Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

I. JEHU.

IN Hebrew the word "heart" has a larger meaning than it has in English. It implies not only, as it does with us, affection, courage, fervency, and energy, but determination of purpose, and intelligence and subtilty of mind. In all these senses. Jehu, whose history is at this time before us, might be described as "a man of heart." His contemporaries would, it is very likely, have spoken of him in some such words; he himself had, we may believe, formed the same idea of himself. "Heartiness," he had perhaps said to himself in his younger days, was the key to his character. "Heart" was a word which, it would appear from what he said to Jehonadab, was often on his tongue. His watchword through

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life, like that of a strong-hearted and unfortunate statesman in much later times, would be "Thorough." And the greater part of what Holy Scripture tells us of him bears out this view of his character.

As a young man he had been, with Bidkar, who was in after years his friend and chief general, armour-bearer or charioteer to Ahab; and though, with the profound caution and subtlety which Oriental despotism has always produced in its subjects, he had repressed and disguised his real feelings and principles, yet he had listened to and treasured up in his memory the prophetic warnings and threatenings of Elijah. Though probably not openly avowing his faith, he was, like Obadiah, one who feared the Lord, the true God of Israel, and was among those seven thousand of whom God had taken account as having never kissed or prostrated themselves in adoration before the image of Baal. He was not an idolater, although Jezebel, Ahab's queen, the daughter of Ethbaal or Eithobalus, the king of Tyre and priest of Ashteroth, had striven so ardently to make Baalite worship predominant in the

kingdom of Israel. Thus his temper, impetuous and vehement, lost none of its force through being kept under strong control. It discovered itself, as the temper finds a vent in outward actions, in his conduct as a charioteer; he was remarkable for driving with great skill, and yet madly and furiously, like a man frantic or under a supernatural impulse; and years after the watchman on the tower of Jezreel recognised him a great distance off by this trait, "The driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, for he driveth furiously."

His father was Jehoshaphat, who was the son of Nimshi. It is not impossible that either his father or his grandfather, perhaps the latter, had married one of the daughters of King Omri, the father of Ahab, for Jehu is described in an Assyrian inscription as the son of Omri; and it would also seem, from his being spoken of on almost every occasion as "the son of Nimshi," that his father had died while he was yet a child, and that he had been adopted and brought up by his grandfather. If it were the case that he was thus trained up by Nimshi, we might

see a way of accounting for that union in Jehu's character of the two opposite characteristics of youth and age which is so uncommon, that combination of the impetuous daring of early life with the subtlety of plan and silent but resolute caution which comes only from long experience in the world. The old man had inoculated his fiery grandson with his own knowledge of the world and craft. Such was he who was to clear out from the land of Israel that idolatry which, through the influence of Jezebel and Ahab, had been poured in upon it like a poisoned

torrent.

Pause we now for a moment to look at the wonderful way in which the Bible sets history before us. It of course tells us the facts with complete truthfulness, but any history may do that, and all history professes to do it. The special point in which the Bible stands alone, and is above and distinct from all other conceivable histories, is, that it gives us with entire truthfulness, not only the events which happened, but their causes also, which human historians can only guess at. It sets them out from the Divine point

of view; it shews how they link on to the will of God. In describing the revolution by which Ahab's dynasty was deposed, and that of Jehu was seated in its place, an ordinary writer might sketch the political situation, might analyze the conflicting influences of national feeling on the one side, and foreign, especially Tyrian, sympathies on the other; in one case heightened by adherence to the worship of Jehovah, which had been in a degree restored by Elijah, and had been kept alive by his successor in the prophetic office, Elisha; while the Tyrian party, now strengthened by alliance in blood with the kings of Judah, made no secret of their preference for the Baalite form of worship, which had been for a long time the court religion, and probably still enjoyed the prestige of its secret patronage, though the king Jehoram was not so openly zealous for it as Jezebel the queen-mother. He might discuss the features of Jehu's character, and point out the peculiar facilities which his position as the popular general of the army so long engaged against Syria gave him for making a successful effort for the