your master's house. The letter was a test. The rulers of Samaria were deeply afraid. They sent back: we are your servants and will do whatever you command; we will not make anyone king — do what is good in your eyes. Jehu then sent a second letter: if you are on my side and will obey my voice, take the heads of your master's sons and come to me at Jezreel by tomorrow at this time. The seventy heads arrived in baskets and were piled in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning. Jehu addressed the people: you are innocent; it was I who conspired against my master and killed him, but who struck all these? The word of the LORD that he spoke concerning the house of Ahab has been fulfilled — the LORD has done what he said through his servant Elijah.
Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel — all his great men, his close friends, his priests — leaving him no survivor. Then he left for Samaria and on the way met forty-two kinsmen of Ahaziah king of Judah who were going to visit the royal family. He killed them at the pit of Beth-eked. He encountered Jehonadab son of Rechab, whose family was known for their radical separation from Canaanite culture and devoted obedience to Mosaic standards. Jehu asked him: "Is your heart true to my heart as mine is to yours?" Jehonadab answered: it is. Jehu took him up into his chariot and they rode together toward Samaria.
The Baal worshipers were gathered through a stratagem. Jehu announced: Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu will serve him much more. He called a solemn assembly for Baal, and all the worshipers of Baal came from all over Israel — the narrator notes that Jehu was acting by cunning to destroy the worshipers of Baal. The house of Baal was full from one end to the other. Jehu ordered eighty men stationed outside: any man who lets any of the men I give into your hands escape shall forfeit his life. When the burnt offering was finished, Jehu ordered his guard and officers in: strike them down, let not a man escape. They struck them with the edge of the sword, left the bodies there, and went to the city of the house of Baal and brought out the pillar of Baal and burned it, and demolished the house of Baal. They made it a latrine.
The Stubborn Calves
The narrator delivers the verdict on Jehu in two parts. The LORD said to Jehu: "Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel." But Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin — the golden calves in Bethel and Dan. The revolution was thorough in what it eliminated and partial in what it maintained. Baal worship was destroyed, but the alternative worship system that Jeroboam had installed — the calves, the northern shrines, the unauthorized priesthood — remained untouched.
This is the essential ambiguity of Jehu's revolution, and it points to something the book of Kings insists on throughout: political revolution, however violent and comprehensive, is not the same as repentance. Jehu followed the word of God against the Baal cult with the same energy he brought to everything, but he "walked in the way of Jeroboam." The structural idolatry of the northern kingdom persisted because no king was willing to direct the people back to Jerusalem, which would have meant acknowledging Davidic legitimacy and surrendering political independence. The calves were instruments of northern nationhood, not merely of worship. Jehu served God's purpose against Ahab and Baal without serving it against himself.
We find it significant that even Jehu's partial obedience was rewarded — four generations on the throne. God acknowledged what was done well. But the unaddressed sin was named too. The golden calves still stood at Bethel and Dan. Every prophet, every king, every reformer in the northern kingdom's history had to walk past those calves. And none of them ever took them down. The founding compromise of Jeroboam outlasted every revolution.
Last updated: March 3, 2026.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.