Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Kings · About this commentary
Jehu Is Anointed
2 Kings 9:1-13
1 Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him, “Put your belt on your waist, take this vial of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth Gilead. · WEB
A young prophet runs in, empties a flask of oil on a general's head, delivers a sentence and bolts — and the officers put their cloaks on the stairs.
"Put your belt on your waist, take this vial of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth Gilead... Then open the door, flee, and don't wait" 2 Kings 9:1–3.
The commission is an act of treason against a reigning king carried out by a messenger with instructions to run. Elisha does not go himself, and the errand is delegated to an unnamed member of the prophetic community — the sort of person this book keeps using for its most consequential moments.
The anointing also discharges the last of the three commissions given at Horeb 1 Kings 19:16. Hazael has taken Syria; Elisha holds the prophetic office; and now the third name is anointed, a generation later, by a young man in a hurry.
"I have a message for you, captain." Jehu said, "To which one of us?" He said, "To you, O captain" 2 Kings 9:5.
The scene is a staff meeting, and the exchange is deliberately public before it becomes private. Jehu is taken into an inner room, oil is poured on his head, and the oracle is delivered in full.
"You must strike your master Ahab's house, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh, at the hand of Jezebel" 2 Kings 9:7.
The commission is stated as judicial execution, and its stated grounds are the murdered prophets — Jezebel's program of killing them, which Obadiah's hundred in two caves had survived 1 Kings 18:4. This matters for reading what follows: Jehu is given a warrant, and the book will later hold him to its limits Hosea 1:4. A commission is not a blank check, and the difference between executing a sentence and enjoying it runs through the next two chapters.
The wording repeats Ahijah's oracle against Jeroboam and Jehu son of Hanani's against Baasha, verbatim 2 Kings 9:8–9 1 Kings 14:10 1 Kings 16:3. The third dynasty falls under the same words as the first two.
"Is all well? Why did this madman come to you?" 2 Kings 9:11.
The officers' term for a prophet is worth noticing. In a professional army in the northern kingdom, a man in prophetic dress is a lunatic, and the assumption is casual rather than hostile — everyone knows how the man and how he talks. It is a small measurement of what two centuries of state religion had done to the prophetic office's standing.
He said, "He said to me, 'Yahweh says, I have anointed you king over Israel'" 2 Kings 9:12.
Jehu deflects once and then tells them, and the response is immediate and physical: cloaks thrown on the bare steps to make a throne dais, a trumpet, and a shout 2 Kings 9:13. There is no deliberation. The army has been fighting Syria for a wounded king in Jezreel and is ready in a heartbeat to follow the man in front of them.
"If this is your thinking, then let no one escape and go out of the city to go to tell it in Jezreel" 2 Kings 9:15.
And Jehu's first order as king is a news blackout. Before anything else, he understands that his advantage is surprise — the trait that defines him for the rest of his life. The prophetic word has been spoken, the oil is on his head, and what he brings to it is speed.
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