At the end of Part Three, I briefly previewed LJ's upcoming argument in this section that other examples of "deferred punishment" in the Bible prove his claim that Hosea 1:4 prophesied that the house of Jehu was going to receive a deferred punishment not for the massacres that Jehu committed at Jezreel but for the "blood of the children of Israel" whom the Syrians had killed during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty. As we will now see, LJ assumed far too much from an argument that could just as well support the interpretation of Hosea 1:4 that he has been trying to disprove. To see this, we have only to juxtapose the two interpretations.

LJ's Interpretation: Yahweh was going to punish the house of Jehu for the blood of the children of Israel killed by the Syrians during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty.

Interpretation Opposed by LJ: Yahweh was going to punish the house of Jehu for the blood of those who were killed during Jehu's massacre at Jezreel.

Both interpretations entail deferred punishment of the house of Jehu. The only difference in the two is the reason for the deferred punishment, so if citing other examples of deferred punishment, as LJ does below, would prove the correctness of his interpretation, they would also prove the correctness of the interpretation that he opposes. If not, why not?

As I previously said at the end of Part Three, LJ doesn't seem to understand the logical axiom that says what proves too much proves nothing at all. The meaning of this axiom is simple: If an argument that proves the truth of X would also prove the truth of Y, which is a proposition that contradicts X, then the argument obviously has no forensic value, because... well, because what proves too much proves nothing at all. As I go through LJ's examples of "deferred punishment" in the Bible, the only response I will need to make is to link readers back to this section. As usual, I will code quotations from LJ's article in blue so that readers can more easily follow who has said what.

Other biblical examples of deferred punishment: Other biblical examples of deferred punishment are found in 1 Kings 21:29 and 1 Kings 11:12: "And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 'Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the evil upon his house'"(1 Kings 21:29, RSV, emphasis added). This statement followed the repentance of Ahab upon hearing the divine judgment pronounced by Elijah on his house because of all the evil he had perpetrated.

This passage does indeed claim that because Ahab repented upon hearing Elijah's message, Yahweh deferred exterminating the house of Ahab, but as I pointed out above, examples of deferred punishment would no more prove the correctness of LJ's interpretation than they would prove the correctness of the interpretation that he opposes, because both interpretations entail deferred punishment, and what proves too much proves nothing at all.

The only other comment that I need to make here is to point out that the passage that LJ quoted above was no doubt written to make actual historical facts conform to the writer's belief that whatever happened to people was controlled by his god Yahweh. Since he knew that the house of Ahab was not destroyed during Ahab's lifetime, the writer needed a reason to explain why the destruction had not happened till after Ahab's death, so he theorized that Yahweh had delayed the punishment because of Ahab's repentance. Whether such a repentance actually happened is immaterial, because, as I pointed out above, deferring punishment of the house of Ahab wouldn't prove the correctness of LJ's interpretation of Hosea 1:4 any more than it would prove the correctness of the interpretation that he opposes.

(Compare the above with 2 Kings 10:30: "Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in Mine eyes..., thy children of the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel.")

Well, this would be more of an example of extended reward than deferred punishment, but even if one wants to see this as an example of punishment that Yahweh had postponed for four generations, it would be a case of Yahweh's having punished the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel by limiting accession to Jehu's throne to just four generations of his descendants, and that would support the interpretation that LJ opposes rather than the one he is trying to sell. Regardless, LJ cannot prove his case by citing other examples of "deferred punishment," because such examples, as I have shown above, would just as easily prove the interpretation he opposes.

1 Kings 11:11-13 says: The Lord said to Solomon, 'Since this has been your mind and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant [Jeroboam]. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However I will not tear away all the kingdom...'

Again, this is merely an example of spin that a biblical writer put onto the story of the breaking apart of the unified kingdom following Solomon's death. If such a split was a historical fact, common sense would tell critical thinkers that its occurrence was more likely due to purely political reasons rather than divine intervention. Power struggles were fairly commonplace when kings died. As David lay dying, for example, Solomon and his half-brother Adonijah both vied for the throne in a political battle that was won by Solomon (1 Kings 1-2), and so there was nothing unusual in the power struggle that followed Solomon's death. Jeroboam won this time and succeeded in pulling ten tribes away to form a separate northern kingdom, but to the writer of 1 Kings, there was no such thing as happenstance and certainly not when political power shifts occurred. He would never have seen Jeroboam's success in assuming control over the northern part of previously unified Israel as something that had just happened in the normal course of events. Instead, he interpreted it as something that had been decreed by Yahweh as deferred punishment for Solomon's idolatry (1 Kings 11:1-13). Even after the power struggle between Solomon and Adonijah was over, the latter thought that Yahweh had given the kingdom to Solomon (1 Kings 2:15). Knowing the historical reality of 10 tribes having withdrawn from the unified kingdom, the Kings writer was giving an "explanation" for the split that would fit into the superstitious mindset of the times that considered national calamities such as defeats in battle or, in this case, a successful coup d'état as divine punishment. To him, his god Yahweh had to have had a reason for causing the division, so Solomon's idolatry became the "explanation." Knowing that the withdrawal of the northern tribes didn't happen during Solomon's lifetime, the writer used deferred punishment to explain the division. For the sake of David, so the writer thought, Yahweh had kept the kingdom intact during Solomon's lifetime and had preserved two tribes in the southern kingdom controlled by Rehoboam in Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:31-39). This way, the writer was able to rationalize that Yahweh had both punished Solomon for his idolatry and rewarded David by keeping a "lamp" before him in Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:36).

Readers should keep in mind, however, that LJ's interpretation of Hosea 1:4 and the one that he opposes both see deferred punishment in Hosea's prophecy, so the fact that the Bible teaches that punishment of Solomon for his idolatry was postponed would no more prove LJ's interpretation of the disputed verse than it would prove the truth of the interpretation that he oppposes.

We can now see why Hosea condemned the house of Jehu for "the blood of Jezreel": The house was held responsible for the lives of the people of Israel killed by the nation's enemies, mainly Syria, during the Jehu dynasty.

I assume that everyone is noticing that LJ continues to engage in question begging by assuming the truth of his interpretation of Hosea 1:4 without offering proof that this interpretation is correct. Let's suppose that I should say, "We can now see why Hosea condemned the house of Jehu for the 'blood of Jezreel': The house was held responsible for the lives of the people of Jezreel killed by Jehu during his military coup that brought him to power." Wouldn't LJ demand that I prove that assertion? Of course, he would, but he seems to think that even though he has failed to give even halfway reasonable support of his interpretation of Hosea 1:4, he can just keep repeating his spin on the verse without any obligation to offer convincing proof that he has correctly interpreted it. As for proof of my interpretation of the verse, I refer readers to this section of Part One and to this section of Part Two where I analyzed Hosea 1:4 to show that it was a double-faceted prophecy that was structured so that the phrase "for the blood of Jezreel" could refer only to the first part of the prophecy, which had predicted divine punishment on the house of Jehu. I then went on in Part Two to show that most of the rest of the book of Hosea, in ranting at length about it, identified idolatry as the primary reason for the second part of the prophecy, i. e., eventual destruction of the northern kingdom.

Jehu and his dynasty continued and promoted "the sins of Jeroboam," i.e., worship of the golden calves, in Israel, and this was the chief cause of the divine judgment visited upon the northern kingdom, as repeatedly pointed out in the books of Kings and Chronicles.

Although what LJ said here is basically what the writer(s) of Kings claimed, it in no way proves his interpretation of Hosea 1:4. There is no need for me to keep inventing the wheel. Readers can go here and here in Part Three to see where I showed that various kings of both Judah and Israel were reproached for having continued in "the sins of Jeroboam" or tolerated other types of idolatry. Many of them were simultaneously praised for having done that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and some of the worst of the lot, such as Manasseh, enjoyed long reigns and died natural deaths. Spin, therefore, is the only reasonable way to see why the Kings writer had claimed toleration of idolatry as having been particularly odious on the part of the kings who had reigned in the Jehu dynasty. He was looking for a way to explain the overthrow of Jehu's lineage. He knew that it had happened, and so he had attributed the overthrow to toleration of the golden-calf shrines, but since other kings who had allowed idolatry to continue unabated enjoyed long reigns, after which they had "slept with their fathers," the writer(s) saw this as an indication that they had somehow pleased Yahweh despite their toleration of pagan shrines in the high places. There is just nothing in the toleration of Jeroboam's "sin" by the Jehu dynasty to support the spin that LJ is trying to put on Hosea 1:4.

The book of Hosea itself has a number of references to this form of idolatry (Hosea 8:5,6; 10:5; 13:2).

I have never denied that Hosea ranted against idolatry and especially against the worship of the golden calves, but none of the verses that LJ cited above claimed that the house of Jehu was going to be destroyed for having tolerated the golden-calf shrines. They all spoke of a destruction that was going to come upon Israel [Ephraim], and two of the passages predicted that Assyria would be Yahweh's instrument of destruction (Hosea 8:8-9; 10:6). Everything said in the passages cited here by LJ agrees with my interpretation of Hosea 1:4, which is that it contained a double-facted prophecy: (1) The house of Jehu would be destroyed as punishment "for the blood of Jezreel" and (2) the house of Israel would be brought to an end because of its idolatry and other sins. When Hosea predicted that Assyria would end the nation of Israel because of its idolatry, he was saying something entirely different from LJ's claim that "the blood of Jezreel" was metaphorically the "blood of the children of Israel" who had been killed by Syria during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty. LJ needs to find a text that explicitly says that Yahweh intended to end the nation of Israel because of the failure of the Jehu dynasty to end golden-calf worship, but no such text exists. If it did, he would have quoted it. On the other hand, there are numerous texts in Hosea, as I pointed out in this section of Part Three, that predicted that Yahweh would grievously punish the Israelites [Ephraimites] for their own personal sins, the main ones of which were idolatry and bloodshed.

When pronouncing judgment on Ahab for his sins, Elijah told him, "And I will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked Me to anger [with thy idols], and made Israel to sin" (1 Kings 21:22). Clearly the Old Testament writers held the royal family responsible for Israel sinning against God through idolatry (and, of course, for its consequences for the nation in the form of death and destruction by enemies).

This is certainly true, but LJ is apparently unable to separate fact from spin. As I have pointed out several times now, Old Testament writers interpreted history in terms of their superstitious belief that their god Yahweh controlled the destinies of nations and kings, down to even the most insignificant of events. When a king and his family were massacred, biblical writers interpreted this as punishment for "sins" that had displeased Yahweh or else deferred punishment on the descendants of someone who in an earlier generation had committed "sins" that had angered Yahweh. As noted earlier, the "sin of Jeroboam" was consistently the yardstick by which the writer(s) of Kings measured a monarch's achievements, yet Jeroboam himself suffered no apparent punishment for having begun the golden-calf worship that so irritated the author(s) of the books of Kings. He reigned for 22 years and then "slept with his fathers" (1 Kings 14:20), but his son Nadab reigned only two years before Baasha seized power by assassinating Nadab and then eliminating all competition to his occupancy of the throne by massacring Nadab's family to the point of leaving none in his household alive to breathe (1 Kings 15:25-30). As we noted earlier, the same happened throughout Israelite history. Kings would do "that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh" but live long lives and die natural deaths, whereas "evil" kings that followed them would be killed after only short reigns.

So what should we make of all this? Well, those who are shackled to a belief in ancient superstitions, as LJ apparently is, will believe that such tales as these happened as the biblical writers claimed, but those whose critical thinking skills are a bit more honed will realize that the divine interventions claimed in the stories merely reflected the superstitions of the time. Hence, Jeroboam enjoyed a long reign and died a natural death because of purely natural circumstances. He had the political power to retain his throne and prevent its usurpation by those who may have had designs on it, whereas Nadab wasn't quite so lucky. Not having chance and circumstance on his side, a coup d'état brought both his reign and his life to early ends. As pointed out before, however, regardless of whether these tales happened as recorded or whether the divine element of "deferred punishment" was just the writers' superstitious spin, the fact that the Bible claims that the god Yahweh sometimes punished people vicarously for "sins" that had been committed in earlier generations would prove LJ's interpretation on Hosea 1:4 no more than it would prove the interpretation he opposes, because both interpretations entail deferred vicarious punishment. Unfortunately for him, LJ needs more to prove his spin on Hosea 1:4 than the mere fact that the Bible teaches in other places that Yahweh sometimes imposed deferred punishment on people for the "sins" of earlier generations.

In the Old Testament, anyone found enticing the people of Israel to serve other gods was to be put to death, for that was an attempt to draw the people away from the true God and entailed evil consequences (Deuteronomy 13). Israel was punished for its idolatry by enemy nations, and its kings were punished for the same reason by the assassinations and massacres accompanying the various coups.

Yes, this was the spin that biblical writers often put on the events of their time, but as I have shown repeatedly in my replies to LJ, Hosea prophesied that the house of Jehu would be punished "for the blood of Jezreel," so there is no need for me to rehash the evidence that clearly indicated that the prophet considered the "blood of Jezreel" to be the blood that was shed in Jehu's massacres at Jezreel. If LJ doesn't see that by now, he will never see it, just as he apparently doesn't see the repugnance in killing people who worshiped differently from those who were in political control of the country.

2 Kings 10:29-31 viewed in the light of Exodus 20:3-5: I think Exodus 20:3-5, quoted below, can shed more light on 2 Kings 10:29-31:

Thou shalt have no other gods beside Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting [Hebrew pâqad] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.

What this passage says is that those who "hate" God, i.e., those who go after other gods, such as Jehu [did], are liable to have their sins visited even up to the third and fourth generations of their descendants. Comparison of 2 Kings 10:29-31 with Exodus 20:3-5 will provide confirmation that 2 Kings 10:30 is indeed a case of postponed punishment.

That Old Testament writers, as well as their contemporaries, believed that their god Yahweh "visited" sins of the fathers upon succeeding generations is obvious to anyone who knows anything at all about the Bible, but, as I pointed out here, that would no more prove LJ's claim that Hosea 1:4 meant that Yahweh was going to punish the house of Jehu for the "blood of the children of Israel" whom the Syrians had killed during the Jehu dynasty any more than it would prove that this verse meant that Yahweh was going to punish the house of Jehu for the blood that Jehu had shed at Jezreel. As I have noted several times now, both LJ's interpretation of Hosea 1:4 and the one he opposes entail delayed or deferred punishment, so, as I have also said several times now, an argument that would prove the truth of two contradictory premises actually proves nothing at all.

Interestingly, Hosea uses the same Hebrew word pâqad in 1:4: "I will avenge [pâqad] the blood of Jezre-el..."

Note that Exodus 20:5 is not teaching vicarious guilt on the part of children for the sins of their fathers. When God "visits" the sins of the fathers upon the children, he withholds his grace from the descendants of idolaters like Jehu and allows them to emulate their fathers' example, suffering the consequences for doing so.

This is the same kind of ancient superstition that thought that Yahweh "hardened the hearts" of Israel's enemies to have a reason to kill them. As anyone who isn't shackled by blind allegiance to biblical inerrancy can see in the claims of the passage below, it was a concept that was irreconcilably inconsistent with a later Deuteronomic principle that renounced the concept of vicarious punishment and taught that a person should be punished only for his own sins.

Joshua 11:19 There was not a town that made peace with the Israelites, except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all were taken in battle. ²⁰ For it was Yahweh's doing to harden their hearts so that they would come against Israel in battle, in order that they might be utterly destroyed, and might receive no mercy, but be exterminated, just as Yahweh had commanded Moses.

As already noted, I don't disagree that the Bible prior to the evolution of the Deuteronomic code had taught vicarious punishment for the "sins" of others, even ancestors that had lived generations earlier, but, as I pointed out above, such a concept as this is morally repugnant to civilized people. That LJ believes such nonsense hardly qualifies him to speak with any authority about a meaning in Hosea 1:4 that he thinks has eluded everyone but him. Besides this gaping hole in LJ's appeal to Exodus 20:5 and related passages to confirm his "solution" to the Jehu problem, the fact that the Bible does contain various claims of "deferred punishment" for ancestral sins cannot be used to prove his interpretation of Hosea 1:4, because the interpretation that he opposes also entails the element of vicarious, deferred punishment, so what proves too much proves nothing at all.

In citing his examples of "deferred punishment" in the Bible, LJ seemed to be arguing like this.

• "The blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred to the blood of the children of Israel killed by the Syrians during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty, whose deaths Yahweh was going to avenge with a deferred punishment of the house of Jehu.

• The Bible contains several examples of deferred, vicarious punishment.

• Therefore, "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 did mean the blood of the children of Israel killed by the Syrians during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty.

LJ apparently can't recognize non sequiturs, because I could just as easily apply the same kind of "logic" to the interpretation that he opposes.

• "The blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred to the blood of those whom Jehu had massacred at Jezreel, whose deaths Yahweh was going to avenge with a deferred punishment of the house of Jehu.

• The Bible contains several examples of deferred, vicarious punishment.

• Therefore, "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 did refer to the blood of those whom Jehu had massacred at Jezreel.

Neither the broader context of Hosea 1:4 nor LJ's non-sequitur line of reasoning supports his claim that "the blood of Jezreel" referred to the children of Israel killed by the Syrians during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty.

"Jezreel" elsewhere in Hosea: The fourth occurrence of the name "Jezreel" in the book of Hosea is in 1:11: "for great shall be the day of Jezreel," where "Jezreel" can only refer to the children of Israel, which clearly establishes the use of the name "Jezreel" in the sense of "children of Israel" in a genitive construction in this book (in the same chapter) and thus makes the above interpretation for the phrase "the blood of Jezreel" more plausible.

In this section of Part One, I shot this same unsupported assertion full of holes by a verse-by-verse analysis of the broader context to show that Hosea was here using the word Jezreel to symbolize circumstances that would bring about a new reunified kingdom of Judah and Israel, which Yahweh would raise up after he had "broken the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." Like most would-be apologists do when trying to sell a dubious "explanation" of a controversial passage, LJ quoted above only a fragmented part of Hosea 1:11, but here is what the broader context of "the day of Jezreel" was. Notice in particular all of verse 11, which I have emphasized in bold print.

Hosea 1:8 When she [Gomer, i. e., Hosea's wife] had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. ⁹ Then Yahweh said, "Name him Lo-ammi [not my people], for you are not my people and I am not your God." ¹⁰ Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God." ¹¹ The people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head; and they shall take possession of the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Obviously, then, when Hosea's reference to the greatness of "the day of Jezreel" is read in its broader context, one can easily see that he was not using it in the sense that LJ claims but in the symbolic sense of conditions that would reunify the Israelite kingdom. Hosea's prophecy was that Yahweh would "break the bow of Israel" in the valley of Jezreel--another way of saying that the military might of Israel would be crushed--after which a unified nation of Judah and Israel would triumphantly reverse the conditions that had brought about its defeat. Yahweh would sow prosperity in the new nation, and the people who had previously been declared "not my people" (1:10) would then be declared "sons of the living God" (v:10). LJ wants to make Jezreel refer to "the children of Israel" who had been killed during the Jehu dynasty, but consideration of the entire context in which it was used clearly shows that Hosea was using it in reference to a day when "sons of the living God" would arise from the ruins of the nation of Israel that would soon be brought to an end in the valley of Jezreel.

Compare with the language of Joel 2:11 ("for the day of the Lord is great"); 2:31; Zephaniah 1:14.

LJ seems unable to notice even the obvious. All three of the texts that he asked us to compare Hosea 1:11 to speak of "the day of Yahweh" and not the "day of Jezreel." To analyze the broader contexts of all three verses to show that "the day of Yahweh" was an entirely different concept from Hosea's "day of Jezreel" would take more time than LJ's already discredited interpretation of Hosea 1:4 deserves, so I will trash his references to the passages above by pointing out that on the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter quoted Joel 2:28-32 in his sermon and told his audience that what they were seeing was a fulfillment of "that which [had been] spoken by the prophet Joel" (Acts 2:16-21), so I will let LJ take his spin on Joel 2 up with the apostle Peter, who claimed that Joel's "day of the Lord" referred to events that would happen in the Christian era. If LJ will do a bit of checking, he will find that there have been about as many interpretations of prophetic references to "the day of the Lord" as there are Christian sects.

The fifth and last occurrence of the name "Jezreel" in the book of Hosea is in 2:22, which concerns the restoration of Israel, and the name here, too, relates to the children of Israel. Here the name "Jezreel" is used in its positive meaning, i.e., "God sows" his people in their own land, so that they might bring forth fruit.

In this section of Part One, I analyzed all of Hosea 2, verse by verse, to show that LJ was distorting the prophet's usage of Jezreel here to make it appear that the word was being used in the sense that LJ claims. I have also pointed out that LJ asked me to post a "revision" of his position in which he said that he "do[es] not now think--as some commentators do--that the meaning of the name Jezreel ("God sows") has any significance in Hosea 1:4-5 because (a) the text itself does not relate the meaning of the name to what it is supposed to symbolize," so as LJ continues to change his view of Hosea 1:4, there is no telling what he may believe about it tomorrow. At any rate, there is no need for me to spend time here discussing a point that LJ no longer claims is a part of his take on Hosea's prophecy.

"The blood of Jezreel" as a reference to the massacre of the house of Ahab out of context in Hosea 1:4-5: As shown above, interpreting "the blood of Jezreel" as a reference to the massacre of the house of Ahab does not fit the context of either the verse in question or the entire book of Hosea.

And as I showed above, the only sensible meaning that "the blood of Jezreel" could have in this context is that it referred to the blood that Jehu had shed at Jezreel for which his descendants were going to receive a postponed punishment. LJ's article was long and tedious, and so my point-by-point reply to it has also been necessarily detailed. Those who may not remember all of my analyzis of Hosea 1:4 should go at least to here and here to review my analysis of the verse to show that the placement of the adverbial phrase "for the blood of Jezreel" within the sentence would indicate either that it referred only to the punishment of the house of Jehu or that the inspired prophet Hosea could have used a little tutoring to help him write more clearly. In this section of Part Three, readers can see LJ's revision of Hosea 1:4, which he worded in a way that made it clearly mean what he has been claiming that it meant. In response to his revision, I asked this question: Why couldn't Yahweh have inspired his chosen writers to say exactly what they meant to say? In other words, I was asking LJ to explain to us why Yahweh didn't inspire Hosea to write the verse the way that LJ had reworded it if that rewording accurately conveyed what Hosea had meant to say. I think reasonable people will realize that Yahweh, if he indeed exists and was involved in writing the Bible, would have done so if that was what Hosea had really intended to say. As I said before, the fact that Hosea didn't write it that way should tell readers with reasonable critical-thinking skills that he didn't mean it to say that. As I also said, a big problem for LJ all through his article has been his inability to cite or quote a single passage of scripture where any biblical writer ever unequivocally used the expression "the blood of Jezreel" in the sense that LJ has been trying to twist it into meaning, so when a would-be apologist can find "proof" of his biblical interpretations only by rewriting passages to put into them what he wants them to say, that is a good indication that his interpretations are flawed.

The three children of unfaithful Gomer all represent the children of Israel, and their names--viz., Jezreel, Lo-ruha-mah, and Lo-ammi--were meant to signify some aspect of God's dealings with the nation on account of their idolatry.

I have shown that this is not so, because Jezreel had obvious reference to Jehu's infamous massacre at Jezreel. My textual evidence in support of this meaning has been so detailed that I don't need to rehash it here. I disagree also with LJ's restrictive scope of Hosea's prophetic rantings against Israel. Idolatry was certainly a major concern of the prophet, but as I showed in this section of Part Three, Hosea railed again various "sins" in Israel, such as commerce with Assyria and Egypt, commercial profiteering through the use of false scales, bloodshed--and especially the latter. Although it was a major concern, he was upset over more than just the nation's idolatry.

We have seen that the name "Jezreel" in its first, third, fourth, and fifth occurrences in the book clearly relates to the nation and God's future dealings with it. Therefore, we have every reason to expect that the phrase "the blood of Jezreel"--the second occurrence of the name--would relate in some way to the nation as a whole.

Once again, LJ is claiming more than he has actually proven, so rather than rehashing my rebuttal of his spin on how Hosea used the word Jezreel, I will refer readers to this section of Part One, where I showed that Jezreel was indeed used to symbolize an entire nation but much more than just the nation of Israel, i. e., the northern kingdom. Hosea used it to symbolize circumstances that would bring about a new unified nation of Judah and Israel that would arise after Yahweh had punished the house of Jehu. Before this unified nation could be restored, Israel had to be purged of its guilt of various "sins"--murder, ill-gotten commerical gain, adultery, etc., as well as idolatry--and Hosea apparently believed that Jehu's bloody massacre at Jezreel was one of the sins that had to be atoned for. To his primitive mind, vicarious punishment of Jehu's descendants would be the only acceptable way to remove the guilt of this sin.

If by this phrase Hosea meant to refer to the massacre of the house of Ahab, then in addition to the symbolism explained above, the first son of Gomer--Jezreel--must stand as a living reminder of the future punishment of the house of Jehu for the massacre of the house of Ahab by Jehu in Jezreel.

It has apparently never occurred to LJ that he has incorrectly interpreted the symbolism "above." I have shown good reasons to think that he has, so I don't need to rehash them here in replying to an article that has already received far more attention than it deserves. As for LJ's complaint that the first son of Gomer would "stand as a living reminder of the future punishment of the house of Jehu for the massacre of the house of Jehu," what would be wrong with seeing the name as a reminder of this? Didn't Yahweh tell Hosea to name his first son Jezreel and then go on to give the reason for the command to name him this? "Call his name Jezreel, for [because] yet a little while, I [Yahweh] will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu." So whether "the blood of Jezreel" referred to the massacre at Jezreel or whether it referred to the children of Israel killed by the Syrians, the name of Hosea's first son would "stand as a living reminder of the future punishment of the house of Jehu."

I don't think LJ thought through his statement above before he offered it as a reason why "the blood of Jezreel" couldn't refer to Jehu's massacre.

If Hosea was condemning Jehu for that massacre in Hosea 1:4, he would be treating it only as a barbaric act of Jehu to usurp the throne of Israel, which is entirely a private matter between the house of Jehu and the house of Ahab.

Well, if, as I have shown good reason to believe, Hosea did think that Yahweh intended to punish Jehu's descendants for the massacre at Jezreel, he would have thought that it was a barbaric act that deserved punishment, so LJ's comment here is a bit illogical. He seems to be arguing that the "blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 cannot be a reference to Jehu's massacre, because that would mean that Hosea considered this massacre a barbaric act. Does LJ know what non sequitur means? As for his claim that such a view on Hosea's part would have made the massacre "entirely a private matter between the house of Jehu and the house of Ahab," this is a recycled quibble that he made earlier. I replied to it in detail in this section of Part Two, so I don't need to rehash my rebuttal here.

What, then, has [sic] the punishment of the house of Jehu for that massacre have to do with naming the first son of Gomer "Jezreel" ("God scatters"), who represented the children of Israel,

As I have repeatedly shown, Jezreel, as Hosea used it, did not represent the children of Israel but the circumstances that would bring about a new unified nation of Judah and Israel. One of those circumstances, as I just noted above was Hosea's apparent belief that Jehu's massacre at Jezreel was one of the "sins" from whose guilt the nation of Israel had to be purged before a new unified Judah/Israel could be restored.

or with the book of Hosea as a whole, whose principal theme is Israel's religious apostasy and its subsequent restoration?

As I have repeatedly shown, Hosea railed against more than just Israel's "religious apostasy." He was deeply concerned with its treaties and commerce with Assyria and Egypt, its ill-gotten commercial gain through the use of "false scales," its adultery, its shedding of innocent blood, etc. Hosea obviously thought that Jehu's massacre at Jezreel was one of the "sins" that the house of Jehu would have to answer for before the nation could be purged of its guilt to make way for the reunification of Judah and Israel. That reunification, by the way, never happened, so I wonder why LJ isn't concerned about the failure of that prophecy.

Oh, yes, I forgot; LJ isn't an inerrantist, which makes the inordinate amount of time he has spent trying to harmonize the disparate views of the Jezreel massacre in 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 a bit hard to understand.

Where does the nation Israel come into the picture?

The nation of Israel came into the picture in Hosea's denunciations of its various "sins" for which, as I showed here and here, it would have to redeem itself before "the day of Jezreel," i. e., the reunification of Judah and Israel, could occur. It was all prophetic nonsense, of course, but this was clearly what Hosea believed.

Furthermore, when God gave children to the nation as signs and named them, they always concerned the nation as a whole, not some clan or house. Consider the following:

• The name of Isaiah's son Shearjashubsheh [sic] means "A remnant shall return," a sign assuring the preservation of a remnant of the nation in the midst of enemy oppression (Isaiah 7:3).

Just where did LJ get the idea that Isaiah's son was a gift to the nation or that his name was a sign that a "remnant of the nation" would be preserved in the midst of enemy oppression? As the broader context of Isaiah 7:3 will show, Shear-jashub had been born long before Yahweh [snicker, snicker] sent Isaiah to king Ahaz [of Judah] to assure him that the Syrian/Israelite alliance against Judah would fail. The situation was that king Rezin of Syria and king Pekah of Israel had moved against Jerusalem (Isaiah 7:1-2), so Yahweh [snicker, snicker] sent Isaiah and his son to Ahaz to give him assurance that the alliance would fail.

Isaiah 7:3 Then Yahweh said to Isaiah, Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field, ⁴ and say to him, Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. ⁵ Because Aram--with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah--has plotted evil against you, saying, ⁶ Let us go up against Judah and cut off Jerusalem and conquer it for ourselves and make the son of Tabeel king in it; ⁷ therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.

At the time of this incident, then, Shear-jashub had already been born and was old enough to accompany his father Isaiah. LJ's claim that Isaiah's son had been given to the nation as a sign is pure speculation for which there is no corroboration at all in the Bible. LJ seems to think that the meaning of Shear-jashub's name, which meant "a remnant shall return," was a sign given to Judah that a remnant of Judeans would be saved from the siege, but since Isaiah had been sent to assure Ahaz that the siege would fail, a more sensible interpretation of the name is that it referred to the invading armies. In other words, the meaning of the name was intended to assure Ahaz that the siege against Jerusalem would fail and that only a remnant of the Syrian/Israelite armies would return home.

This was the interpretation of the name Shear-Jashub in Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (1987, p. 933).

A son of the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 7:3), so named to symbolize the promise that only a remnant of the combined Syrian and Israelite armies would return to their homes from their siege of Jerusalem (vv:4-9).

The circumstances of Shear-Jashub's birth were not recorded in Isaiah or anywhere else in the Bible, and the name was never mentioned again, before or after Isaiah's mission to Ahaz, so LJ is resorting entirely to speculation when he cites Shear-Jashub as an example of a child who was born to be a symbol to an entire nation.

• "Mahershalalhashbaz" means "The spoil speeds, the prey hastes," a prophecy of Assyria despoiling Syria, thus saving Judah (Isaiah 8:1-4).

Basically, with an added notation that this prophecy also included the despoiling of Israel, I agree with LJ's interpretation here, but it should be noted that this passage falls within the context of Isaiah's mission to assure king Ahaz that the Syrian/Israelite alliance against Judah would fail, in this case because the Assyrians would carry away the "riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria" (Isaiah 8:4). In this sense, then, the birth and naming of Mahershalalhashbaz was more of a sign to king Ahaz than to the nation of Judah. Let's assume, however, that the birth of Mahershalalhashbaz was intended to be a sign to the whole nation of Judah. Is LJ arguing that because the birth of Isaiah's son was a sign to the nation of Judah, the birth of Hosea's son Jezreel was a sign to the nation of Israel? If so, I fail to see his line of logic in so arguing.

• The child born to the virgin in Isaiah's time was to be called "Immanuel," meaning "God is with us," i.e., God is with the nation Israel against its enemies (Isaiah 7:10-16). In Isaiah 8:8,10, "Immanuel" clearly refers to the nation.

Well, actually, the text that LJ cited above indicated that the child to be born of the "virgin," actually a young maiden in Hebrew, would be a sign to king Ahaz that the Syrian/Israelite alliance threatening Judah would fail.

Isaiah 7:10 Again Yahweh spoke to Ahaz, saying, ¹¹ Ask a sign of Yahweh your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. ¹² But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put Yahweh to the test. ¹³ Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

So after telling Ahaz that the Syrian/Israelite alliance would fail, Ahaz was instructed to ask for a "sign" that Isaiah's prediction would prove true. When Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, Yahweh gave him a sign anyway, and that sign was that a young woman--not a virgin--would give birth to a son, who would be named Immanuel. Hence, Immanuel was intended as a sign to Ahaz and not the entire nation.

As for LJ's citation of Isaiah 8:8,10, there is doubt that ‘Immânûw‘el, which in Hebrew literally meant "with us [is] God," was used in these verses in the sense of a person's name. That doubt is reflected in versions that translated it literally rather than as a name.

Isaiah 8:8 (Revised English Bible): In a raging torrent mounting neck high it [floodwaters of the Euphrates] will sweep through Judah. With his outspread wings the whole expanse of the land will be filled, for God is with us [‘Immânûw‘el].

Versions whose translators apparently wanted to see a connection here with Isaiah 7:14 transliterated ‘Immânûw‘el as Immanuel instead of translating it, but even most of those versions translated ‘Immânûw‘el in verse 10 rather than transliterating it.

Isaiah 8:9 [KJV] Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands. Prepare for battle, and be shattered! Prepare for battle, and be shattered! ¹⁰ Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us [‘Immânûw‘el].

The broader context of the version of the Jewish Publication Society consistently translated ‘Immânûw‘el, rather than transliterating it, throughout the passage that LJ cited above.

Isaiah 8:7 It [floodwaters] shall rise above all its channels, and flow over all its beds, ⁸ and swirl through Judah like a flash flood reaching up to the neck. But with us is God [‘Immânûw‘el], whose wings are spread as wide as your land is broad! Band together, O peoples--you shall be broken! Listen to this, you remotest parts of the earth: Gird yourselves--you shall be broken! ¹⁰ Hatch a plot--it shall be foiled; agree on action--it shall not succeed. For God is with us [‘Immânûw‘el]

The likelihood that the REB and JPS versions more accurately conveyed Isaiah's meaning of the expression ‘Immânûw‘el can be see in the way that Hebrew expressions were sometimes used as personal names and at other times used in their ordinary senses. As noted above, for example, sh^e’âr Yâshûwb, which meant "a remnant shall return," was used as the personal name of Isaiah's son; however, later in the same book, Isaiah used this same expression [sh^e’âr Yâshûwb] in a predictive promise that a remnant of the exiled Israelites would return.

Isaiah 10:20 On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on the one who struck them, but will lean on Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. ²¹ A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. ²² For though your people Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness.

So in one place, Isaiah used a Hebrew expression as the personal name of his son; in another he used it in its literal sense to predict that a remnant of the Israelites would return home from Assyrian captivity, a prediction, by the way, that was never fulfilled, for when the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom were taken into captivity, they became the "lost tribes of Israel."

Similar examples are in the very book now in dispute. Hosea was told to name his second child lo-ruhamah, which meant "no mercy," and he was told to name his third child lo-‘ammi, which meant "not my people." Then later both names were used not as personal names but in the literal senses of the words.

Although LJ claims that he isn't a biblical inerrantist, he, as inerrantists routinely do, has grabbed a straw to try to explain away an obvious discrepancy in the Bible.

(Incidentally, the principal antitypical fulfillment of this prophecy was in the New Testament Church, the Israel of God, whose members were "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" [John 1:13].)

This comment doesn't really deserve a reply, because it is based purely on the New Testament claim that the birth of Jesus had fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy that a "virgin" would give birth to a son (Matt. 1:23). The influence that this unverifiable claim has had on Christian interpretations of Isaiah 7:14 can be seen in a footnote to this verse in the NAB.

[14] The sign proposed by Isaiah was concerned with the preservation of Judah in the midst of distress (cf Isaiah 7:15, 17), but more especially with the fulfillment of God's earlier promise to David (2 Sam 7:12-16) in the coming of Immanuel (meaning, "With us is God") as the ideal king (cf Isaiah 9:5-6; 11:1-5). The Church has always followed St. Matthew in seeing the transcendent fulfillment of this verse in Christ and his Virgin Mother. The prophet need not have known the full force latent in his own words; and some Catholic writers have sought a preliminary and partial fulfillment in the conception and birth of the future King Hezekiah, whose mother, at the time Isaiah spoke, would have been a young, unmarried woman (Hebrew, almah). The Holy Spirit was preparing, however, for another Nativity which alone could fulfill the divinely given terms of Immanuel's mission, and in which the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God was to fulfill also the words of this prophecy in the integral sense intended by the divine Wisdom.

In other words, the editors of this Bible frankly admitted that Isaiah 7:14 was concerned with circumstances in the nation of Judah at the time that this "prophecy" was made but that since Matthew said that it had a "transcendent fulfillment" in the birth of Jesus to "his virgin mother," the editors of the NAB felt constrained to accept that interpretation.

In the book of Hosea itself, Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter named "Lo-ruha-mah" ("Not Pitied"), so named because God would show no more mercy upon the house of Israel (vs.6). Gomer's third child, a son, was symbolically named "Lo-ammi" ("Not my people") (vs.8-9), signifying God's disowning of his people. The children, with the possible exception of Jezreel, were evidently not Hosea's (cf. Hosea 2:4 and 1:9 itself), and all represent the people of Israel. When Israel is restored, she is referred to as Ammi ("My People") and Ruhamah ("Pitied"), with the negatives dropped. Similarly, "Jezreel" is used in its positive sense at Israel's restoration (Hosea 2:22).

I used these same examples above to show that giving children names that had common Hebraic meanings wasn't at all unusual and, therefore, did not convey the significance that LJ is trying to attach to Jezreel. In addition to Shear-Jashub, Immanuel, Mahershalalhashbaz, and Hosea's children, there are other examples of children who were thought to have been born by divine intervention, such as Isaac (Gen. 21:1-5), Samson (Judges 13:2-24), Samuel (1 Sam. 1:1-19), et al. Children presumably born by divine intervention were, of course, always seen to have special significance to Hebrew society, so LJ is seeing entirely too much in Hebrew mythology. For the sake of argument, however, let's just assume that Hosea's children were all born through the divine intervention that was claimed in the book of Hosea. How would that make Jezreel mean or symbolize what LJ is claiming? Why could it not have been a name divinely given to Gomer's first child to represent nothing more than that the eponymous ancestor of the Jehu dynasty had committed a grievous "sin" for which the prophet Hosea thought that his god Yahweh was going to punishment the contemporary members of this dynasty? I have given mountains of evidence throughout my replies to LJ to show that the obvious intention of Hosea's prophecy was double-faceted. By reviewing my analysis of the prophecy here and here, readers will see explications that show that the expression "for the blood of Jezreel," contrary to the spin that LJ wants to put on it, clearly referred to only the first part of the prophecy, which said that Yahweh would avenge "the blood of Jezreel" on the house of Jehu.

Furthermore, when a child who is to serve as a sign is given a name, that name, as can be seen from the above, always signifies some one aspect of God's dealings with the nation.

As I just showed above, that wasn't always true. The name of Isaiah's son Shear-Jashub, for example, wasn't given to signify an aspect of God's dealings with the nation of Judah, because he had already been born before Isaiah was sent to Ahaz and was old enough to accompany his father on the mission. As I also showed in the link above, the "remnant" that Isaiah referred to in his passage referred not to a remnant of Judah but to a remnant of the Assyrians that would be the only survivors to return to their homes after their unsuccessful military campaign against Jerusalem.

To signify a judgment of the house of Jehu for massacring the house of Ahab within the scope of the name "Jezreel" would make its symbolism complicated and incomprehensibly and irreconcilably unconnected.

This is reminiscent of where LJ said above that if Hosea meant for Jezreel to refer to the massacre at Jezreel, "he would be treating it only as a barbaric act of Jehu to usurp the throne of Israel." In my reply to this, I said what I will say again: Hosea obviously did consider Jehu's massacre at Jezreel a barbaric act, which was one of the many "sins" for which Israel would have to atone before Yahweh would restore the unified nation of Israel. When LJ says that associating Jezreel with the massacre of the house of Ahab "would make its symbolism complicated and incomprehensibly and irreconcilably unconnected," he is making an assertion that he needs to prove, but so far he has offered no such proof. I simply cannot see why associating the word Jezreel in Hosea 1:4 with Jehu's massacre at Jezreel would make its symbolism "complicated and incomprehensibly and irreconcilably unconnected." A claim that Jezreel did not refer to Jezreel is so unlikely that LJ needs to do much more than just assert that it didn't. He is not going to accomplish anything by the fallacy of argumentation by assertion. Furthermore, I see in his comments above a kind of fallacy of wishful thinking. This fallacy occurs when theists say such things as, "If there is no God, then life has no purpose," or "If evolution is true, then we are just animals." In the same way, LJ seems to be saying, "If Jezreel in Hosea 1:4 referred to Jehu's massacre at Jezreel, then there is a discrepancy in the way that Hosea and the author of 2 Kings viewed that incident," but wishing for inerrancy in the Bible does not make it inerrant. A very basic principle of hermeneutics and literary interpretation is that the language of a written text should be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meanings, so LJ needs to give us a compelling reason why "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 did not mean the blood of Jezreel.

How do those who allege a contradiction between 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 (by presuming that the latter refers to Jehu's massacre of some members of the house of Ahab in Jezreel) explain this?

They explain it in the way that I have repeatedly explained it throughout this series of replies. To think that "the blood of Jezreel" referred to Jehu's massacre at Jezreel is not assuming anything; it is simply applying basic principles of literary interpretation to Hosea 1:4 to arrive at the conclusion that "the blood of Jezreel" in this text was a reference to the blood of Jezreel. That interpretation is fully as comprehensible and uncomplicated as thinking that the the blood of Naboth in 2 Kings 9:25-26 referred to the murder of Naboth in 1 Kings 21, so let LJ explain to us what is so "complicated and incomprehensibly and irreconcilably unconnected" about thinking that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 was a reference to the blood of Jezreel.

Finally, if "the blood of Jezreel" refers to the massacre of the house of Ahab by Jehu, then the fact that Hosea never refers to it again--in a book where repetition of the same themes abounds--is very strange.

Is LJ claiming here that Hosea repeated every condemnation that he made in this book? In 1:7, after having said that Yahweh would "break the bow" of Israel in the valley of Jezreel, Hosea said that Yahweh would have "pity on the house of Judah" and would save them not "by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen" but "by Yahweh their God." I know of no other place where Hosea repeated this promise. To the contrary, he said in 5:5 that Judah would fall with Israel, and in 5:10, he said that Yahweh would "pour out [his] wrath like water" on the princes of Judah. Hosea also predicted dire consequences on Judah in 5:12-14, chapter 6, and elsewhere, as in 8:14, where Hosea said that Yahweh would send upon the cities of Judah "a fire" that would "devour its strongholds," and in 12:2, where Hosea said that Yahweh "has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways, and repay him according to his deeds." To argue, as LJ has done, that "the blood of Jezreel" couldn't have meant the blood of Jezreel, because Hosea didn't repeat the reference in his book is an argument from desperation rather than sound principles of literary interpretation. Does LJ think that a statement that a biblical writer made in plain language doesn't mean what the language indicates unless the writer repeated the statement? That's too ridiculous to deserve serious comment.

Judgment of the house of Jehu for "the sins of Jeroboam" not unique in the OT: In addition to the house of Jehu, there were three other dynasties which were similarly judged for practicing the idolatry of Jeroboam and leading the people of Israel to sin. In fact, all the kings of Israel followed the apostasy of Jeroboam.

I have already introduced all three of those other dynasties and discussed the inconsistencies in the way that the author(s) of Kings viewed them, so I can simplify my replies to this section of LJ's article through links to those prior discussions. First, I will remind readers that "the sins of Jeroboam" were the yardstick that was used to evaluate the reigns of Israelite kings but that "punishments" for those sins varied. Some kings who followed Jeroboam's sin of golden-calf worship enjoyed long reigns; others received immediate "punishment." As I explained in the link above, common sense should tell readers in an age of enlightenment that those deferred and immediate punishments were simply the interpretations of the author(s), which he/they based on the ancient superstition that the gods controlled everything that happened, especially in the lives of important people like kings and prophets. To take them seriously, as LJ apparently does, is to embrace a superstition that has outlived its time.

The origin of the sins of Jeroboam is reported in 1 Kings 12:26-33. Jeroboam introduced the cult of calf worship to Israel to keep the people of Israel from defecting to Judah. And he was judged for this. When the wife of Jeroboam went in disguise to meet the prophet Ahijah in Shiloh to inquire concerning her son, the prophet told her, among other things, that Jeroboam's house would be destroyed because of his idolatry and that Israel, too, would be punished for their idolatry (1 Kings 14:1-16). The prophet said, "And he [God] will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and which he made Israel to sin" (vs.16, RSV). Jeroboam is held responsible for Israel sinning against God by adopting the calf worship he introduced and for the final consequence of that apostasy.

Yes, this is the spin that the writer of 1 Kings put on the reign of Jeroboam, and as I explained above, even though Jeroboam was responsible for establishing the golden-calf shrines in the northern kingdom, he reigned for 22 years and then died a natural death, i.e., "slept with his fathers" (1 Kings 14:20), whereas some of his descendant kings received more immediate punishments for allowing Jeroboam's sin to continue in Israel. Common sense should tell readers in our enlightened times that the inconsistencies in the way that the god Yahweh presumably "punished" kings who permitted this "sin" were rooted in ancient superstitions. If a king followed Jeroboam's "sin" but lived a long life without experiencing any apparent consequences, the author(s) thought that Yahweh had for some reason "deferred punishment" until a later generation when a descendant king was assassinated after just a brief reign.

The prophecy of doom against the house of Jeroboam was fulfilled when Baasha killed Nadab (the son of Jeroboam and his successor) and all the rest of the house of Jeroboam, then reigned in Nadab's stead. Nadab, too, had "walked in the way of his father" (1 Kings 15:26).

Again, this was merely the way that a superstitious author interpreted events of that time. Jeroboam instituted golden-calf worship in the northern kingdom but enjoyed a long reign followed by a natural death, so when Jeroboam's son Nadab was assassinated and his family massacred in a coup after only a two-year reign, the author saw this as "fulfillment" of a prophecy that Jeroboam's house would be exterminated for having begun the golden-calf worship. This interpretation of the reigns of Jeroboam and his son, however, gives no rational explanation of why the instigator of this grievous sin lived a long life, whereas his successor son, who had simply allowed his father's "sin" to continue, was quickly "punished." The writer obviously never considered the possibility that these outcomes were nothing but events that had happened purely by chance and circumstance, and apparently LJ has't either.

Baasha in turn "walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel to sin" (1 Kings 15:34). The prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani, delivered a prophecy of judgment to Baaha [sic] in terms similar to that given to Jeroboam's wife, and said that God would make the house of Baasha like the house of Jeroboam (1 Kings 16:1-4). His son Elah succeeded him on his throne, but his reign was short-lived; Zimri, a commander of Israel's army, assassinated Elah when he was at Tirzah and thereafter destroyed the rest of the house of Baasha. This fulfilled the prophecy of Jehu, "for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, by which they sinned, and by which they made Israel sin, in provoking the Lord God of Israel to anger with their vanities" (1 Kings 16:8-13). They made Israel sin with the sin of Jeroboam.

LJ says that he is not a biblical inerrantist, but he seems to think that every scripture that he cites should be considered historically accurate. To believe, however, that everything happened as the author(s) of 1 Kings claimed is to accept naively a superstitious view of history. Knowing what had already happened when the books of Kings were written, the author(s) interpreted the fates of Israelite kings according to their superstitious belief that Yahweh had controlled their destinies. Jeroboam had enjoyed a long reign and had died a natural death, so this was seen as Yahweh's will. Jeroboam's son Nadab, however, had been assassinated by Baasha after a reign of only two years, so the writer(s) interpreted this as Yahweh's doings. Then Baasha, in turn, was assassinated by Zemri after only two years, so the writer(s) also saw this as a judgment from Yahweh for Baasha's having allowed Jeroboam's golden-calf shrines to remain at Bethel and Dan. Hindsight made it rather easy for the author(s) to apply their ancient superstitions to the reigns of these kings, but it apparently hasn't occurred to LJ that Yahweh was rather inconsistent in allowing the king who had instituted golden-calf worship to live a long life and die a natural death while later limiting his successor son to just a two-year reign before orchestrating his assassination and then allowing his assassin Baasha to reign for 24 years (1 Kings 15:33), die a natural death (16:6), orchestrate the assassination of Baasha's son Elah after just a two-year reign (16:8,10), and so on. LJ believes all of this? If so, common sense must not exist in his world.

Zimri's reign, too, was short-lived, for his life ended in yet another conspiracy to usurp the throne of Israel (1 Kings 16:15-20). He died "because of his sins which he committed, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam, and for his sin which he committed, making Israel to sin" (vs.19, RSV).

My comments above apply also to the seven-day reign of Zemi. LJ's position forces him to think that Yahweh allowed the king who instituted golden-calf worship in the northern kingdom to enjoy a long reign and to die a natural death, as he allowed also for Baasha, who had encouraged the same "sin," whereas Yahweh eliminated the other three kings in short order for just allowing the shrines to remain in place. As I said above, common sense must not exist in LJ's world.

Then there was a tussle for power between Tibni, the son of Ginath, and Omri. Omri eventually prevailed and ascended to the throne of Israel. He, too, "walked in all the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and in the sins which he made Israel to sin," thus provoking the Lord to anger (1 Kings 16:26).

Yes, Omri "walked in all the way of Jeroboam," or so the author said, yet Yahweh allowed him to enjoy a reign of 12 years (1 Kings 16:23) and, as LJ points out immediately below, to die a natural death. There is no sensible way to explain why Jeroboam, Baasha, and Omri lived long lives and died natural deaths, whereas the reigns and lives of Elah, Baasha, and Zemri were short-lived except to understand that all of the events at this period in Israelite history were controlled purely by chance and circumstances. To the author(s) of the books of Kings, however, there was no such thing as events that happened by just chance and circumstance, so he/they attributed everything to the intervention of the god Yahweh.

After the death of Omri (a natural death!), his son Ahab reigned and, as usual, walked "in the sins of Jeroboam" and introduced Baal worship to Israel to boot through the influence of his wicked wife Jezebel (1 Kings 16:31-32). A prophecy of judgment was pronounced against Ahab by Elijah, in which he was told that his house would suffer the same fate as those of Jeroboam and Baasha (1 Kings 21:20-24). However, this was postponed on account of his contrition (vss.27-29). Jehu fulfilled the prophecy (2 Kings 9-10).

Like Jeroboam, Baasha, and Omri, Ahab enjoyed a long reign, so even though Ahab's "sins" had exceeded Jeroboam's in that he didn't just allow the golden-calf shrines to continue but also introduced Baal worship to the northern kingdom, he was allowed to live out his life relatively unpunished. One would think that if he had been so angered by Jeroboam's "sin" that he pronounced judgments on Jeroboam, Nadab, Elah, Baasha, Zemri, and Omri, Yahweh would have made short order of Ahab, but the author(s) of 1 Kings had to interpret Ahab's reign in terms of what he/they knew had happened. Since Ahab had not been killed immediately after becoming guilty of "the blood of Naboth," mentioned earlier, the writer(s) had to have an explanation of the delay. That explanation became the contrition of Ahab that LJ pointed out above. Because of this contrition, so the writer(s) claimed, Yahweh delayed the punishment of Ahab until the time of his son (1 Kings 21:27-29). Ahab's contrition, then, became a convenient explanation for Yahweh's deferment of Ahab's punishment, but to take all this seriously, as LJ apparently does, shows an incredible naivity that is out of place in our enlightened times. Among other problems in LJ's acceptance of the ancient superstition of vicarious punishment, he apparently can't see the appalling injustice in punishing a person for what an ancestor had done.

Jehu, too, followed the sins of Jeroboam and, in the light of the foregoing, the reader will now be able to better appreciate the implied judgment in 2 Kings 10:30.

Readers can go here to see my rebuttal of LJ's claim that punishment for the house of Jehu was implied in 2 Kings 10:30 for Jehu's having allowed the golden-calf shrines to remain in place, so I don't need to repeat that rebuttal here. Reading the section just linked to will show sensible readers that this implication is something that LJ has read into the text so that he can make Hosea 1:4 fit into a preconceived mold that has its origin in his desire to find consistency in the Bible.

Just think about it. When all the kings of Israel were judged for the sins of Jeroboam, could the house of Jehu have escaped judgment?

Here is something else to think about. In his/their interpretations of the reigns of Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zemri, Omri, and Ahab, the author(s) of 1 Kings had always specifically stipulated that the "sins of Jeroboam" were the reasons for any "punishments"--which were undoubtedly just naturally occurring misfortunes--experienced either by these kings or their "houses" (1 Kings 14:9-11; 15:29-30; 16:11-13; 16:18-19; 16:25-26; 16:30-31; 21:21-24; 2 Kings 9:7-10). In all of those examples, the "sins of Jeroboam" were unequivocally mentioned as Yahweh's reason for sending whatever "punishments" these kings or their descendants experienced, but no such predictions of punishment "for the sins of Jeroboam" were pronounced against Jehu and his descendant kings. The writer(s) stated only that Jehu's son Jehoahaz had not "departed from the sins of Jeroboam" (2 Kings 13:2-3) and had likewise said the same about Jehoahaz's son Joash (13:10-11), Joash's son Jeroboam II (14:23-24), and Jeroboam's son Zechariah (15:8-9), but in all of the summations of the reigns of the Jehu dynasty, the writer(s) had simply mentioned, as if in passing, they they had not "departed from the sins of Jeroboam." There were no vituperative rantings about their toleration of the golden calves or jubilant claims that punishment had been brought upon Jehu's dynasty for having allowed "Jerobam's sin" to continue.

Compare the interpretations below of how the author(s) of the books of King had summarized the deaths of Nadab (Jeroboam's son) and Jehoahaz (Jehu's son).

1 Kings 15:29 As soon as he [Baasha] began to reign, he killed Jeroboam's whole family. He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed, but destroyed them all, according to the word of Yahweh given through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite--³⁰ because of the sins Jeroboam had committed and had caused Israel to commit, and because he provoked Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger.

2 Kings 13:2 He [Jehoahaz] did evil in the eyes of Yahweh by following the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit, and he did not turn away from them. ³ So Yahweh's anger burned against Israel, and for a long time he kept them under the power of Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad his son. ⁴ Then Jehoahaz sought Yahweh's favor, and Yahweh listened to him, for he saw how severely the king of Aram was oppressing Israel. ⁵ Yahweh provided a deliverer for Israel, and they escaped from the power of Aram. So the Israelites lived in their own homes as they had before. ⁶ But they did not turn away from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit; they continued in them. Also, the Asherah pole remained standing in Samaria. ⁷ Nothing had been left of the army of Jehoahaz except fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten thousand foot soldiers, for the king of Aram had destroyed the rest and made them like the dust at threshing time. ⁸ As for the other events of the reign of Jehoahaz, all he did and his achievements, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? ⁹ Jehoahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Jehoash his son succeeded him as king.

So despite Jehoahaz's toleration of the "sins of Jeroboam," he received a relatively light "punishment" in the form of temporary foreign oppression, and then he died a natural death, whereas Jeroboam's son and his family were brutally massacred. Now compare the contrast in the summations of the reigns of Baasha [a usurper] and Jehoash [Jehu's grandson].

1 Kings 16:11 As soon as he [Zemri] began to reign and was seated on the throne, he killed off Baasha's whole family. He did not spare a single male, whether relative or friend. ¹² So Zimri destroyed the whole family of Baasha, in accordance with the word of Yahweh spoken against Baasha through the prophet Jehu--¹³ because of all the sins Baasha and his son Elah had committed and had caused Israel to commit, so that they provoked Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger by their worthless idols.

2 Kings 13:11 He [Jehoash]did evil in the eyes of Yahweh and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit; he continued in them. ¹² As for the other events of the reign of Jehoash, all he did and his achievements, including his war against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? ¹³ Jehoash rested with his fathers, and Jeroboam succeeded him on the throne. Jehoash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.

Jehu's grandson Jehoash was faulted for having allowed "Jeroboam's sin" to continue, but the author(s) didn't rant and rave about this "sin" or attribute to Jehoash any particular "punishment" or consequence as he/they did in the summation of Baasha's reign. The same contrast can be seen in the accounts of the reigns of Jehu's great-grandson Jeroboam II and his great-great-grandson Zechariah. The writer(s) simply stated that these last two kings in Jehu's dynasty had not "departed from the sins of Jeroboam," but had attributed to this "sin" no particular consequence. To the contrary, the author claimed that the northern kingdom had experienced political progress and territorial growth during Jeroboam II's reign, because Yahweh "had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free, was suffering" and had "saved them by the hand of Jeroboam," since Yahweh "had not said he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven" (2 Kings 14:25-27). That certainly doesn't sound as if Yahweh was as bitterly angry with the Jehu kings as he had been with the first Jeroboam and his immediate successors, but it does sound just like the kind of spin that we would expect a writer of that era to put on events that had already happened.

Likewise, the account of the last reign in the Jehu dynasty reported no dire consequences for Zechariah's having allowed "Jeroboam's sin" to continue in the land. It simply stated that after a six-month reign, Zechariah was assassinated by Shallum, an event that the writer claimed had fulfilled Yahweh's promise that Jehu's sons to the fourth generation would reign in Israel (2 Kings 15:12). Of course, the retroactive view of the author of 2 Kings conveniently allowed him to interpret the end of Jehu's dynasty as prophecy fulfillment. As I pointed out earlier, if Zechariah had escaped assassination and lived long enough for his son to succeed him, the writer would have no doubt seen this as fulfillment of a prophecy that Jehu's sons to the fifth generation would reign in Israel.

Indeed it was judged, for we read that Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against king Zechariah, a descendant of Jehu of the fourth generation,and killed him to usurp the throne of Israel (2 Kings 15:10). When the writer of the books of Kings saw all of the assassinations of the kings of Israel, or the massacres of their houses, as a judgment upon them mainly for following the sins of Jeroboam, why should the assassination of Zechariah have been seen differently? Indeed, in the immediately preceding verse, the writer says that king Zechariah, too, "did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam" (vs.9).

As I just pointed out, however, the writer did not rail against Zechariah's "sin" of having allowed "Jeroboam's sin" to continue, and neither did he say that Zechariah's assassination was "a judgment" for having "follow[ed] the sins of Jeroboam." He simply said that it was a fulfillment of "the word of Yahweh that he spoke to Jehu" (2 Kings 15:12) that his sons to the fourth generation would reign over Israel. As I said before, that promise was more of a reward than a punishment. LJ asked why we should see the assassination of Zechariah any differently from the claims that kings like Nadab, Elah, Zemri, etc. had been massacred because of "Jeroboam's sins," but a better question would be to ask why the author of 2 Kings didn't specifically state that Zechariah had been massacred because of this sin. If the author(s) of 1 King had been so unequivocally clear in saying that this "sin" was why the houses of Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, etc. were destroyed, why wouldn't he have said the same about Zechariah if that was indeed what he had thought? As I just showed above, the Kings writer(s), rather than thinking that Yahweh punished Jeroboam II for not "departing from the sins of Jeroboam [the first]," claimed instead that Yahweh had caused him to prosper by increasing Israel's territorial holdings during his reign. The Bible just doesn't support the view of the Jehu dynasty that LJ is claiming in order to shore up his attempt to make Hosea 1:4 and 2 Kings 10:30 consistent.

All of the rest of the kings of Israel followed the sins of Jeroboam and perpetuated this form of idolatry in Israel, until the apostate nation was finally militarily crushed, subjugated, and exiled to Assyria in 721 B.C., thus fulfilling Hosea's prophecy: "I [God] will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I [God] will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel."

There is no need to keep beating a dead horse. I have dismantled so many times the spin that LJ has tried to put on Hosea 1:4 that I don't need to repeat my rebuttals here. Readers should know by now that Hosea prophesied that Israel would be punished for its own sins, such as illegal commerce, adultery, and murder, as well as its own idolatry, and for not the sins of the Jehu dynasty. Contemporary members of this dynasty were to be recipients of punishment for Jehu's massacre at Jezreel.

Conclusion: Jehu was warned by God that his house would be judged for following the idolatry of Jeroboam, but, in consideration of his services to God in destroying the house of Ahab, the judgment was postponed to the fourth generation, which, as it turned out, was the generation of king Zechariah, Jehu's great-great-grandson, who was assassinated by Shallum the son of Jabesh to usurp the throne.

In this section of Part Three, I completely dismantled this same assertion when I replied to LJ's claim that we can see, by reading between the lines in 2 Kings 10:30-31, a judgment that Yahweh had pronounced on the house of Jehu for his allowing "the sins of Jeroboam" to continue. By clicking the link above, readers will see that this "judgment" is only LJ's wishful thinking that is rooted in his desire to find something that will make 2 Kings 10:30 consistent with Hosea 1:4.

Hosea's prophecy simply announced that the time had now arrived for the house of Jehu to be judged for the consequences of the divine judgment executed on the northern kingdom for its religious apostasy during their dynasty.

To the point of near tedium, I will remind readers again, as I showed here and here, that Hosea 1:4 contains a double-faceted prophecy and that the reference to "the blood of Jezreel" is positioned so that it can refer only to the first part of the prophecy, which was that Yahweh intended to avenge on the house of Jehu the blood of Jezreel. Hence, Hosea actually thought that the time had finally come for Yahweh to exact punishment on the house of Jehu for the grievous acts of bloodshed committed by Jehu when he usurped the throne by murdering the royal family of Israel and all of their associates.

The massacre of the house of Ahab by Jehu was carried out at the instigation of the prophet Elisha, a respected prophet of Israel and Elijah's protégé, to execute judgment on that house for their idolatry and other sins, for which Jehu received commendation in 2 Kings 10:30, and this historical record was available to Hosea.

LJ made a colossal boo boo here, which indicates that his biblical knowledge is hardly sharp enough to give credence to his strained interpretation of "the blood of Jezreel." As I showed in this section of Part One, Hosea prophesied well before the defeat of the northern kingdom in 722 BC, whereas the book of 2 Kings, which recorded the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, would have necessarily been completed over a century after Hosea's time. Hence, "this historical record" would not have been available to Hosea. As I pointed out in the section linked to above, LJ has made the mistake of thinking that because the books of Kings come before the book of Hosea in modern Bibles, Hosea lived after the author(s) of Kings and would therefore have had access to their "records." If LJ tries to extricate himself from this chronological gaffe by claiming that Hosea would have had access to other records of the reigns of Ahab and Jehu, I will asked him (1) to prove this assumption and (2) to prove that if such records were available at the time, they were in agreement with what the books of Kings reported about Ahab and Jehu.

So why would Hosea blatantly contradict 2 Kings 10:30 by condemning the house of Jehu for the destruction of the house of Ahab? The sheer improbability of Hosea doing that--as he was in all other ways a typical Old Testament prophet of God--heavily militates against the interpretation that "the blood of Jezreel" refers to Jehu's killings in Jezreel.

As I just pointed out, Hosea could have neither blantantly contradicted 2 Kings 10:30 nor agreed with it, because 2 Kings 10:30 simply didn't exist in Hosea's time. I hope readers will take special note of this chronological gaffe that LJ just made, because it clearly indicates that he doesn't have the biblical expertise to make the claim that we see immediately below.

I hope that the rather lengthy explanation above serves to resolve the Jehu problem, the solution to which seems to have eluded many a biblical apologist. It should now be appreciated that the real cause for the apparent contradiction between 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 is the unfortunate coincidence that Jehu happened to massacre some members of the house of Ahab in Jezreel. The apparent contradiction disappears when the phrase "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 is correctly interpreted in its proper context.

I referred to this claim earlier in replying to LJ's reading-between-the-lines argument. The fact that he would make such a grievous error as claiming that the books of Kings existed in Hosea's time should clearly indicate to readers just how doubtful it is that he has discovered a meaning in Hosea 1:4 that had eluded all Bible believers until he finally came along to set everyone straight. "Apologists" who claim biblical insights that others before them have not had are becoming as common as dirt, so there is no reason to think that Leonard Jayawardena is any different from the others. They all have the goal of finding some way to "explain" discrepancies in the Bible, and no "explanations" seem too far-fetched for them to propose.

A comment must be made about LJ's reference to an "apparent contradiction" that has resulted from "the unfortunate coincidence that Jehu happened to massacre some members of the house of Ahab in Jezreel," but this remark raises a question that LJ needs to answer: Knowing that Jehu had committed the massacre at Jezreel, why would Hosea have used the expression "the blood of Jezreel" to mean something entirely different from the victims of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel? Shouldn't he have known that his readers would quite naturally associate the expression with this infamous massacre? If, then, Hosea was using the expression to mean something that had no association at all with Jehu's massacre, as LJ is claiming, why wouldn't a writer inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity have clarified its meaning? Sensible readers will recognize that there really is no "unfortunate coincidence" here, because Hosea meant for "the blood of Jezreel" to connote exactly what LJ has unsuccessfully argued that the prophet didn't mean.

I have taken the time to go through LJ's lengthy article point-by-point to show just how unlikely it is that he has discovered the new meaning that he has boasted about in his article. If he cares to reply to my rebuttals of his interpretation of Hosea 1:4, I will give him the space to do so, but I doubt that he will. When he saw that his original position in the Jehu controversy couldn't withstand scrutiny, he went back to the drawing board and returned with a new spin on the meaning of "the blood of Jezreel." I have noticed through the years that this is standard procedure for biblical inerrantists when they offer "explanations" of biblical discrepancies that can't be sustained. Although LJ claims that he isn't a biblical inerrantist, he apparently plays the same game.

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