2 Kings 10:13

Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, Who are ye? And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah; and we go down to salute the children of the king and the children of the queen.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) Jehu met with.—Literally, And Jehu found.

The brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah—i.e., Ahaziah’s kinsmen. His brothers, in the strict sense of the word, were slain by a troop of Arabs, in the lifetime of his father Jehoram (2Chronicles 21:17; 2Chronicles 22:1). (See the Notes on 2Chronicles 22:8.)

We go down.—Rather, we have come down.

To salute—i.e., to inquire after their health, to visit them.

The children of the king—i.e., the sons of Joram.

The children of the queen.—Literally, the sons of the mistress (gebîrah)—i.e., the sons of the queen-mother, Jezebel, and so Joram’s brothers. Both these and the former are included in the “sons of Ahab” whom Jehu slew.

The news of the taking of Ramoth, and of Joram’s convalescence, may have reached Jerusalem, and induced these princes to make a visit of pleasure to the court of Jezreel, not suspecting the events which had meanwhile happened with the headlong rapidity characteristic of Jehu’s action.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:1-14 In the most awful events, though attended by the basest crimes of man, the truth and justice of God are to be noticed; and he never did nor can command any thing unjust or unreasonable. Jehu destroyed all that remained of the house of Ahab; all who had been partners in his wickedness. When we think upon the sufferings and miseries of mankind, when we look forward to the resurrection and last judgment, and think upon the vast number of the wicked waiting their awful sentence of everlasting fire; when the whole sum of death and misery has been considered, the solemn question occurs, Who slew all these? The answer is, SIN. Shall we then harbour sin in our bosoms, and seek for happiness from that which is the cause of all misery?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The brethren of Ahaziah - Not the actual brothers of Ahaziah, who had all been slain by the Arabs before his accession to the throne 2 Chronicles 21:17; 2 Chronicles 22:1; but his nephews, the sons of his brothers (marginal reference). It is remarkable that they should have penetrated so far into the kingdom of Israel without having heard of the revolution.

The children of the king ... - i. e." the sons of Jehoram, and the children (sons and grandsons) of the queen-mother, Jezebel." Some of both may well have been at Jezreel, though the younger branches of the royal family were at Samaria 2 Kings 10:1.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13, 14. We are the brethren of Ahaziah—that is, not full, but step-brothers, sons of Jehoram by various concubines. Ignorant of the revolution that had taken place, they were travelling to Samaria on a visit to their royal relatives of Israel, when they were seized and put to death, because of the apprehension that they might probably stimulate and strengthen the party that still remained faithful in their allegiance to Ahab's dynasty.

children of the queen—that is, of the queen mother, or regent, Jezebel.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The brethren; not strictly so, for they were killed before this, 2 Chronicles 21:17; but his brethren’s sons, as they are called, 2 Chronicles 22:8, or others of his near kinsmen, such being oft called brethren in Scripture; as Genesis 13:8.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah,.... At the above place; these were the sons of his brethren, called his brethren, as Lot was called Abraham's brother, being his brother's son; for as for his brethren, they had been slain by the Arabians before he was made king, 2 Chronicles 22:1,

and said, who are ye? though perhaps he knew who they were:

and they answered, we are the brethren of Ahaziah; the sons of his brethren:

and we go down to salute the children of the king, and the children of the queen; meaning either the children of Ahab and Jezebel, or of Joram and his queen; for they knew nothing of the death of Joram and Jezebel, and the revolution made in the kingdom, and therefore with great simplicity tell who they were, and where they were going, and on what account.

Geneva Study Bible

Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, Who are ye? And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah; and we go down to salute the children of the king and the children of the queen.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. the brethren of Ahaziah] And so part of Ahab’s kinsfolk, of whom Jehu was commissioned to leave none remaining.

the children of the king] i.e. Of Joram. They manifestly knew nothing of what had happened in the last few days in Jezreel.

the children of the queen] The original is the word employed elsewhere for the ‘queen-mother’. Cf. 1 Kings 15:13. So here the word must have reference to Jezebel, whose influence in Israel was very great. The LXX. notes the word by rendering it ἡ δυναστεύουσα.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Jehu met with the brethren of Ahaziah King of Judah. The actual "brethren" of Ahaziah had been carried off and slain by the Arabians in one of their raids into Palestine, as we learn from 2 Chronicles 21:17; 2 Chronicles 22:1; the youths here mentioned were their sons (2 Chronicles 22:8), and therefore Ahaziah's nephews. And said, Who are ye? Travelers in a foreign country were always liable to be questioned, and were expected to give an account of themselves (see Genesis 42:7-13; Story of Saneha, line 38; Herod, 2:159, etc.). The princes were thus not surprised at the inquiry, and readily answered it. And they answered, We are the brethren of Ahaziah; and we go down to salute the children of the king. There is something abnormal and needing explanation in this visit. Forty-two princes, with their retinues, do not, under ordinary circumstances, start off on a sudden from one capital, on a complimentary visit to their cousins at another. Perhaps Ewald is right in surmising that, "at the first report of disturbances in the kingdom of the ten tribes, they had been sent off by Athaliah to render any assistance that they could to the house of Ahab in its troubles" ('History of Israel,' vol. 4. p. 100, Eng. trans.). In this case their answer must be regarded as insincere. Falling in with an armed force stronger than their own, they pretended ignorance of the revolution that had taken place, and sought to pass off their hostile purpose under the pretence of a visit of compliment. But the pretence did not deceive Jehu. And the children of the queen. The queen-mother, Jezebel, is probably intended. Her rank entitled her to special mention. 2 Kings 10:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Extermination of the Brothers of Ahaziah of Judah and of the Other Members of Ahab's Dynasty. - 2 Kings 10:12. Jehu then set out to Samaria; and on the way, at the binding-house of the shepherds, he met with the brethren of Ahaziah, who were about to visit their royal relations, and when he learned who they were, had them all seized, viz., forty-two men, and put to death at the cistern of the binding-house. ויּלך ויּבא, "he came and went," appears pleonastic; the words are not to be transposed, however, as Bttcher and Thenius propose after the Syriac, but ויּלך is added, because Jehu did not go at once to Samaria, but did what follows on the way. By transposing the words, the slaying of the relations of Ahaziah would be transferred to Samaria, in contradiction to 2 Kings 10:15. - The words from וגו בּית הוּא onwards, and from ויהוּא to יהוּדה מלך, are two circumstantial clauses, in which the subject יהוּא is added in the second clause for the sake of greater clearness: "when he was at the binding-house of the shepherds on the road, and Jehu (there) met with the brethren of Ahaziah, he said..." הרעים בּית־עקד (Βαιθακάθ, lxx) is explained by Rashi, after the Chaldee רעיּא כנישׁת בית, as signifying locus conventus pastorum, the meeting-place of the shepherds; and Gesenius adopts the same view. But the rest of the earlier translators for the most part adopt the rendering, locus ligationis pastorum, from עקד, to bind, and think of a house ubi pastores ligabant oves quando eas tondebant. In any case it was a house, or perhaps more correctly a place, where the shepherds were in the habit of meeting, and that on the road from Jezreel to Samaria; according to Eusebius on the Onom. s.v. Βαιθακάθ, a place fifteen Roman miles from Legio (Lejun, Megiddo), in the great plain of Jezreel: a statement which may be correct with the exception of the small number of miles, but which does not apply to the present village of Beit Kad to the east of Jenin (Rob. Pal. iii. p. 157), with which, according to Thenius, it exactly coincides. עחזיהוּ אחי, for which we have אח אחי בּני, Ahaziah's brothers' sons, in 2 Chronicles 22:8, were not the actual brothers of Ahaziah, since they had been carried off by the Arabians and put to death before he ascended the throne (2 Chronicles 21:17), but partly step-brothers, i.e., sons of Joram by his concubines, and partly Ahaziah's nephews and cousins. לשׁלום, ad salutandum, i.e., to inquire how they were, or to visit the sons of the king (Joram) and of the queen-mother, i.e., Jezebel, therefore Joram's brothers. In 2 Chronicles 22:1 they are both included among the "sons" of Ahab.