Useful Bible Studies > 2 Kings Commentary > chapter 10
The author of 2 Kings gives much detail about Jehu’s revolution and the first few days of his rule. In chapter 11, he will return to the subject of that revolution, to show how it affected Judah (southern Israel). First, however, he makes a few general statements about the next 28 years of Jehu’s rule in northern and central Israel (10:28-36).
In many ways, Jehu’s revolution disappoints us. He had ended the rule of an especially evil royal family; he destroyed a particularly wicked religion. Those were the main things that he achieved. In other ways, his rule as king was not much better than the kings who ruled before him. He did not turn Israel’s people back to the true God. Even with all his military experience, Israel became a weaker nation during his rule (10:32-33).
Jehu followed the same wrong religion that Joram, the king before him, had followed (3:3). This was the religion that Jeroboam, the first king of northern and central Israel, had established (1 Kings 12:26-33). In that religion, the people believed that they were serving the true God, Israel’s God. However, they did not obey the laws that God gave to Moses. In particular, they did not pray at the temple, God’s house in Jerusalem, which Solomon built. Instead, their special places for religion were at Dan and Bethel. There, they prayed in front of gold images of young oxen, strong farm animals. In their opinion, those images helped them to pray to God in heaven. However, what they were doing was against God’s law (Deuteronomy 4:15-18, 5:8-9 and 12:5-14).
Next part: God's promise of 4 kings from Jehu's family (2 Kings 10:30-31)
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