6 Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, “If you are on my side, and if you will listen to my voice, take the heads of the men your master’s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time.”
Now the king’s sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who brought them up. 7 It happened, when the letter came to them, that they took the king’s sons, and killed them, even seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him to Jezreel. 8 A messenger came, and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons.”
He said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.”
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 2 Kings 10:6-8
Commentary on 2 Kings 10:1-14
(Read 2 Kings 10:1-14)
In the most awful events, though attended by the basest crimes of man, the truth and justice of God are to be noticed; and he never did nor can command any thing unjust or unreasonable. Jehu destroyed all that remained of the house of Ahab; all who had been partners in his wickedness. When we think upon the sufferings and miseries of mankind, when we look forward to the resurrection and last judgment, and think upon the vast number of the wicked waiting their awful sentence of everlasting fire; when the whole sum of death and misery has been considered, the solemn question occurs, Who slew all these? The answer is, SIN. Shall we then harbour sin in our bosoms, and seek for happiness from that which is the cause of all misery?