Jehu the Zealot

The curtain rises to show us the city of Ramouth Gilead, embosomed among mountains in the background; and on the stage a banquet, or probably a council of war, where Jehu sits surrounded by the most distinguished officers of — the army of Israel. Suddenly, interrupting their potations or cogitations, one enters the chamber, whose shaggy raiment, appearance, and bold bearing bespeak him a prophet, or one belonging to the order. He comes from Elisha; and the Jews have a tradition that it was Jonah who, according to them, succeeded Gehazi in that prophet’s service. Whether it was so or not, this messenger of Heaven goes straight up, without ceremony or formal introduction, to Jehu, saying, I have an errand unto thee, O captain! And he, out of respect for his holy office, a gallant soldier as yet who had shed no blood but in fair battle, and dreaded no evil, rises at once to grant what the other requested — a private interview, furnishing no illustration of the saying —

“Conscience makes cowards of us all.”

They retire into an inner chamber. When they are alone, and he has seen that the door is shut, the stranger, stooping down, draws from underneath his shaggy garment, where he had concealed it, a horn of oil; and raising himself to his full stature, empties it on Jehu’s head, saying, “‘ Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel: and thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel: for the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab every male, and him that is shut up and left in Israel: and I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah; and the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her.”

Having delivered himself of a message that might well strike any man speechless with astonishment, ere the captain of the host has recovered sufficiently to detain or question him, he vanishes; like a con — spirator against Jehu’s life, who had sought a private interview to assassinate him as Ehud did the king of Moab; or like one who has lighted the match that carries fire to the mine and ends in a terrific explosion, he opens the door and flies — agreeably to his master’s instructions, disappearing as suddenly as he came. And the incident I have related was indeed followed by an explosion that shook the whole land; hurled the king from his throne; and buried him, his bloody mother, her idolatrous priests, and every member of the royal family in a common grave, under the ruins of the house of Ahab.

With the bow bent to the breaking, their loyal and long-enduring patience exhausted, the people of Israel had probably got tired out with the cruelties and idolatries of the reigning family. It was now as with a ripe pear that drops to the touch: as with a mighty stone hanging on the brow of a hill, but so undermined by winter frosts and summer rains, that it needs but the push of a bold strong hand, and it leaves its bed to be shattered as it bounds from crag to crag, or be buried out of sight in the dark depths of the lake below. Aware of this, Jehu saw the sceptre within his reach; and how, stretching out his hand to seize it, not only with the sanction but at the call of heaven, his most ambitious dreams might be realized. With such bloody work, yet brilliant prospects before him, his dreams — what in his more sober moments he had dismissed as dangerous, wild, and airy phantoms — about to be fulfilled, no wonder his countenance, as he followed the flying messenger to the door, bore marks of strong mental agitation. His fellows, who saw that he had received some strange and stirring news, ask, Is all well? With cunning equal to his courage, the astute soldier at first evades the question; assumes a modest air, as if of all that company he was the least ambitious. Pressed on all sides, even bluntly told that he was lying, he at length, but to appearance reluctantly, and only in concession to their importunity, comes out with it; and having won their good graces, makes confidants of his fellow-soldiers.

Now, as has happened in many other cases, the fable of Actzon is realized. Changed by the offended goddess into the form of a stag, the hunter was pursued and devoured by his own hounds — and now the throne of the house of Ahab is assailed and overturned by those who were sworn to support it — the army which his son, Joram, maintained to defend his crown and oppress his subjects, transfers its allegiance, with the facility of mercenaries, from him to Jehu. No sooner do the captains of the host see the sheen of the sacred oil on Jehu’s locks, and get from his lips the story of the interview, than extemporizing a throne, and casting their garments — eastern symbol of homage — at his feet, rougher heralds than usually proclaim the successor to the throne, they fill the air with the blare of trumpets, and cry, Jehu is king! So sudden and sweeping, I may remark, are the revolutions to which military governments are exposed; especially when profanity rather than prayer reigns in the camp, and the army, made up of the scum of the nation, is officered by ungodly and immoral men. A striking contrast to Cromwell’s, which was not less distinguished for its piety than for its fidelity to its leader, and the brilliant victories its arms achieved, such was Joram’s army. Their impiety and profanity break out in the contempt with which they spoke of a servant of the living God. Wherefore, said they to Jehu, came this mad fellow to thee ? — an ungodly, scoffing crew, they had no more respectful term for the holy man. Yet why should we wonder to find God’s servants reckoned and denounced as mad by a world to which his own wisdom is foolishness? Before glancing at the part — so blcody, conspicuous, and successful — which Jehu played in the successive tragedies of this revolution, y, may here

A22 STUDIES OF CHARACTER.

take occasion to observe that the true pillars of a state and throne stand in the freedom, the piety, and the affections of the people. Nations must be ruled somehow, either by love or fear, by the Bible or the bayonet; and ruled mainly by the former, under the influence to a large extent of moral and religious principles, what a contrast, in respect both of the security of the throne and the stability of its government, does our country present to that of France — gifted, as its people are, with uncommon genius, and inspired with the most ardent love of liberty? It is nigh two hundred years since this happy island exchanged one dynasty for another, and passed — rare circumstance — through a peaceful and bloodless revolution. How many in the course of a single lifetime has France seen! She seems, indeed, to keep up like a boy’s spinning-top by virtue of incessant revolutions; and destitute to a frightful extent as her people are of good morals and religion, how many more is she destined to suffer? We ourselves have lived to see her in the throes of five or six different political convulsions. The streets of her gay and lovely capital flashing with musketry, and running red with her citizens’ blood, might have reminded the world of God’s — righteous judgment; and how, as has been been well said, France lost so much good blood through the massacre of the Huguenots, that she has staggered and reeled ever since.

In the conduct of the revolution which God had committed to his hands, Jehu displayed as much wisdom as energy. His conduct was like his driving — ‘“‘he drove furiously;” but the times demanded it. Dangerous in all cases when the crisis has come, hesitation or delay had been fatal in his. Having — by appearing to consult them — won the favor of his companions in arms, enlisted them in his cause, and so turned into partisans those who might otherwise have been rivals, his first step is to catch the bird in the nest. He must seize the king, where he lay in Jezreel. Should tidings of this revolution reach him, Joram takes the alarm and escapes; so, with a promptitude that deserved and was likely to secure success, Jehu hurries trusty men to the gates with this order: “Let none go forth nor escape out of the city to go to tell it in Israel.” He will be his own messenger. The snake rattles before it strikes; but the lightning strikes before it thunders — whom it kills never hears the peal. And it was with the suddenness and surprise of a thunderbolt Jehu sought to launch himself on the head of Joram.: So the cry is, To horse, to horse! all is haste and bustle; men are arming; women are weeping; hasty farewells are said; and the gate thrown open at his approach, out drives Jehu with his chosen men to lash his foaming horses along the road that lay, a day’s march, between Jezreel and Ramoth Gilead. No stay; no delay; to the surprise and terror of the peasant ploughing his father’s fields, on sweeps that cloud of dust, where chariots and horsemen and battle brands are dimly and briefly seen. The Jordan at lengthisreached. A moment to slake the thirst of their panting steeds, and at the word in they plunge, to stem the flood, and from the other shore push on with new vigor to surprise and seize their prey. The cavalcade is at length descried from the watch-tower of Jezreel.

One, and another, and another messenger from Joram hastens to meet and question Jehu; and to the question, Is it peace? get no other but this rough and ominous: reply, ‘What hast thou to do with peace? Get thee behind me” — fall to the rear, if you value your life!

Astonished, and their curiosity, if not their fears awakened, Joram and his ally, Ahaziah, king of Judah, throw themselves into their chariots to meet Jehu. He has been recognized by the keen eyes of the’ sentinel — “‘ the driving,” he tells the king, “is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he driveth furiously.” They meet — place ominous - of evil to Ahab’s race — in the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite; him whose blood has been crying out for vengeance, How long, O Lord, how long! Now the prayer is to be answered; “the hour and the man are come.”

Beyond replying, What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many? Jehu wastes no time, nor words, upon the king. The answer has hardly left his lips when an arrow leaves his bow; and swiftly cleaving the air, directed by a surer hand than his, quivers in Joram’s heart. He dies. The mother speedily follows, treading on the heels of her son. Ere another hour has come, this proud, painted, false, treacherous, cruel, implacable, bloody woman, flung from a window by her slaves in answer to Jehu’s appeal, Who is on my side? who? is turned into dog’s meat — the dogs are crunching her bones on the streets of Jezreel. A princess, a king’s daughter, a king’s wife, a king’s mother, what a fall was there! So let the persecutors of the righteous, and the peaulty of high places perish!

Jehu has still more bloody work to do; and in doing it — as when the lash is in hand and his chariot goes bounding on — “he driveth furiously.” His eye does not pity, nor his hand spare, till he has emptied the last drop of the vial of heaven’s vengeance on the house and seed of Ahab. Seventy sons of that weak and wicked king are living in Samaria; ready to fill the vacant throne, and, if they are wanted, supply kings to all the neighboring nations. These cubs, as well as the bear, must be slain; these saplings, as well as the old tree, cut down; nor drop of Ahab’s blood be left ina living vein. With one stroke of his pen Jehu strikes off their heads. A letter, couched in bitter irony, and borne with speed to Samaria, challenges its rulers, adherents of the house of Ahab, to set up the best and bravest of the seventy, that he and Jehu may have a fair fight for the crown. The proposal fills these cowards with dismay. ‘ Two kings stood not before him,” they said, ‘“‘how then shall we stand?” Honor, oaths, fidelity, are given to the wind. False to their God, these men, as may be expected of all false to him, betray their trust. False to their masters, they barter their lives to save their own; and seventy ghastly heads are found one morning piled up by the gate of Jezreel.

Not yet appeased, Naboth’s blood, and that ot the righteous whom Jezebel had slain, still cries on heaven for vengeance. Another quarry has to be struck down. Two-and-forty brethren of Amaziah, king of Judah, whose blood was tainted with that of Ahab, are, unsuspecting of evil, on their way to pay a visit to their cousins — those whose heads are bleaching in the sun by the gate of Jezreel. ~The cousins meet, but not in this world. An opportune visit for Jehu: at one fell sweep he encloses the whole brood in his net; and while the famous character who is now to enter on the stage never wanted a man to stand before the Lord, and survived in his family to see thrones emptied, dynasties and kingdoms perish, Ahab has fulfilled his doom. His house is left unto him desolate; cut down root and branch. His sin — as, sooner or later, unless forgiven, all our sins shall do — has found him out; and in extinguishing his family a righteous God pays him back in the very coin by which, in destroying Naboth and all his children, he obtained unjust possession of the vineyard at Jezreel. One great and yet bloodier work still waits Jehu’s avenging arm. The priests and worshippers of Baal must be destroyed. For that purpose, and for such a sacrifice as was never offered in the idol’s temple, he has a stroke of policy — a coup etat — arranged, which only a man with cunning as profound as his daring was bold, would have conceived or ventured on. His is one of the greatest, boldest, bloodiest plots in history; and he is on his way to carry it into execution, and so finish the work God had given him to do, when he meets Jonadab, the son of Rechab. Astute enough to see that though he held a divine commission he must neglect the use of no means, and that none was more likely to promote his object than the countenance of Jonadab — a man distinguished alike for his patriotism and his piety, for the severity of his manners and the universal esteem of the people — Jehu invites him to a seat in his chariot; greeting this eminent Israelite, and original founder of all total abstinence societies, with these brave, pious words, Come, see my zeal for the Lord!

I would take occasion from this case to remark, — I. That there is a zeal of selfishness which, though it may appear to be, is not zeal for the Lord.

Is thine heart right? was the question with which Jehu accosted Jonadab; and if the question be understood in its highest and holiest sense, his subsequent history proves that he had most need to put it to himself. The contrast between the spirit of that question and the character of his future life is such as to painfully remind us of these words, Thou that preachest a man should ‘not steal, dost thou steal? thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?

God frequently uses the wicked as his tools — when the rod has served its purpose breaking it, and casting it into the fire. His own people also have been called and constrained, I may say against their natural feelings, to be so. Instruments of his righteous vengeance, they have had to shed the blood of others when they would rather have shed their own; to afflict humanity when they would rather have poured wine and oil into its bleeding wounds; to appear men of strife when they were sighing for peace, and, wearied of turmoil, controversy, and conflict, were: saying, as they turned their eyes on the calm heavens above, Oh that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly away and be at rest! But there is no evidence whatever of such a mind or temper in Jehu. There is no relenting; no recoil from his stern mission; no expression of pity. Apparently congenial to his nature, he found in his mission the means of gratifying his passions, and that personal ambition which, rather than zeal for the Lord, was, I fear, his animating, ruling principle. We would not deal unjustly, nor even very severely by him; but when he had reached the summit of his ambition, and, leaving a bloody footprint on. every step, had climbed to the throne, where was the zeal he boasted of — his zeal for the Lord? It looks as if he had all along been consciously playing a part; and, finding no further use of it, had now dropped the mask. We are told that “‘he took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, but departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.”

It may be that Jehu deceived himself. We are unwilling to regard him as a hypocrite: and it is certain that men — with a heart which the word of God pronounces to be deceitful above all things as well as desperately wicked — have sometimes deceived themselves, more than the most famous jugglers or impostors have deceived others. And what made it easier for Jehu to do so was this, that the reformation of the land and its religious interests did not conflict with, but rather ran in the same direction as his own passions and ambition. The public interests and his own personal objects were in dangerous accord.

Such a position is a dangerous one for any man to be placed in. There is no doubt to what the ship owes her progress when her course is up the stream, or the waters of an opposing tide are foaming on her bows; her moving power is evidently a heavenly one — the wind that sings in her cordage, and fills her swelling sails. But the case may be otherwise. The tide, the current on whose bosom our barque is floating, may run in the very direction we wish to pursue; and as in such a case we may be deceived as to the power that moves us, so it is easy for us to persuade ourselves that we are moved by zeal for the Lord when, I may say, we are not blown on by heavenly but only borne on by earthly influences — such as regard for our character; such as the approbation of men; such as the pride of consistency; such as the gratification, perhaps, of what are more or less common to all, humane and charitable feelings.

Let a man examine himself, says an Apostle: and nothing stands more in need of being sifted, analyzed, and tested than our zeal for the Lord. Have not men preached Christ for contention? Have not as large sacrifices~been offered at the shrine of party as were ever laid on the altar of - principle? Has not vanity often had fully as much to do as humanity with raising asylums for the orphan, the houseless, and the sick — men in what the world regards as monuments of their generosity seeking but to gratify their ambition — a monument to themselves more enduring and honorable than brass or marble? and have not men even burned at the stake, and died on the scaffold, and obtained a place for their names on the roll of martyrs, with no higher aim than that of earthly glory which the soldier seeks in the deadly breach and at the cannon’s fiery mouth? I do not say that any man’s motives are altogether pure. Such an analysis as the Searcher of hearts could make would detect what was “of the earth earthy” in our noblest sacrifices and most holy services. Our wine is never without its water, nor our silver without its dross; nor we less entirely and absolutely dependent on the mercy of God and the merits of his Son than he who, when one spoke to him of his good works, replied, I take my good works and my bad works, and casting them into one heap, fly from both to Christ — to fall at his feet, crying, Save me, Lord, I perish.

Still, when zeal for our own ends and interests appears so like zeal for God; when the counterfeit bears so close a resemblance to good money that it needs a close eye to discern the difference and detect the cheat; when such as, in their natural honesty, would scorn to impose on others, or make a stalking-horse of religion, may impose on themselves; it behoves us to see that God, and not self, is the centre of our system; and that, in the words of the Apostle, whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, not seeking our own glory, we do all to the glory of God.

2. There is a zeal without knowledge that is not zeal for the Lord. ‘I bear them witness,” says Paul, speaking of his countrymen, “that they have a zeal, but not according to knowledge.” Unless directed by that, zeal may be wasted, and worse than wasted. Baleful, as when it calls down fire from heaven, it may prove positively injurious to the cause of truth and righteousness.

And who can read the history of the Church, or almost of any section of it, without feelings of sorrow and regret that so much zeal has been expended on the outworks, and less important parts, of religion? The water that might have been turned with advantage on the green sward and grateful soil has been spent on batren and thankless sands; and like the lean kine of Pharaoh’s dream which devoured the fat and were themselves none the fatter, how has zeal about ceremonies, forms of government, and modes of worship, without any advantage whatever to the interests of piety, outraged the gentle spirit of religion, and swallowed up the weightier matters of the law? Has the zeal been according to knowledge which, as if the outworks were more important than the citadel, gave more heed to matters of form than to those of faith? — that expending itself on the ornaments and walls of the temple, left the light in the lamp and the fire of the altar to expire. I cannot doubt that the prince of the powers of the air has had a hand in many of those storms about minor matters which have so often agitated, and, but for Christ’s interposition, would have sunk his Church. Speaking of Satan, the Apostle says, We are not ignorant of his devices; and with such device as military commanders employ when they make a feint attack on some outwork that, while the defenders of a beleagured city fly to its protection, they may seize the citadel, Satan has raised many controversies about secondary matters — his object to kindle unholy passions, weaken the Church by divisions, and divert men’s attention from Christ and him crucified, from souls and them saved.

Controversies will arise that are not to be avoided. ‘I came,” says our Lord, ‘snot to.send peace on earth, but a sword. I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughterin-law against her mother-in-law.” It is also true that what the world regards as small matters may in the light of their consequences assume a character of the highest importance. Crowns have been lost and won on a narrow battle-field; a small hole in its hedge admitted the serpent into Eden; and solid rocks have been rent asunder by the tiny seed which wind, or bird of heaven, had dropped into their fissure. Yet when all the zeal, and money, and time, and prayers we can bestow are all too little for saving souls, it must be a melancholy spectacle to the angels of heaven, still more to Him who gave his blood to save us, to see the life-boat’s crew turn away from those who with outstretched hands are crying, Save us; we perish! — to waste the precious moments in angry debates on the mending of a spar, or the shape and form of a sail.

We may well believe that; and without breach of charity doubt whether their zeal is not rather kindled of helt than of heaven, who are more

zealous for the points on which they differ, than for the principles on which they agree with other Christians. He at least presents a wretched specimen of religion who labors more to convert Christian men to his own sectarian views than men who are no Christians to Christ and saving faith. This is zeal for a sect, certainly not for the Lord. Not only so, but the worst passions have animated, and the most shocking crimes been committed by such as have said with Jehu, Come, see my zeal for the Lord! Paul persecuted the Christians; and exceedingly mad against them, haled men and women to prison, compelling them to blaspheme; and thought the while that he did God service. Many others have done the like. The Inquisition, with all its unutterable cruelty and bloody horrors, sprung from religious zeal — of a kind. If zeal has bravely borne the fires of the stake, zeal also has kindled them — all the difference in some cases between the martyr whose memory we revere and his murderers whose names we load with infamy this, in the one case the zeal was, and in the other it was not according to knowledge. Excellent property as it is, when committed to such poor earthen vessels as we are, zeal is apt to turn acrid and sour. We have need, therefore, when most zealous for the Lord, or fancy ourselves to be so, to see what spirit we are of. Are the objects we aim at, and the means we use to accomplish them, such as God approves? He will not be served with “strange fire;” and repudiating all uncharitableness, and bitterness, and intolerance, and persecution, Jesus Christ will have his followers support his cause and defend his crown by no other sword, and in no other spirit, than his own. Intolerance, fierce, uncharitable passions, the bitter tongue, pens dipped in gall, are not zeal for the Lord; but weapons, equally with Peter’s sword, repudiated and forbidden by Him who, turning to that disciple said, Put up again thy sword into its place; they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

3. Being on their guard against a spurious, let men cultivate a true zeal for the Lord.

Zeal is an essential as well as excellent characteristic of true religion. Dead bodies acquire the temperature of surrounding objects — not so living ones. Hence plants are less cold than the snow that wraps them, and the polar bear lies in her icy cave with blood as warm as our own. Wherever there is life, there is heat; nor is it till death ensues that the brow has the touch of marble and the body becomes as cold as the grave it lies in, or the waves that are its floating sepulchre. So wherever there is Christian principle, a new and spiritual life, there is, and must be, zeal. There may be, and are, different degrees of it — just as the blood of some animals is warmer, and the lustre of some stars is brighter, and the perfume of some flowers is sweeter than that of others: but zeal for the Lord, more or less developed, will be found in all true Christians. Continued torpor is as incompatible with spiritual as with animal existence: and cold indifference to the cause of Christ, the glory of God, the good of souls, the honor and interests of the Redeemer’s kingdom as great a moral as this is a physical impossibility — a man who does not breathe, or a sun that does not shine, or a fire that does not burn. Piety, as has been well remarked, may consist with error but cannot with indifference — and if such be our state, our usual and permanent condition, in imagining ourselves Christians, it is certain that ““we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

Nor should we be contented with a zeal that. smoulders rather than burns; and, giving forth more smoke than flame, goes off in speeches rather than actions, in good wishes rather than in good, brave, self-denying works. If I had as many lives in my body as I have hairs on my head, said a martyr, as he stood on the reeking scaffold, I would give them all for Christ. Such is the zeal we should aim at, and pray for; and which, if our prayers spring from the heart, we do pray for in asking that the same mind may be in us that was in Jesus Christ. But how is that mind, any semblance of that mind, in him who calculates not how much but how little he can with some regard to decency give to the cause of Christ; for how small a composition of the debt he owes to Jesus conscience will grant him a discharge; how he can best excuse himself for avoiding sacrifices on Christ’s behalf which would no more than a cobweb stop a man bent on making money, or winning fame, or gratifying his appetites? In such a case where is our love, and our likeness to Him who gave Himself — his soul to the wrath of God, his brow to the tnorns, and his body to the cross — for us, saying, as well he might, ‘‘ The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up”? There is no soldier whose bones lie bleaching on the battle-field, ner pale student whose life is wasting with the oil of his midnight lamp, nor even squalid wretch who walks our streets in poverty and rags, but may put most Christians to the blush. To say nothing of the world’s, Satan has servants who scruple at no sacrifice, the most precious and costly. I could produce thousands who have sold all, and parted with all — money, health, character, peace of mind, wife, children, everything man counts dear, to serve their master — but their master is not Christ, nor their zeal zeal for the Lord. It is sad to think that more is done, is suffered, is sacrificed for drink and the devil than for Jesus Christ. The Lord have mercy on us! May he pour out on us a larger

measure of his own Spirit, and of Christ’s! — that

kindled of heaven, lighted at the altar fire, associated with the charity that thinketh no evil, beareth all things, believeth all things, and hopeth all things, our zeal may be a flame that enlightening, warming, and blessing others, consumes none but ourselves.