IX
THE LATER KINGS OF JUDAH
JOASH
When the prophet Jonah, doing the behest of his master Elisha, anointed Jehu king over Israel,1 he poured the oil out of a pitcher, not out of a horn, to indicate that the dy- nasty of Jehu would not occupy the throne long.* At first Jehu, though a somewhat foolish s king, was at least pious, but he abandoned his God-fearing ways from the moment he saw the document bearing the signature of the prophet Ahijah of Shilo, which bound the signers to pay implicit obedience to Jeroboam. The king took this as evidence that the prophet had approved the worship of the golden calves. So it came to pass that Jehu, the destroyer of Baal worship, did nothing to oppose the idolatrous service established by Jeroboam at Beth-el.4 The successors of Jehu were no bet- ter; on the contrary, they were worse, and therefore in the fifth generation 5 an end was put to the dynasty of Jehu by the hand of the assassin.
The kings of Judah differed in no essential particular from their colleagues in the north. Ahaziah, whom Jehu killed, was a shameless sinner ; he had the Name of God ex- purged from every passage in which it occurred in the Holy Scriptures, and the names of idols inserted in its place."
Upon the death of Ahaziah followed the reign of terror under the queen Athaliah, when God exacted payment from
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