2nd Kings Chapter 9 verse 33 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 33. And he said, Throw her down. A splendid example of the wicked man's prompt and bold and unscrupulous decision. A queen, a queen-mother, always more tenderly regarded than an ordinary queen-regnant, a princess in her own right (see ver. 34), daughter of a neighboring and powerful potentate, settled in her kingdom for over thirty years, the most powerful person the state during that entire period, backed up by the numerous and dominant party of her co-religionists, she is to Jehu nothing but a wicked woman who is in his way; she inspires him with no awe, she does not even touch him with any feeling of respect. "Throw her down." History presents no parallel to such an indignity. Kings and queens had been, time after time, removed by violence; their lives had been taken; they had been transplanted to another sphere of being. But the open casting forth from a window of a crowned head by the menials of the court, at the command of a usurper, was a new thing, unprecedented, unparalleled. It must have been a shock to all established notions of propriety. In commanding it Jehu showed his superiority to existing prejudice, his utter fearlessness, and his willingness to create a new precedent, which might seriously shake the monarchical principle. So they threw her down. There appears to have been no hesitation. The boldness of Jehu communicated itself to those whom he addressed; and the eunuchs violently seized the person of the queen, and precipitated her from the window to the ground below. She fell on the road by which the palace was approached, and lay there bleeding and helpless. And some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall. As she fell, some portion of her body struck against the wall of the palace, and left splashes of blood upon it. There were probably some projections from the wall between the window and the ground. And on the horses. As her body struck the projections, a bloody shower spurted from it, which fell in part upon the horses that drew Jehu's chariot. And he trode her underfoot. Like Tullia (Liv, 1:48), Jehu had his chariot driven over the prostrate corpse, so that the hoofs of his horses, and perhaps his own person, were sprinkled with the royal blood. Compare the passage of Livy, "Amens, agi-tantibus furiis, Tullia per patris corpus carpentum egisse fertur, partemque sanguinis ac caedis paternae cruento vehiculo, contaminata ipsa respersaque, tutisse ad penates suos virique sui." It is not often that royal corpses, unless in the heat of battle, have received such treatment.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(33) Throw her down.--Comp. Note on 1Chronicles 13:9.Was sprinkled on.--Spirted on to.He trode her under foot.--All the versions have they--i.e., the horses--trode. Thenius supposes they were excited by the blood being sprinkled upon them. But "he"--i.e., Jehu--"trode her under foot," plainly means, he drove over her fallen body. Ewald goes beyond the text in stating that Jehu spurned her with his own feet. (For the verb, comp. 2Kings 7:20.)