Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 10:1-14
We left Jehu in quiet possession of Jezreel, triumphing over Joram and Jezebel; and we must now attend his further motions. He knew the whole house of Ahab must be cut off, and therefore proceeded in this bloody work, and did not do it deceitfully, or by halves, Jer 48:10.
I. He got the heads of all the sons of Ahab cut off by their own guardians at Samaria. Seventy sons (or grandsons) Ahab had, Gideon's number, Jdg 8:30. In such a number that bore his name his family was likely to be perpetuated, and yet it is extirpated all at once. Such a quiver full of arrows could not protect his house from divine vengeance. Numerous families, if vicious, must not expect to be long prosperous. These son…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Kings 10:9
said to all the people, Ye be righteous, &c.--A great concourse was assembled to gaze on this novel and ghastly spectacle. The speech which Jehu addressed to the spectators was artfully framed to impress their minds with the idea that so wholesale a massacre was the result of the divine judgments denounced on the house of Ahab; and the effect of it was to prepare the public mind for hearing, without horror, of a similar revolting tragedy which was soon after perpetrated, namely, the extinction of all the influential friends and supporters of the dynasty of Ahab, including those of the royal house of Judah.
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 10:12
The shearing house - Probably the place where the shepherds met for the annual sheep shearing.
John Gill on 2 Kings 10:12
To make a clear riddance there of all that belonged to Ahab, as at Jezreel, and abolish idolatry there:
and as he was at the shearing house in the way; or, "the house of the binding of the shepherds", who, in shearing their sheep, bind their legs together; the Targum is,"the house of the gathering of the shepherds;''where they used to meet and converse together; with some it is the proper name of a place, Betheked, a country village between Jezreel and Samaria. Jerom speaks (q) of a village of this name, situated in a large plain, about fifteen miles from a place called Legion, which village he takes to be this here.
(q) De loc. Heb. fol. 89. K.
