(8) When Jehu was executing judgment upon the house of Ahab.--The Hebrew phrase strictly means to plead with, or argue a cause with. (Comp. 1Samuel 12:7.) When God is said to plead with men, the notion of judicial punishment is often involved, as in Joel 3:2; Isaiah 66:16; and such is the meaning here. Jehu was an instrument of Divine vengeance, even when fulfilling the projects of his own ambition, as were the savage Assyrian conquerors (Isaiah 10:5-7).

And found.--Rather, he found.

The sons of the brethren of Ahaziah.--Comp. 2Kings 10:12-14, where the details are given. The persons whom Jehu slew are there called Ahaziah's "brethren"--i.e., kinsmen (a common use; so LXX. here), and are said to have been forty-two in number. The Hebrew term is wide enough to include cousins and grandsons as well as nephews of the king. The "princes of Judah" who accompanied them would naturally be members of the court in charge of them, and are perhaps to be included in the total of forty-two persons. Thenius, indeed, in his note on 2Kings 10:13, alleges that we must understand the real brothers of Ahaziah, whom the chronicler gets rid of (!) on an earlier occasion (i.e., 2Chronicles 21:17; 2Chronicles 22:1), because he required a Divine judgment in the lifetime of Jehoram. buch arbitrary criticism hardly deserves refutation; we may, however, remark that Thenius relies on the untenable assumption that Jehoram could not have begotten any children before Ahaziah, whom he begot in his eighteenth or nineteenth year.

That ministered to Ahaziah.--In attendance on Ahaziah--i.e., attached to the retinue of Ahaziah as pages, &c.

He slew them.--And slew them.

Verse 8. - Executing judgment upon the house of Ahab. The description of all this is sufficiently graphically scattered along the verses of 2 Kings 9:24 - 11:20. And found the princes of Judah (see especially 2 Kings 10:7, 11; 2 Kings 11:13-20). And the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah. This both explains and is explained by 2 Kings 10:12-14. That ministered to Ahaziah. Even this enigmatical little clause receives its probable explanation from the last clause of ver. 13 in last quotation foregoing.

22:1-12 The reign of Ahaziah, Athaliah destroys the royal family. - The counsel of the ungodly ruins many young persons when they are setting out in the world. Ahaziah gave himself up to be led by evil men. Those who advise us to do wickedly, counsel us to our destruction; while they pretend to be friends, they are our worst enemies. See and dread the mischief of bad company. If not the infection, yet let the destruction be feared, Re 18:4. We have here, a wicked woman endeavouring to destroy the house of David, and a good woman preserving it. No word of God shall fall to the ground. The whole truth of the prophecies that the Messiah was to come from David, and thereby the salvation of the world, appeared to be now hung upon the brittle thread of the life of a single infant, to destroy whom was the interest of the reigning power. But God had purposed, and vain were the efforts of earth and hell.And it came to pass, that when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab,.... On Joram, his son, and seventy more sons, his kinsfolks, courtiers, and priests:

and found the princes of Judah, and or even the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah; whose number was forty two:

that ministered to Ahaziah; had offices in his court, or in obedience to his will, went to visit the children of the king and queen of Israel:

and he slew them; Jehu did; of the occasion, time, and place of his meeting with them, and slaying them, see 2 Kings 10:12.