Jehu



Jehu reigned twenty-eight years. Although he executed the judgments of God upon Ahab and the prophets of Baal, he continued the worship of the images set up by Jeroboam, and was in most respects a bad man.  Jehoahaz, who succeeded his father Jehu, pursued the same evil course. During the reign of this king, Israel was greatly oppressed by the Syrians, under Hazael. For the last two years of his reign, Jehoahaz associated his son Jehoash with him in the government of the kingdom. 

He reigned seventeen years in all.  Jehoash succeeded his father as sole ruler of the kingdom, and reigned fourteen years after his father's death. He was more resolute than his father, and recovered the cities, which the Syrians had taken and held during his father's reign. His victories over the Syrians were predicted by Elisha, when Jehoash came to visit him on his death-bed. This king seemed to have realized, to some degree, that the defense of Israel lay in God and his prophets; for he wept over Elisha, and said, "O my father, my father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!"

Having been provoked to war by Amaziah, the king of Judah, Jehoash defeated him, broke down four hundred cubits of the wall of Jerusalem, and robbed the temple and the palace of their richest treasures.

Jeroboam succeeded his father Jehoash, and reigned forty-one years. Since another king of the same name had reigned in Israel, this one is called Jeroboam the Second. During his reign the kingdom reached its highest pitch of prosperity; yet he was a wicked king, and did not serve the true God. After his death, there seems to have been a space of about eleven years when there was no king in Israel.

After this, Zachariah reigned six months, when he was killed by Shallum, who reigned only one month; for as soon as Menahem, one of Zachariah's generals, heard what Shallum had done, he marched from Tirzah, captured Shallum in the city of Samaria, and slew him. 

Menahem then reigned ten years. Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, was a wicked king. He reigned but two years, when he was slain in his own palace by Pekah, one of his generals.  Pekah's wicked reign continued twenty years. 

In the latter part of his reign, aided by the Syrians, he attacked Ahaz, king of Judah; but Ahaz was assisted by the Assyrians, and before the contest was over, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, took Damascus, the capital of Syria, and with it all that part of Israel east of the Jordan and north of the Sea of Galilee, carrying away the inhabitants as captives.

Hoshea killed Pekah, but it was nearly ten years before he could establish himself as king. After reigning about nine years, he and all the people of his kingdom were carried away captives by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. Thus the kingdom of Israel came to an end. The reasons why the Lord gave Israel into the hands of their enemies are fully given in 2 Kings 17.