Jehu was the eleventh king of the northern kingdom of Israel after the ten tribes separated themselves from Jerusalem, and he reigned for twenty-eight years (c. 842-814 B.C.). He began the dynasty of monarchs that ruled for longer than any other in the northern kingdom. The Bible record reveals that Jehu was the son of Jehoshaphat (not the one who was king of Judah) and grandson of Nimshi, but he is also referred to as “the son of Nimshi” (2 Kgs. 9:2; 1 Kgs. 19:16), the only instance in Scripture of a king of Israel having his father’s and grandfather’s names inscribed in his genealogy.
In the year that Jehu ascended the throne (c. 842 B.C.) Shalmaneser III invaded Syria, and Jehu showed discretion in deferring to the mighty king, bringing a tribute as a placatory measure. This act of subservience by Jehu is portrayed on the two-metre-high black limestone column, known as the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, which was discovered by Henry Layard in 1846 at the Assyrian capital Nimrud, which is Biblical Calah. This obelisk became noted as the only monument to depict an Israelite king, and is one of the most treasured exhibits in the British Museum. The five rows of finely carved reliefs chronicle Shalmaneser’s military triumphs over certain of the western kingdoms of his great empire, including victories over Syria and Israel.
In the second row from the top of the obelisk the turban-headed Jehu is shown submitting to Shalmaneser, bowing low so as to allow his forehead to touch the ground (see picture). Jehu appears to be attired in a lengthy robe with tassels, and behind him can be seen servants bearing presents and tribute. The fearsome Shalmaneser seems to be adopting an imperious pose as he confronts Jehu, while one of his servants holds a sunshade over him. The Assyrian gods, Ashur and Ishtar, can be detected in the symbols portraying a solar disc and a star. The Black Obelisk is a truly significant find, for it brings a sense of dramatic realism to the Bible record, and affords confirmation of the accuracy of the Scriptures.
The inscription on the obelisk, couched in Assyrian cuneiform, raises an interesting issue, for it describes Jehu as the son of Omri:
“The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri, I received from him silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with painted bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king and purukhti fruits“.
This striking historical record shows just how plentiful gold and silver seem to have been in Biblical times.
The matter of Jehu’s family tree was dealt with by Tammi Schneider in a recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.1The Bible story does not lead us to conclude that “Jehu the son of Nimshi” was a relative of Omri, but rather that he was a usurper who superseded the Omri dynasty, putting to death all family members of Omri’s wicked son, Ahab.
The fact that the Black Obelisk describes Jehu as “the son of Omri” is said to be attributable to the practice of the Assyrians of regarding all the kings of Israel as descendants of Omri. The archaeological magazine Diggings asks the question, If the description ‘house of Omri’ was also an appellative for ‘kings of Israel’, why was the name of a king of Israel inscribed on the Kurkh Obelisk as ‘Ahab the Israelite’?
Dr Schneider maintains that there is no proof that the Assyrians termed all kings of Israel ‘the sons of Omri’, or that this description was meant to represent the land of Israel. In this context it must be said that there are three other Assyrian inscriptions, the Aleppo Fragment, the Kurba’il Statue of Shalmaneser III and the Safar Annals, which make reference to ‘Jehu the son of Omri’, and draw attention to events taking place at the same time.
Dr Schneider is of the opinion that the Assyrians were meticulous in compiling their inscribed records, and with this in mind she claims that the Assyrians were correct, and that Jehu was the son, or descendant, of Omri, but that his genealogical line did not come through Ahab and his sons. If the Assyrian chronicles are right then it can be concluded that Jehu destroyed his own family, perhaps cousins and uncles. Diggings offers the explanatory comment: “Modern scholarship usually equates the ‘house of Omri’ with the ‘house of Ahab’ and assumes that Jehu’s vicious destruction of Ahab’s family included all the descendants of Omri. Dr Schneider distinguishes between the two ‘houses’, pointing out that through the Biblical record it is the ‘house of Ahab’ that is destroyed and that the ‘house of Omri’ is never mentioned”.
Dr Schneider makes the observation that “the Assyrians were aware of a similar change in the ruling house of Damascus at about the same time Jehu usurped the throne”, and that “by contrast they called Hazael ‘the son of a nobody’, their term for a usurper, indicating that they paid attention to the status of their enemies’ right to the throne. This being the case, Dr Schneider avers that the Assyrians would have been cognizant of the change of kingship from Ahab to Jehu, and would have been aware that the latter was a usurper not related to Omri, if that was indeed the case.
She insists that the Assyrian inscriptions are authentic and that Jehu must have been a descendant of Omri but not of Ahab. She puts this forward as the reason why Jehu’s grandfather, Nimshi, is included in the genealogy. In Diggings it is suggested that
“Nimshi may have been a relative of Omri, perhaps a son by a secondary wife, and that the reason he is mentioned in the genealogy is to establish Jehu’s right to the throne, and yet distinguish him from the evil family of Ahab”.
Dr Schneider says that the Scripture record indicates that Jehu was a familiar figure at the palace, known to the royal family as an aggressive driver of a chariot. It seems that his ruthless purging of the house of Ahab was for the purpose of eliminating any member who may have had a hereditary claim to the throne. She emphasises that a proper understanding of these family relationships makes clearer the correlation between the Biblical and Assyrian references to Jehu. We are reminded of a similar circumstance involving the removal of a family threat to the throne when Ahab’s conspiring daughter, Athaliah, became aware of her son’s murder and then proceeded to have all her grandsons killed in order to claim the throne for herself:
“And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal” (2 Kgs. 11:1).
A Perspective on how Archaeology can help us understand the Bible