The Zeal of God and the Cunning of Men Text: 2 Kings 10:18-28
Introduction: When Piety Requires a Sword
We live in a soft and effeminate age, an age that has mistaken niceness for virtue and tolerance for truth. Our modern sensibilities are easily offended, particularly by the Old Testament saints. We read a passage like this one, and our first instinct is to recoil. We see the cunning, the deception, and the raw, bloody violence, and we want to apologize for it, or explain it away as some unfortunate remnant of a primitive, unenlightened time. We want a God who is always gentle, a faith that is always quiet, and a savior who is little more than a celestial guidance counselor.
But the God of the Bible is not a tame lion. He is the sovereign Lord of hosts, and His holiness burns like a consuming fire against idolatry. And the men He anoints to carry out His purposes are not always mild-mannered librarians. Sometimes they are men like Jehu, men of blood and iron, men of furious zeal and shrewd, calculating statecraft. This story is a bucket of ice water in the face of our sentimental piety. It forces us to confront the reality that the war against evil is not a pillow fight. It is a war. And in war, there are stratagems, there is cunning, and there is the grim necessity of the sword.
Jehu was commissioned by God to perform a divine and bloody task: to utterly eradicate the house of Ahab and to purge the Northern Kingdom of the Baal worship that Ahab and Jezebel had institutionalized. This was not a personal vendetta; it was a judicial act of the state, commanded by God Himself. What we are about to read is the final, climactic act of this purge. It is a masterclass in what we might call righteous deception, a holy sting operation. It is a stark reminder that the civil magistrate bears the sword for a reason, and that reason is to be a terror to evil. When a nation has institutionalized idolatry, when it has made a covenant with false gods, the remedy is not a polite debate. The remedy is reformation, and reformation is often a messy, violent business. We must set aside our modern squeamishness and ask what the text is actually teaching us about zeal, justice, and the uncompromising holiness of God.
The Text
Then Jehu gathered all the people and said to them, “Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much. So now, summon to me all the prophets of Baal, all his slaves and all his priests; let no one be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal; whoever is missing shall not live.” But Jehu did it in cunning, so that he might cause the slaves of Baal to perish. And Jehu said, “Sanctify a solemn assembly for Baal.” And they summoned them. Then Jehu sent throughout Israel, and all the slaves of Baal came, so that there was not a man left who did not come. So they came into the house of Baal, and the house of Baal was filled from one end to the other. Then he said to the one who was in charge of the wardrobe, “Bring out garments for all the slaves of Baal.” So he brought out garments for them. And Jehu came into the house of Baal with Jehonadab the son of Rechab; and he said to the slaves of Baal, “Search and see lest there be here with you any of the slaves of Yahweh, but only the slaves of Baal.” Then they came in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had placed for himself eighty men outside, and he had said, “The one who permits any of the men whom I cause to come into your hands to escape, shall give up his life in exchange.” Now it happened that as soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, Jehu said to the guard and to the royal officers, “Come in, strike them down; let none come out.” And they struck them down with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the royal officers threw them out and went to the inner room of the house of Baal. And they brought out the sacred pillars of the house of Baal and burned them. They also broke down the sacred pillar of Baal and broke down the house of Baal and made it a latrine to this day. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel.
(2 Kings 10:18-28 LSB)
The Holy Ruse (vv. 18-21)
We begin with Jehu's public declaration, a piece of brilliant, if unsettling, political theater.
"Then Jehu gathered all the people and said to them, 'Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much. So now, summon to me all the prophets of Baal, all his slaves and all his priests; let no one be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal; whoever is missing shall not live.' But Jehu did it in cunning, so that he might cause the slaves of Baal to perish." (2 Kings 10:18-19)
Jehu's announcement is a shocking piece of propaganda. He declares that his zeal for Baal will outstrip even Ahab's. This is how you flush out the rats. The true worshipers of Baal, who had perhaps gone into hiding after the fall of the house of Ahab, would have heard this and breathed a sigh of relief. The new king was on their side, and not just tentatively. He was going to be their greatest champion. The threat that anyone missing "shall not live" was the perfect touch. It ensured that even the hesitant would show up, coerced by what they believed to be the new religious policy of the state.
Now, the text is explicit: "Jehu did it in cunning." Is this sinful deception? We must make a crucial distinction. Lying is bearing false witness against a neighbor. But are the sworn enemies of God, who are actively seeking to overthrow His covenant and lead His people into idolatry, our "neighbors" in that sense? The spies in Jericho were hidden by Rahab through a lie, and she is commended for her faith. Jael lured Sisera into her tent with comforting words before she drove a tent peg through his skull. In a state of war, and idolatry is a declaration of war against the living God, deception is a legitimate weapon. Jehu is not lying to an innocent party to defraud them; he is setting a trap for traitors and idolaters, men who were under a divine sentence of death according to God's own law (Deuteronomy 17:2-5).
Jehu's cunning is comprehensive. He sanctifies a solemn assembly and sends word throughout all Israel. The response is overwhelming. The house of Baal is filled "from one end to the other." This reveals the depth of the apostasy. This was not a fringe cult; it was a deeply embedded, popular religion. Jehu's strategy was necessary because the cancer had metastasized throughout the entire body politic.
Marked for Judgment (vv. 22-24)
The next steps in Jehu's plan are designed to do two things: identify the idolaters and ensure there is no collateral damage.
"Then he said to the one who was in charge of the wardrobe, 'Bring out garments for all the slaves of Baal.' So he brought out garments for them. And Jehu came into the house of Baal with Jehonadab the son of Rechab; and he said to the slaves of Baal, 'Search and see lest there be here with you any of the slaves of Yahweh, but only the slaves of Baal.'" (2 Kings 10:22-23)
The special garments serve as a uniform. Once a worshiper puts on the vestments of Baal, there is no ambiguity. They have identified themselves. They have, in effect, signed their own death warrant. This is a public declaration of their allegiance. It is a powerful picture of how sin works. People willingly robe themselves in the garments of their idolatry, thinking it is a mark of honor, when in fact it is a mark for judgment.
Then comes the final, careful separation. Jehu, with the zealous Jehonadab at his side, instructs the Baal worshipers themselves to perform a search. "Make sure there are no servants of Yahweh here." This is a masterstroke of irony. He uses their own pagan exclusivity to ensure the purity of the coming judgment. They are so zealous for their false god that they eagerly participate in the very action that will seal their doom and protect the righteous. It demonstrates a profound principle: God often uses the wickedness of the wicked to bring about their own destruction.
Notice the contrast. The Baal worshipers want to exclude any servants of Yahweh from their profane ceremony. But God is about to exclude all servants of Baal from the land of the living. This is a picture of the final judgment. There will be a great separation. There are only two categories of people in the world: slaves of Yahweh and slaves of Baal. There is no middle ground, no third way.
The Zeal of the Sword (vv. 25-27)
The trap is set, the victims are identified, and the moment for action arrives.
"Now it happened that as soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, Jehu said to the guard and to the royal officers, 'Come in, strike them down; let none come out.' And they struck them down with the edge of the sword..." (2 Kings 10:25)
Jehu himself participates in the false worship, offering the burnt offering. This is the final act of his deception, lulling them into a false sense of security. The moment the sacrifice is complete, the signal is given. The eighty men stationed outside, under the threat of their own lives, become the instruments of God's wrath. The slaughter is total and merciless. This is the duty of the civil magistrate in the face of high-handed, public, institutionalized idolatry. It is not pretty, but it is just. God had commanded Israel to show no pity to idolaters, to utterly purge the evil from their midst (Deut. 13:8-9).
The work is not finished with the death of the idolaters. The instruments of idolatry must also be destroyed. This is the principle of iconoclasm. You cannot just get rid of the worshipers; you must get rid of the apparatus of worship. They bring out the sacred pillars and burn them. They break down the central pillar of Baal. And then, in an act of ultimate desecration, they demolish the temple itself and turn it into a latrine, a public toilet. This is not just destruction; it is humiliation. It is a public statement. "This is what we think of your god. He is filth." This is the kind of robust, masculine, and unapologetic zeal that is utterly foreign to our therapeutic age, but it is precisely what was required.
An Incomplete Reformation (v. 28)
The chapter concludes with a summary of Jehu's accomplishment, but it contains a seed of tragedy.
"Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel." (2 Kings 10:28)
In this, Jehu was faithful. He received a specific commission, and he carried it out to the letter. God Himself commends Jehu for his actions against the house of Ahab and promises him a dynasty to the fourth generation (2 Kings 10:30). The destruction of Baalism was a great and necessary act of national reformation. It was a righteous and holy purge.
However, the very next verses reveal the tragic flaw in Jehu's zeal. While he tore down the altars of Baal, he did not tear down the golden calves at Bethel and Dan that Jeroboam had set up. He got rid of the foreign, imported idolatry of the Phoenicians, but he kept the homegrown, political idolatry that had been the state religion from the beginning of the Northern Kingdom. His reformation was zealous, but it was incomplete. He was willing to obey God when it aligned with consolidating his own political power, but he was not willing to obey God when it meant trusting Him completely and dismantling the political apparatus of false worship that kept the northern tribes from returning to the true temple in Jerusalem.
This is a sober warning for all of us. It is possible to be zealous for God in one area of our lives while harboring idols in another. We can be fierce opponents of the gross, public sins of our culture while tolerating the more respectable, subtle idolatries of our own hearts, our own politics, or our own traditions. Jehu's zeal was commendable, but it was not total. He was a hammer in God's hand, but he was a flawed hammer. And because his reformation was incomplete, Israel's apostasy would eventually return, and the nation would be carried into judgment.
Conclusion: Cunning and Consecration
So what do we do with a story like this? First, we must recognize the absolute holiness of God and His utter hatred for idolatry. Idolatry is not a small matter of personal preference. It is treason against the King of the universe, and it invites His wrath. We have domesticated God, but this passage shows us His fierce, jealous love for His own glory and for His people.
Second, we see the legitimacy of the sword in the hand of the magistrate. Jehu was not acting as a private citizen. He was the anointed king, the state, carrying out capital punishment for a capital crime. While the church does not wield the sword, we must not be anarchists. We must pray for and support magistrates who understand that their primary duty is to be a terror to evil, and there is no greater evil than leading a nation to worship false gods.
Third, we must examine our own zeal. Is our zeal for God's glory, or is it mixed with our own ambition, like Jehu's was? Are we willing to tear down the popular, public idols, but keep the convenient, personal ones? God calls us to a complete and total consecration. He wants us to take a sledgehammer not only to the Baal temple down the street but also to the golden calves we have set up in the private chapels of our hearts.
Finally, we must see the gospel here. Jehu's purge, as violent as it was, was only temporary. The blood of Baal's priests could not cleanse the land. But there is a greater Jehu, the Lord Jesus Christ. He came with a zeal for His Father's house that consumed Him. He, too, used a form of holy cunning, defeating Satan by appearing to be defeated on the cross. He, too, has cleansed a temple, not one made with hands, but the temple of our hearts. He did it not with the edge of the sword, but with the shedding of His own blood. He calls us to come to Him, to be robed not in the garments of Baal for judgment, but in His own righteousness for salvation. He is the one who truly destroys Baal out of our lives, and His reformation is perfect and complete.