From Jezreel Jehu now made his journey to Samaria to assume power. Second Kings 10:12-14 tell us what took place midway in his journey there. He came to where the shepherds would stop to shear their sheep. The name of the place was Beth-eked, meaning house of the binding. Its name was probably derived from the practice of tying the four legs of a sheep together before it was being sheared.
Here we are told that Jehu
met the relatives of King Ahaziah of Judah. Hence, they were also related to
Ahab. Jehu's immediate question to them was “Who are you?” Without
hesitation, they responded, “We
are the relatives of Ahaziah; and we have come down to greet the sons
of the king and the sons of the queen mother.” Remember Ahaziah went to
help Joram in dealing with Hazael and was killed by Jehu. Not wanting any of
them to escape, Jehu ordered that they be seized alive. He then had all 42 men
killed, mercilessly, without leaving any one of them alive.
There
was no justification for this ruthless murder. Besides these were people from
Judah and Elijah’s prophecy did not include the murder of members of the house
of David. Jehu wanted to be sure that nothing would come his way to take
possession of the throne. He probably wanted to be sure that anyone who was
remotely related to Jezebel must be removed.
Had Jehu overstepped his
commission? He seemed to have overstretched the bound of what he was called to
do when he killed the relatives of Ahaziah of Judah. Our takeaway from these
three verses would be this: it is one thing to do our God-assigned duty but
quite another to allow personal interest to be the agenda. The minute we let
our selfish interests and agenda overstep what we are expected to do, we lose
the capacity to think and act right.
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