Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1402

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der oriental. Augenschminke: Deutsch. morg. Ztsch. v. p. 236ff.). - Jezebel did this that she might present an imposing appearance to Jehu and die as a queen; not to allure him by her charms (Ewald, after Ephr. Syr.). For (2Ki 9:31) when Jehu entered the palace gate, she cried out to him, “Is it peace, thou Zimri, murderer of his lord?” She addressed Jehu as Zimri the murderer of the king, to point to the fate which Jehu would bring upon himself by the murder of the king, as Zimri had already done (vid., 1Ki 16:10-18).

Verses 32-33


But Jehu did not deign to answer the worthless woman; he simply looked up to the window and inquired: “Who is (holds) with me? who?” Then two, three chamberlains looked out (of the side windows), and by Jehu’s command threw the proud queen out of the window, so that some of her blood spirted upon the wall and the horses (of Jehu), and Jehu trampled her down, driving over her with his horses and chariot.

Verse 34


Jehu thereupon entered the palace, ate and drank, and then said to his men: “Look for this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.” הארוּרה, the woman smitten by the curse of God.

Verses 35-37


But when they went to bury her, they found nothing but her skull, the two feet, and the two hollow hands. The rest had been eaten by the dogs and dragged away. When this was reported to Jehu, he said: “This is the word of the Lord, which He spake by His servant Elijah,” etc. (1Ki 21:23), i.e., this has been done in fulfilment of the word of the Lord. 2Ki 9:37 is also to be regarded as a continuation of the prophecy of Elijah quoted by Jehu (and not as a closing remark of the historian, as Luther supposes), although what Jehu says here does not occur verbatim in 1Ki 21:23, but Jehu has simply expanded rather freely the meaning of that prophecy. והית (Chethîb) is the older form of the 3rd pers. fem. Kal, which is only retained here and there (vid., Ewald, §194, a.). אשׁר is a conjunction (see Ewald, §337, a.): “that men may not be able to say, This is Jezebel,” i.e., that they may no more be able to recognise Jezebel.