2 Kings 10:15-23 - Homiletics

John and Jehonadab-the man of the world and the recluse ascetic.

Worldly policy often finds it advisable to call to its aid the sanctions of religion, and the support of those who stand high in popular estimation as religionists of more than ordinary strictness and sanctity. It is comparatively seldom in the East that a political revolution is effected without the assistance of a dervish or a mullah of high reputation for strictness of life, who throws over a questionable movement the halo of his reputed holiness. In the present instance we have, on the one hand—

I. JEHU , THE MAN OF THE WORLD , versed in the ways of courts, experienced in affairs both civil and military, a good general, popular with his brother-officers, prompt in action, decided, not overburdened with scruples, and at the same time subtle, inclined to gain his ends by cunning and artifice rather than by force. Circumstances have brought him to the front, and put the direction of a politico-religious movement into his hands; but the situation is not without its risks and dangers. Jehu, if he does not absolutely require, cannot but welcome, and feel Ms position strengthened by, any spiritual support. From the time that he took action , he had not received, and he did not dare to invite, the cooperation of Elisha. He could not expect that Elisha would approve the proceedings on which he was bent, involving, as they did, a large amount of falsehood and dissimulation. All the more, therefore, must he have rejoiced when help appeared from another quarter—help on which it is scarcely possible that he can have reckoned. Over against Jehu stands—

II. JEHONADAB THE SON OF RECHAB , a chief whose position is abnormal and peculiar. The tribe of the Rechabites, whose sheikh he was, was a branch of the Kenites, Midianitish Arabs apparently, settled at the time of the Exodus in the Sinaitic peninsula. The Kenites, or some of them, had accompanied the Israelites during a large part of their wanderings in the wilderness, and had been of great assistance to them ( Numbers 10:29-32 ; 1 Samuel 15:6 ); in return for which they were allowed to settle in Southern Judaea ( 1:16 ) and other parts of the Holy Land ( 4:11 ). They retained, however, their nomadic habits, and were a wandering people, like our gypsies, in the midst of the settled inhabitants of Palestine. When the Rechabite tribe fell under the chieftainship of Jehonadab, he appears to have bound them down by stricter rules than they had previously observed, and to have required of them an austerity of life whereof there have been few examples in the history of nations ( Jeremiah 35:6 , Jeremiah 35:7 ). They were to dwell in tents, avoid cities, drink no wine, and cultivate no land. Jehonadab must himself have been a recluse and an ascetic, or he would never have instituted such a "rule." He had probably the same sort of reputation as now attaches to a Mohammedan santon or fakir , and represented to the mind of his tribe, and even to numbers among the Israelites, the strict devout religionist, whose accession to a party or a cause stamped it at once with a high moral and religious character. Jehu needed Jehonadab; but there was not much to attract Jehonadab to Jehu. He would seem to have lent Jehu his countenance simply from a regard for the honor of Jehovah, and a detestation of the Baal-worship. But he would, perhaps, have done Jehovah more honor had he held himself aloof from the crafty schemer who disgraced the cause of true religion by lies and treachery.