Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Kings 10:31
But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.
31. with all his heart ] He only went partially on the right way, and probably personal ambition had much to do with his zeal against Baal. With the calves it was another matter. They formed, as it were, the emblems of Israel’s independence, and so the king’s feeling would be enlisted on their side.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
2Ki 10:31
Jehu took no heed to walk in law of the Lord.
Ruin wrought by neglect
I remember once seeing a bit of an old Roman road; the lava blocks were there, but for want of care, here a young sapling had grown up between two of them and had driven them apart; there they were split by the frost; here was a great ugly gap full of mud; and the whole thing ended in a jungle. How shall a man keep the road in repair? By taking heed thereto. Things that are left to go anyhow in this world have a strange knack of going one how. You do not need anything else than negligence to ensure that thing will come to grief. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Heedlessness perilous
There is no need that the man in a skiff amid Niagaras rapids should row toward the cataract; resting on his oars is quite enough to send him over the awful verge. It is the neglected wheel that capsizes the vehicle and maims for life the passengers. It is the neglected leak that sinks the ship. It is the neglected field that yields briers instead of bread. It is the neglected spark near the magazine whose tremendous explosion sends its hundreds of mangled wretches into eternity. The neglect of an officer to throw up a rocket on a certain night caused the fall of Antwerp, and postponed the deliverance of Holland for twenty or more years. The neglect of a sentinel to give an alarm hindered the fall of Sebastopol, and resulted in the loss of many thousand lives.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 31. Jehu took no heed] He never made it his study; indeed, he never intended to walk in this way; it neither suited his disposition nor his politics.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
With all his heart: His obedience wanted three necessary properties, care or heedfulness, universality, and sincerity.
He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam; his resolved continuance in one single course is justly alleged as an argument of his false-heartedness in all his other actions.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart,…. As to his moral conversation, he was not careful that it was according to the law of God, and what he did agreeable to it, it was not sincerely, and from the right principle:
for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin; which he would, if he had had a cordial respect to all the commandments of the law.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(31) But Jehu took no heed.Or, Now Jehu had not been careful. This verse, rather than the next, begins a new paragraph.
To walk in the lawi.e., the Mosaic law, which forbids the use of images, such as the calves.
With all his heart.This is explained by the next sentence. He had done honour to Jehovah by extirpating the foreign Baal-worship, but he supported the irregular mode of worshipping Jehovah established by Jeroboam as the state religion of the Northern kingdom.
For.Not in the Hebrew.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2Ki 10:31. But Jehu took no heed, &c. Jehu indeed made great ostentation of his zeal for the Lord; and it must be acknowledged, that for his performance of the divine commands in this respect, he received commendations from God: yet he was still a bad man, though he did well in executing that which was right in the sight of the Lord, as to the abolition of the worship of Baal; for, his obstinate persistance in the sin of Jeroboam may be justly alleged against him as an argument of his false-heartedness in all his other actions. The reasons why he continued in this kind of idolatry were much the same with him, as they were with the first institutor of it; namely, lest, by permitting his subjects to go to the place appointed for divine worship, he might open a door for their return to the obedience of the house of David; and not only so, but disoblige likewise a great part of the nobility of the nation, who by this time had been long accustomed, and were warmly affected, to the worship of the golden calves. Herein, however, he made a clear discovery of his folly and his sin, in not daring to trust God with the preservation of that kingdom which he had so freely bestowed upon him. The truth is, Jehu was a bold, wicked, furious, and implacable man; but a man of this complexion, considering the work he was to be set about, was a proper instrument to be employed; and so far is it from tending to the reproach, that it is infinitely to the glory of God, that he can make use of such boisterous and unruly passions of mankind for the accomplishment of his just designs; Psa 76:10. This he plainly did in the case of Jehu: for, after the Lord had settled him in the possession of a kingdom, and found that he still persisted in his political idolatry, he brought down the king of Assyria upon him, who smote the coasts of Israel, and quite wasted all that part of his kingdom which lay beyond the river Jordan. See the next verses, and Poole.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Ki 10:31 But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.
Ver. 31. With all his heart. ] He had a dispensatory conscience, a rotten heart, and that was his ruin. A man may recover of a fever, and die of a dropsy; so he that leaveth some gross sin, yet huggeth a less, is an undone person.
For he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
God. Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
the sins. Hebrew. chata’. App-44. Some codices read “all the sins”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
took no heed: Heb. observed not, Deu 4:15, Deu 4:23, 1Ki 2:4, Psa 39:1, Psa 119:9, Pro 4:23, Heb 2:1, Heb 12:15
walk: Deu 5:33, Deu 10:12, Deu 10:13, 2Ch 6:16, Neh 10:29, Psa 78:10, Eze 36:27, Dan 9:10
he departed: 2Ki 10:29, 2Ki 3:3, 1Ki 14:16
Reciprocal: Deu 4:29 – with all Deu 21:9 – when thou shalt 1Sa 2:24 – ye make 2Sa 21:2 – in his zeal 1Ki 12:30 – became a sin 1Ki 13:34 – became sin 1Ki 15:29 – he left not 1Ki 16:7 – because he killed him 2Ki 10:16 – Come with me 2Ki 15:9 – as his 2Ki 17:2 – but not as the kings 2Ki 17:22 – walked in all the sins 2Ki 23:15 – the altar Jer 34:15 – ye Mat 6:1 – to be Mat 20:14 – thine Luk 9:54 – wilt Jam 3:14 – and lie
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
JEHU THE HEEDLESSA CHARACTER STUDY
Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.
2Ki 10:31
Was Jehu, then, a hypocrite? Was all his zeal for the Lord false and affected? Any one who said so would quite miss the point of Jehus character and the moral of his history. It is because there is so great a mixture of good and evil in his deeds, because there is so much in his character that deserves to be imitated while there is also, at the same time, a deadly flaw in it which mars its beauty, that his history is worthy of particular study.
I. Notice, first, that in the double mission which Jehu was called to performthe destruction of the house of Ahab and of the worship of Baalthere was no self-denial necessary on his part.The duty to which he was called was not one which violently crossed any propensity, or stood in the way of any selfish feeling. His words to Jehonadab, Come and see my zeal for the Lord, are a key to the state of Jehus mind when he set himself to reform the religion; his zeal was to be the prominent object to be looked at; the awful spectacle of Gods people revolted from the worship of Jerusalem, the painful duty of slaughtering thousands of the followers of Baal was to be as nothing compared with the spectacle exhibited to Jehonadab by Jehus zeal.
II. Jehus zeal burnt brightly, and scorched up everything before it, as long as it was fanned by the excitement of self-interest and a naturally stormy temperament; but the whole heart was not in it; it was zeal for God when it answers my purpose, not zeal for God, cost me what it may. He was a man who would serve God as long as by so doing he could serve himself. The truth which Jehu did not see, and which we ought to see, is that God, if He be served at all, should be served with all our heart, and soul, and strength; that our service must be complete and free, as from those who feel that all they can do must fall infinitely short of a perfect worship of the infinite God.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin.
Illustration
Jehus dealings with the house of Omri, which are commended in 2 Kings, were denounced in the eighth century b.c. by Hosea: yet a little while and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehuand the denunciation, it may be, faithfully reflects not only the prophetic, but the popular verdict upon the character and career of this monarch. It is idle to suggest in his defence that the end justified the means. There can be but one judgment upon his treachery, his remorselessness, his bloodthirsty violence, his murderous ferocity. His qualities are, with one exception, in utter contrast to those of the true servants of God. And yet he possesses a single characteristic which connects him with the highest ministry. This savage, barbarous fighterwho was checked by no considerations of mercy or pity, who never allowed himself to be turned aside from his purpose, who was willing to purchase success at any costwas thorough, up to his lights. His ideals were incomplete; but, as far as they went, they dominated his policy. And it is this one consideration which renders him, in any acceptable sense of the phrase, a biblical hero.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
2Ki 10:31. But Jehu took no care to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel He abolished the worship of Baal, but did not keep up the worship of God, nor walk in his law. He showed great zeal and care for the rooting out of a false religion; but in the true religion he showed no care, took no heed: was not solicitous to please God and do his duty. With all his heart His heart, his whole heart, was not engaged in, nor influenced by religion; nor was he truly zealous for the glory of God, and the advancement of true and genuine piety in himself and others. It is evident his own religion was very superficial, and yet God made use of him as an instrument of effecting some reformation in Israel. It is a pity that those who do good to others, are not always good themselves.