Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Kings 10:8
And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king’s sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning.
8. And there came a messenger, and told him ] Josephus ( Ant. IX. 6. 5) adds to the picture, and says that the message was received by Jehu, ‘While he was at a meal with his friends’.
Lay ye them in two heaps ] Josephus here says ‘one on one side and the other on the other’. No doubt the place was chosen as one of most public resort, and where Jehu meant to come forth as their new king and take his seat next day. As the heads lay there, they would proclaim to the men of Jezreel, how completely Jehu’s conduct was accepted in Samaria. Thus without a further blow he secured the submission of the two chief cities.
until the morning ] They had arrived in the evening of the day when they were cut off.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Two heaps – Probably placed one on either side of the gateway, to strike terror into the partisans of the late dynasty as they passed in and out of the town.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. Lay ye them in two heaps] It appears that the heads of these princes had arrived at Jezreel in the night time: Jehu ordered them to be left at the gate of the city, a place of public resort, that all the people might see them, and be struck with terror, and conclude that all resistance to such authority and power would be vain.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
At the entering in of the gate; the place of judicature, to signify that this was an act of justice, and of Gods righteous judgment; and the place of greatest concourse, where people went out of the city, and came into it, and whither they resorted for judgment and other occasions; that all men might behold this dreadful spectacle of Divine vengeance upon Ahabs family, and thereby might justify Jehus cause and proceedings.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. Lay ye them in two heaps at theentering in of the gate, c.The exhibition of the heads ofenemies is always considered a glorious trophy. Sometimes a pile ofheads is erected at the gate of the palace and a head of peculiarlystriking appearance selected to grace the summit of the pyramid.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, they have brought the heads of the king’s sons,…. Perhaps this messenger to Jehu came from the great men of Samaria themselves, to let him know that they had obeyed his orders:
and he said, lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning; very probably it was towards or at the evening they were brought; and he ordered them to be taken out of the baskets, and laid in two heaps at the entering of the gate of the city, that they might be taken notice of, and publicly viewed by the people that passed and repassed the gate; and where they met in great numbers, either on account of the market there, or court of judicature there held, especially in mornings; and here they were to remain till the morning, though not without a guard, that they might still be more exposed to view; Noldius p renders it, “without the door of the gate”, for they were brought at night, when the gate was shut.
p Ebr. Conc. Part. p. 68. No. 340.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
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.”
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(8) There came a messenger.Literally, and the messenger came in. Josephus says Jehu was giving a banquet.
Heaps.The noun (ibbr) occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. In the Talmud it means congregation, as we say colloquially a heap of persons. The verb (bar) means to heap up. (See Exo. 8:10.)
At the entering in of the gate.The place of public business, where all the citizens would see them. (Comp. 2Ki. 7:3; 1Ki. 22:10.) But perhaps not the city gate, but the gate of the palace is to be understood. Parallels to this deed of Jehu are not wanting in the history of modern Persia. (Comp. 1Sa. 17:54; 2Ma. 15:30; and the comparatively recent custom in our own country of fixing up the heads of traitors on London Bridge.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Lay ye them in two heaps “This cutting off of heads in collective masses, and making them into heaps, is or has been frightfully common in the East; and an Oriental, familiar with blood and beheading from his cradle, would read this portion of Scripture with little, if any, of the disgust and horror, and certainly with none of the surprise, with which it inspires us. After a battle, or a massacre, or the rout of a band of robbers, the heads are, as in the present instance, heaped up pyramidally, faces outward, on each side the palace gate; and the builder of this horrid pile, if a man of taste and fancy, usually reserves a head with a fine long beard to form the crown of his handiwork. Nothing so much shocks a European in the East as the frightful cheapness of human life, and with it, of human heads. In Persia it has not seldom been known for the king to express his displeasure at a town or village by demanding from it a pyramid of heads of given dimensions.” Kitto.
Until the morning The heads had probably reached Jezreel at night.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
While we read in this account how Jehu waded through blood, I pray the reader to keep in view that he acted as the instrument of the Lord. The commission was from heaven. And when we take into the account how Ahab by his idolatry had been ruining the souls as well as the bodies of Israel, surely such daring impiety called for more than ordinary vengeance!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2Ki 10:8 And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king’s sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning.
Ver. 8. Lay ye them in two heaps. ] a Here some hard hearted Hannibal would have cried out, O formosum spectaculum! Oh, brave sight! Or, O rem regiam! as another, when he had slain three hundred. I am ready to say as one did on a like occasion –
“ Tu quibus ista legas incertum est, Lector, ocellis:
Ipse quidem siccis scribere vix potui. ”
a
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
there came: 2Sa 11:18-21, 1Ki 21:14, Mar 6:28
Lay ye them: Such barbarities are by no means uncommon in the East. “It has been know to occur,” says Mr. Morier, “after the combat was over, that prisoners have been put to death in cold blood, in order that the heads, which are immediately despatched to the king, and deposited in heaps at the place gates, might make a more considerable show.”
until the morning: Deu 21:23
Reciprocal: Hos 1:4 – and I
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Ki 10:8. Lay them at the entering in of the gate The place of judicature, to signify that this was an act of Gods righteous judgment: and this being the place of public concourse for justice and other business, and where people were continually passing and repassing, the laying them there was to expose them to public view, that all might know there was no one left of Ahabs posterity to reign over them.