princes and also the power to make one of them king. It is perfectly evident from the words, “the sons of your lord,” i.e., of king Joram, that the seventy sons of Ahab included grandsons also. This challenge of Jehu was only a ruse, by which he hoped to discover the feelings of the leading men of the capital of the kingdom, because he could not venture, without being well assured of them, to proceed to Samaria to exterminate the remaining members of the royal family of Ahab who were living there. על נלחם, to fight concerning, i.e., for a person, as in Jdg 9:17.
Verses 4-5
This ruse had the desired result. The recipients of the letter were in great fear, and said, Two kings could not stand before him, how shall we? and sent messengers to announce their submission, and to say that they were willing to carry out his commands, and had no desire to appoint a king.
Verses 6-7
Jehu then wrote them a second letter, to say that if they would hearken to his voice, they were to send to him on the morrow at this time, to Jezreel, the heads of the sons of their lord; which they willingly did, slaying the seventy men, and sending him their heads in baskets. אד בּני אנשׁי ראשׁי, “the heads of the men of sons of your lord,” i.e., of the male descendants of Ahab, in which אנשׁי may be explained from the fact that בּני־אדניכם has the meaning “royal princes” (see the similar case in Jdg 19:22). In order to bring out still more clearly the magnitude of Jehu’s demand, the number of the victims required is repeated in the circumstantial clause, “and there were seventy men of the king’s sons with (את) the great men of the city, who had brought them up.”
Verses 8-10
When the heads were brought, Jehu had them piled up in two heaps before the city-gate, and spoke the next morning to the assembled people in front of them: “Ye are righteous. Behold I have conspired against my lord, and have slain him, but who has slain all these?” Jehu did not tell the people that the king’s sons had been slain by his command, but spake as if this had been done without his interfering by a higher decree, that he might thereby justify his conspiracy in the eyes of the people, and make them believe what he says still further in 2Ki 10:10 : “See then that of the word of the Lord nothing falls to the ground (i.e., remains unfulfilled) which Jehovah has spoken concerning the house of Ahab; and Jehovah has done what He spake through His servant Elijah.”
Verse 11
The effect of these words was, that the people looked quietly
