2 Kings 10:8

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} The world is like this heap of heads, that had never a heart amongst them.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Ki 10:8. Lay them at the entering in of the gate — The place of judicature, to signify that this was an act of God’s 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 Ahab’s posterity to reign over them.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate, &c.--The exhibition of the heads of enemies is always considered a glorious trophy. Sometimes a pile of heads is erected at the gate of the palace; and a head of peculiarly striking appearance selected to grace the summit of the pyramid.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(8) There came a messenger.—Literally, and the messenger came in. Josephus says Jehu was giving a banquet.

Heaps.—The noun (çibbûr) occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. In the Talmud it means “congregation,” as we say colloquially “a heap of persons.” The verb (çâbar) 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.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Morning, that all the people might see them. (Calmet) --- Jehu did not choose to admit the Samaritans into the city during the night. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

At the entering in of the gate; the place of judicature, to signify that this was an act of justice, and of God’s 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 Ahab’s family, and thereby might justify Jehu’s cause and proceedings.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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. Thus all who entered into the town or quitted it would see them, and, being struck by the ghastly spectacle, would make inquiry and learn the truth. "The gate" was also a general place of assembly for the gossips of the town and others, who would soon spread the news, and bring together a crowd of persons, curious to see so unusual a sight.

Vers. 8-11. The wicked have small regard for their helpers and confederates.

Jehu had made the authorities of Samaria his tools. He had required of them the performance of a wicked and bloody act, such as despotism has rarely exacted from its instruments. Seventy persons to be slain in the course of a few hours for no offence, for no state necessity except to smooth the path of a usurper! And the seventy persons for the most part boys and youths, some probably infants, and these defense-less ones entrusted to the care and protection of those who were now called upon to take their lives! It was a tremendous burden to cast on men not previously his partisans, not bound to him by any interchange of good offices and benefits rather, under the circumstances, his natural opponents and adversaries. Yet they took the burden on themselves; they accepted the miserable task assigned to them they accepted it, and carried it out. No doubt they thought that by so doing they had bound the king to them, made him their debtor, and laid him under an obligation which he would not be slow to acknowledge. But the deed once done, the deaths once accomplished, and immediately the instigator of the crime turns against his accomplices. Ye are righteous," he says to the crowd which has gathered together to gaze at the heads of the victims can discern aright; now judge between me and these murderers. I slew my master I killed one man, political necessity compelling me but who slew all these?" He holds up his friends and allies, without the least compunction, to the popular odium. He entirely conceals the fact that he himself has been at the root of the whole matter, has conceived the massacre, and commanded it (ver. 6). He contrasts the terrible deed of blood, which has horrified all who have heard of it, with his own comparatively small crime, and claims to have his light offence condoned, overshadowed as it is by the heinous deed of the Samaritans. We do not know whether by his speech he provoked any popular outbreak. At the least, he turned the tide of popular disfavor from himself to his confederates, and left them to answer, as best they might, the serious question, "Who slew all these?" It is worth the preacher"s while to impress on men the frequency of such conduct on the part of the persons who conceive evil designs, but must have tools to execute them. There is no solidarity among those who are confederates in wickedness. We hear of "honor among thieves;" but it is often "conspicuous by its absence." Monarchs engaged m plots denounce and disgrace their agents, when the plots fail, even sometimes permitting their execution; ministers are conveniently oblivious of the services rendered by those who win elections by intimidation and bribery; even "head-centers" are apt to look coldly on the work done by "ratteners" or "moonlighters" and, instead of commending and rewarding them, are rather anxious to disclaim all complicity in their actions. If the poor tools knew beforehand how little benefit they would derive from their wicked violence, what small thanks they would get from those who set them on, and how ready these last would be, on any difficulty arising, to leave them in the lurch, they would scarcely lend themselves to the purposes of their instigators. It is one of the weaknesses of the kingdom of evil that its agents do not keep faith one with another. It would weaken the kingdom still more if the conviction were general that this is so, and that the subordinate agents who work out an end have little to look for in the way of reward or encouragement from their employers.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 Kg2 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."

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

of the king's sons

"of Ahab's descendants"

Jehu went out and stood

"Jehu went to the city gate and stood before the people"

You are innocent

It can be stated clearly what they were innocent of. Possible meanings are 1) AT: "You are innocent of what happened to Joram" or 2) this means that they are not held responsible for the deaths of Joram's family. AT: "You are innocent of what happened to Joram and his family" or "You are innocent of this matter" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

See

Jehu uses this word here to draw the peoples' attention to what he says next. AT: "Listen" or "Hear my words"

but who killed all these?

Jehu uses a rhetorical question to cause the people to think deeply about the situation. This can be written as a statement. Possible meanings are 1) AT: "but the men of Samaria are responsible for killing Ahab's 70 descendants" or 2) AT: "but it was Yahweh's will for these men to die" (See: Rhetorical Question)

translationWords

messenger

Jehu

gate

innocent

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Piles. Mounds. [And Targum Yonoson rendered] דְּגוּרִין [=mounds], moncels, in O.F.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.