The Driving of Jehu
14 So Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi conspired against Joram. (Now Joram was defending Ramoth Gilead, he and all Israel, because of Hazael king of Syria; 15 but King Joram had returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had given him when he fought with Hazael king of Syria.) Jehu said, “If this is your thinking, then let no one escape and go out of the city to go to tell it in Jezreel.” 16 So Jehu rode in a chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram lay there. Ahaziah king of Judah had come down to see Joram. 17 Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel, and he spied the company of Jehu as he came, and said, “I see a company.” Joram said, “Take a horseman, and send to meet them, and let him say, ‘Is it peace?’” 18 So one went on horseback to meet him, and said, “the king says, ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu said, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me!” The watchman said, “The messenger came to them, but he isn’t coming back.” 19 Then he sent out a second on horseback, who came to them and said, “The king says, ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu answered, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me!” 20 The watchman said, “He came to them, and isn’t coming back. The driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.” 21 Joram said, “Get ready!” They got his chariot ready. Then Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot; and they went out to meet Jehu, and found him on Naboth the Jezreelite’s land. 22 When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” He answered, “What peace, so long as the prostitution of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft abound?” 23 Joram turned his hands and fled, and said to Ahaziah, “This is treason, Ahaziah!” 24 Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and struck Joram between his arms; and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot. 25 Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, “Pick him up, and throw him in the plot of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember how, when you and I rode together after Ahab his father, Yahweh laid this burden on him: 26 ‘Surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth, and the blood of his sons,’ says Yahweh; ‘and I will repay you in this plot of ground,’ says Yahweh. Now therefore take and cast him onto the plot of ground, according to Yahweh’s word.” 27 But when Ahaziah the king of Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house. Jehu followed after him, and said, “Strike him also in the chariot!” They struck him at the ascent of Gur, which is by Ibleam. He fled to Megiddo, and died there. 28 His servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb with his fathers in David’s city. 29 In the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab, Ahaziah began to reign over Judah.
Two messengers ride out and do not come back, a watchman recognizes a driving style, and two kings meet the executioner on Naboth's ground.
The watchman said, “He came to them, and isn’t coming back. The driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.”
The watchman identifies the man by how he drives, from a distance, before anyone can see his face. Jehu is a man of velocity, and the whole coup runs at the speed of a chariot team.
Before that, two horsemen are sent out one after the other with the same question — is it peace? — and neither returns 2 Kings 9:17–19. Joram, wounded and convalescing, keeps asking about peace and keeps getting silence, and the watchman's running report from the tower builds the dread better than any description could.
So one went on horseback to meet him, and said, “the king says, ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu said, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me!” The watchman said, “The messenger came to them, but he isn’t coming back.”
Jehu's answer to both messengers is the same, and it is not a refusal to negotiate so much as a redefinition of the question. There is no peace available; there is only which side of the column you are on.
Joram said, “Get ready!” They got his chariot ready. Then Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot; and they went out to meet Jehu, and found him on Naboth the Jezreelite’s land.
The two kings ride out to meet him — Israel's king and Judah's, both descendants of Ahab — and the meeting point is specified. Of all the ground around Jezreel, they encounter him in the vineyard Ahab took after Jezebel had its owner stoned 1 Kings 21:16. The narrative does not say providence arranged it. It simply names the field.
When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” He answered, “What peace, so long as the prostitution of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft abound?”
Joram asks the same question his messengers carried and gets the answer they did not bring back. Jehu names the cause as the queen mother's religion — the sexual imagery is standard prophetic language for covenant unfaithfulness Hosea 2:2, and the sorcery charge is literal enough. There can be no peace while the thing that provoked the sentence is still being funded from the palace.
Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and struck Joram between his arms; and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot.
The king who cried treason 2 Kings 9:23 and turned to run is shot in the back at close range. It is an execution rather than a duel, and Jehu treats it as one.
Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, “Pick him up, and throw him in the plot of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember how, when you and I rode together after Ahab his father, Yahweh laid this burden on him:
And here is the chapter's hinge. Jehu and his officer had been young men riding behind Ahab's chariot on the day Elijah pronounced the sentence in this vineyard, and he has remembered it for twenty years. The body goes onto Naboth's ground deliberately, with the oracle quoted from memory — I will repay you in this plot of ground 2 Kings 9:26 — including the detail that Naboth's sons died with him, which the earlier account did not record.
"Strike him also in the chariot!" 2 Kings 9:27.
Ahaziah of Judah is run down and wounded on the road, reaches Megiddo, and dies there. He was in Jezreel on a family visit, and he dies because his grandfather arranged a marriage. His servants carry him to Jerusalem and bury him properly with his fathers, which is more than the northern king receives — the lamp of David flickers even here, and a son of Athaliah is buried in David's city while his uncle lies in a stolen vineyard.
settled What this mark means