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Introduction
The Jehu Problem
Summary of the Solution
The Solution in Detail
"The Blood of Jezreel" in Context
"The Blood of Jezreel" Historically
2 Kings 10:30: A Postponed Judgment?
Other Biblical Examples of Deferred Punishment
2 Kings 10:29-31 Viewed in the Light of Exodus 20:3-5
"Jezreel" Elsewhere in Hosea
"The Blood of Jezreel" as a Massacre Reference
The Sins of Jeroboam
In his 2006 "Solution to the Jehu Problem," Leonard Jayawardena published a "solution" to the inconsistency in 2 Kings 10:30, which praised Jehu for having massacred the royal family of Israel at Jezreel, and Hosea 1:4, which pronounced a judgment of condemnation on the house of Jehu for "the blood of Jezreel." Readers of The Skeptical Review know that in 2004, Jayawardena was singing the praises of an entirely different "solution" to this discrepancy which he believed he had discovered all by himself. This was the beginning of a debate between Jayawardena and myself on the Jehu "solution," in which Jayawardena was then hawking an unbridled confidence that he had figured out why there was no discrepancy in the views of Hosea and the author of 2 Kings on Jehu's massacre at Jezreel. To demonstrate that Jayawardena switched horses in midstream, I will begin my rebuttal of his latest "solution" by quoting from the first debate his summation of what he then considered the right explanation of the problem. His "solution" then was radically different from the one he is presently extolling:
The solution to this apparent contradiction consists mainly of a proper analysis and interpretation of two key verses involved: 2 Kings 9:6-10 and 2 Kings 10:30. These two verses should be examined to determine the following:
1. Is 2 Kings 9:6-10, as it might first appear in the English translations, a command to Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab so that God could avenge the innocent blood shed by Jezebel? If so, it is difficult (at least for me) to see how there cannot be a contradiction as alleged. For if Jehu was simply carrying out a divine command delivered through a prophet of God, how could then he be faulted later (Hosea 1:4) for carrying out that command?
It will be shown that the message delivered to Jehu by a prophet was most definitely not a command but simply a statement of the will of God concerning certain future events comparable to the prophecy given by the prophet Elisha to the Syrian king Hazael in the previous chapter (2 Kings 8:10-12).
2. What is the actual nature of the prophecy given to Jehu in 2 Kings 10:30? Is it, as it might first appear, a prophecy simply commending and rewarding Jehu for the destruction of the house of Ahab, or, as I understand it, actually a prophecy postponing the judgement to which Jehu was liable in "recognition" of the "redeeming feature" of his otherwise barbaric deeds in being the executor of the judgement of God upon the house of Ahab? It will be shown that Exodus 20:3-5 is the key that unlocks 2 Kings 10:30.
I hope to expand on the above in a series of exchanges with Farrell Till in the debate that starts today, beginning with the point numbered (1) above.
Those who read all of my first debate with Jayawardena will see that he vigorously tried to defend the position that Yahweh did not give Jehu a command in 2 Kings 9:6-10 to destroy the house of Ahab but had merely "prophesied" through the "son of the prophets" sent to anoint Jehu king that he would destroy the house of Ahab. In other words, Jayawardena was arguing that Yahweh didn't command Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab but was simply stating what he knew, by divine foresight, that Jehu would do, and so Yahweh can't be faulted for having known what was in Jehu's future. Those who go through all of the lengthy exchanges in that debate will see that Jayawardena, finding it impossible to defend his original "solution," dropped out of the debate. Now we will see that he is back again with another "solution," which he seems to be just as cocksure of as he was of the other one when our debate began. We have to wonder, then, if he is just playing a familiar game that we see over and over again in the forensic arenas of biblical errancy: If a "solution" proposed to "explain" a biblical discrepancy fails, the proponents of it will go back to the drawing board and then come back later with a different one.
At any rate, as I go through Mr. Jayawardena's "solution" à la 2006, I hope readers will take notice of just how very different his present position is from his former one. Since he was just as sure in 2004 that he had solved the Jehu discrepancy, how does he know that his latest "solution" isn't wrong too? I will be working to show readers that it is indeed just as flawed as his former one.
I have no substantive disagreement with Jayawardena's summation of the problem:
It is alleged that that there is a contradiction between 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 because the former commends Jehu for massacring the house of Ahab, whereas the latter pronounces judgment upon the house of Jehu for the "blood of Jezreel." Taking the latter as a reference to the members of the house of Ahab killed by Jehu in Jezreel (as recorded in 2 Kings 9-10) results in the alleged contradiction.
In the following discussion, however, Jayawardena was a bit deceptive, as the brief article that he refers to here is not even close to all that I have written on the Jehu issue:
In his short article entitled "A Perfect Work of Harmony?" Farrell Till, editor of The Skeptical Review magazine, asks the question, "Why would Yahweh want to punish the house of Jehu for what was done at Jezreel if all Jehu had done there was 'that which is right in mine [Yahweh's] eyes'?" and concludes his article thus: "Perhaps some enterprising inerrantist can explain this to us." Here I offer to the readers a solution to this problem which, I believe, should remove it from the lists of Bible contradictions for good.
He well knows about our debate on his 2004 "solution." There are 318K in that debate. I also debated Robert Turkel extensively on this issue, and my exchanges with him, which begin here, contain another 799K. To expose a falsity in Turkel's claim that his view of the Jehu problem was shared by "commentators of all stripes," I also published two follow-up articles to the debate with Turkel on this issue: "Commentators of all Stripes" and "The Zigzagging Stripes of Bobby Turkel." There are 412K in these two articles. In addition to all of these articles and debates on the Jehu issue, I published in The Skeptical Review, "The Jehu Solution" by Tim Simmons and "The Jehu Failure," which was my reply to Simmons. All of this material amounts to much more than the lone brief article that Jayawardena mentioned in the introduction of his latest "solution."
I am glad that Jayawardena has enough integrity to admit that the Bible is not inerrant:
This article, however, should not be taken as a defense of inerrancy, for I am not an inerrantist. The true biblical doctrine of divine inspiration of the Scriptures (as taught by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16-17) does not require, and the authority of the Bible does not depend on, inerrancy. Inerrancy is an invention of theologians. No intellectually honest reader of the Bible can deny the existence of numerous biblical discrepancies; but such discrepancies or errors demonstrably involve only inconsequential matters and do not undermine the basis of Christian salvation. A detailed explanation of these matters must await further articles.
But I have to wonder why, if he really believes this, he has spent so much time trying to prove that there is no error or discrepancy in the Jehu matter. Also, I fail to see anything in his proof text that would prove his claim that "[t]he true biblical doctrine of divine inspiration of the Scriptures (as taught by Paul...)" would not require inerrancy. The text he cited has Paul claiming that "[a]ll scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." The word translated inspired here was θεοπνευστος [theopneustos], which meant "God-breathed"; hence, Paul was claiming that what was in the "scriptures" had been breathed into them by "God." Perhaps, then, Jayawardena would like to explain to us how the "God-breathed" contents of so-called scriptures could contain mistakes. Did "God" breathe those mistakes into them? If so, why?
I don't intend to spend a lot of time on the inspiration issue, except to note that Jayawardena's view that the Bible is errant but still in some way the "inspired" word of God is nothing new to me. I have encountered it before, but I have yet to find any adherent of this belief who could logically explain how he/she is able to determine truth from falsity in an errant Bible. Perhaps Jayawardena will be able to break new ground for us and explain how he has been able to distinguish the biblical passages that are true from those that contain errors.
Jayawardena must surely have discovered some method by which biblical errantists who think that the errant Bible is nevertheless the "word of God" can determine truth from falsity in it, because he parroted a familiar refrain often sung by those of this persuasion when he said that "such discrepancies or errors [in the Bible] demonstrably involve only inconsequential matters and do not undermine the basis of Christian salvation." I would be interested to know (1) just how he has determined this and (2) how he is able to distinguish "inconsequential" errors in the Bible from the consequential matters, which he apparently believes are always inerrant. If what he is claiming here is true, then it must be that in the writing of the Bible, "God" must have protected its authors from making "consequential" errors but left them free to err when they were writing about "inconsequential matters." Perhaps he can explain to us why "God" would have done this. If he protected biblical writers when they were reporting "consequential matters" so that those parts of the Bible would be inerrant, why didn't he just go all the way and extend his divine protection when they were reporting "inconsequential matters"?
In a three-part series on the traditional doctrine of biblical inerrancy, which begins here, I showed that the claim that an omniscient, omnipotent deity "inspired" or "breathed into" the Bible the information it contains would logically require a belief that it is inerrant in its entirety. I invite Jayawardena to read those articles and then show us that the "God-breathed" information in the Bible could contain errors and still be the "God-breathed" word of an omniscient, omnipotent deity, and with that challenge, I will proceed now to show, point by point, that Jayawardena's latest "solution" to the Jehu problem is just as flawed as his former one.
Jayawardena's summary of his solution to the Jehu problem is "simply that there is no contradiction between 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 because "the blood of Jezreel" is not a reference to those killed by Jehu in Jezreel." We will soon see that Jayawardena has made a claim here that he cannot prove, just as he was unable in our first debate to prove that Yahweh had not commanded Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab but had only "prophesied" that he would. As I go through Jayawardena's article, I hope readers will notice that he has filled it with unsubstantiated assertions, one of which is the one that he just made. I will let readers see his attempt to prove the assertion above before I show that it is indefensible.
According to Jayawardena, "the blood of Jezreel" does not refer to Jehu's victims in Jezreel because "such an interpretation does not fit the context of this phrase. Rather, Hosea 1:4-5 pronounces judgment against both the house of Jehu and the house of Israel for idolatry." It is time to look at Hosea 1:4 in its broader context so that readers will be familiar with what Hosea said in the passage that Jayawardena tries to explain away throughout his latest "solution" of the problem posed by verse 4:
Hosea 1:1-5: The word of Yahweh that came to Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel. 2 When Yahweh first spoke through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking Yahweh." 3 So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 4 And Yahweh said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
I will be explicating this passage in more detail as I go through Jayawardena's "solution," so here I will focus only on noting that the face-value meaning of the language in this text indicates that Yahweh intended to punish the house of Jehu because of the blood that he had shed in Jezreel. A simple way to do this is by quoting various translations of verse 4, which all convey the idea of punishing the house of Jehu. As you read the different versions quoted below, keep in mind that Jayawardena claimed above that "the blood of Jezreel" is not a reference to those killed by Jehu in Jezreel:
KJV: And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
NKJV: Then the LORD said to him: "Call his name Jezreel, For in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel."
ASV: And Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.
NASV: And the LORD said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
RSV: And the LORD said to him, "Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel."
NIV: Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.
REB: "The LORD said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel, for in a little while I am going to punish the dynasty of Jehu for the blood shed in the valley of Jezreel, and bring the kingdom of Israel to an end."
NAB: Then the LORD said to him: Give him the name Jezreel, for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed at Jezreel and bring to an end the kingdom of the house of Israel.
JB: "Name him Jezreel," Yahweh told him, "for it will not be long before I make the House of Jehu pay for the bloodshed at Jezreel and I put an end to the sovereignty of the House of Israel.
GNB: [T]he LORD said to Hosea, "Name him 'Jezreel,' because it will not be long before I punish the king of Israel for the murders that his ancestor Jehu committed at Jezreel. I am going to put an end to Jehu's dynasty."
NWT: And Jehovah went on to say to him: "Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while and I must hold an accounting for the acts of bloodshed of Jezreel against the house of Jehu, and I must cause the royal rule of the house of Israel to cease."
NCV: The LORD said to Hosea, "Name him Jezreel. This is because soon I will punish the family of Jehu for the people they killed at Jezreel. Then I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel."
CEV: Then the LORD said, "Hosea, name your son Jezreel, because I will soon punish the descendants of King Jehu of Israel for the murders he committed in Jezreel Valley."
LAMSA'S (Peshitta): And the LORD said to him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
MOFFATT'S: "Call him Jezreel," said the Eternal, "for it will not be long before I avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu and put an end to the kingdom of Israel."
REVISED BERKELEY: "Call his name Jezreel," the LORD told him, "for after a little time now, I will punish the house of Jehu because of the blood of Jezreel, and put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel."
WEB: Yahweh said to him, "Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.
BBE: And the Lord said to him, Give him the name of Jezreel, for after a little time I will send punishment for the blood of Jezreel on the line of Jehu, and put an end to the kingdom of Israel.
DARBY: And Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jizreel; for yet a little, and I will visit the blood of Jizreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.
WBS: And the LORD said to him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY: And the LORD said unto him: 'Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
HENDRICKSON'S INTERLINEAR: And said Jehovah to him, Call his name Jezreel for yet a little [while] and I will visit the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and will make cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.
HENDRICKSON'S MARGINAL: And Jehovah said to him, Call his name God Will Sow, for yet in a little while I will visit the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.
YOUNG'S LITERAL: and Jehovah saith unto him, 'Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little, and I have charged the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and have caused to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel;
All twenty-four of these translations
Jayawardena writes:
Gomer's first son is symbolically named Jezreel (meaning "God sows") to signify that God will end the kingdom of Israel by Assyria and scatter (or "sow") the Israelites among the heathen nations, as a token of which he will break Israel's military power in the valley of Jezreel.
(After I had completed a reply to this section of Jayawardena's article, he sent me a notice that he had again changed his position. Readers can go here to see how his revisions differ from what he said in the first version of his article.)
Gomer was the woman whom Hosea married when Yahweh told him to "take a wife of whoredom," so, as some scholars think, she was probably a cultic priestess or at least a prostitute. If so, she was likely dedicated to Baal, a Canaanite god associated with, among other things, fertility, because Hosea made two references to the Israelite worship of Baal (2:8; 13:1) and additional references to Baal worship in its plural form (2:13,17). It could be, then, that Yahweh's command to name Hosea's son Jezreel was intended as a gesture of recognition that God and not Baal "sows" the seeds of fertility that caused the birth of Hosea's son. In the first verse cited above, Yahweh had said that he had given the wine, grain, oil, silver, and gold that the symbolic mother of Israel had given to Baal (2:8). At any rate, the name Jezreel, given to Gomer's son, was clearly intended to recall "the blood of Jezreel" for which Yahweh intended to punish the house of Jehu, because the prophet said that the house of Jehu would be punished for the blood of Jezreel. It would stretch imagination beyond reasonable limits to think that Jehu committed a famous massacre at Jezreel but that Hosea's statement that the "house of Jehu" was going to be punished "for the blood of Jezreel" did not refer to the blood that Jehu had shed at Jezreel but rather to the "children of Israel" who had been killed during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty, as Jayawardena will soon claim below. To see this more clearly, let's imagine that a person named James Smith has been indicted for multiple murders at a town called Clarkville. If Jayawardena should read a newspaper report that said that the trial of Smith had ended with his being condemned to death "for the murders in Clarkville," I doubt that Jayawardena would have any difficulty understanding that "the murders in Clarkville" referred to the murders that Smith had been accused of committing. I seriously doubt that Jayawardena would think it possible that Smith had been condemned to die for bank robbery or jaywalking or any other offense except the one called to mind by the phrase "murders in Clarkville." As I continue through Jayawardena's latest "solution" to the Jehu problem, I intend to show that the word blood was used idiomatically in Hebrew to mean murder or killing, so the name Jezreel in Hosea 1:4, used in reference to the "blood" of Jezreel, was clearly associated with the murders that Jehu had committed in the valley of Jezreel. No other interpretation makes any sense.
I said "valley of Jezreel" here, rather than just Jezreel, for reasons that will soon be explained. Jayawardena writes:
In this solution, "Jezreel" in "the blood of Jezreel" refers to the children of Israel as it clearly does in Hosea 1:4a, 1:11, and 2:22, and "blood" refers to the blood of the children of Israel shed by their enemies (in particular the Syrians) during the Jehu dynasty as a result of their idolatry.
If Jayawardena should read an article like my hypothetical newspaper report of "the murders in Clarkville," would he think that "Clarkville" referred to the people in the state where Clarkville was located and that murders referred to the murders of people in the state who had been killed by others beside James Smith? Like most biblicists trying to hawk "solutions" to biblical discrepancies, Jayawardena simply made an arbitrary assertion about the meaning of the passage in dispute and cited his "proof texts" without quoting them. I suspect that this is done so frequently by would-be apologists because they know that quoting the texts would show enough context to enable at least some readers to see that they don't support what is being claimed. As we will now see, that is the case with Jayawardena's "proof texts" cited above. As we look at them, keep in mind that his unsupported assertion is that "Jezreel" in "the blood of Jezreel" referred to the children of Israel, whose blood had been "shred by their enemies... during the Jehu dynasty." If this is the case, there should be some kind of contextual evidence in his "proof texts" that he could cite in support of this claim, but we see nothing in his article except the bald assertion restated above. As I discuss his "proof texts," I will quote their broader contexts. In the first scripture quotation, notice in particular the last verse, which I will emphasize in bold print:
Hosea 1:8-11: 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.
After Solomon's death around 930 BC, the Israelite kingdom, which had been unified into one nation by David, broke into two divisions, the northern kingdom [Israel] and the southern kingdom [Judah], but as I will discuss more in detail later, the last verse quoted above predicted a reunification of Judah and Israel into one nation. Before I elaborate on this prophecy, which obviously failed, I want to establish first the dating of Hosea's prophecies, because this information will be relevant to issues coming up later in my reply to Jayawardena's "solution" of the Jehu problem. In the body of his article, Jayawardena made reference to some of the same historical information that I will mention, so when we get to that part of his solution, I refer readers back to this section of my article if such should be necessary to rebut any of his points that relate to this period of Israel's history.
Hosea claimed that his prophetic ministry spanned the reigns of the Judean kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (1:1). In dating his prophecies, however, Hosea mentioned in this verse only Jeroboam, the son of Joash, as a king who reigned in the northern kingdom when "the word of Yahweh" came to him. This Jeroboam was the third-generation son of the four generations of Jehu's sons whom Yahweh had promised him would reign in Israel as a reward for Jehu's having destroyed the house of Ahab (2 Kings 10:30). Uzziah of Judah's reign ended around 742 BC and Hezekiah's ended in 687 BC, which latter date would have been after the northern kingdom's conquest by Assyria in 722 BC (2 Kings 17). Since Hosea made no reference to this conquest and mentioned here only Jeroboam II's reign in dating his ministry, with no reference at all to Jeroboam's son Zechariah, whom Shallum assassinated in 746 BC, ostensibly in fulfillment of the prophecy that Jehu's descendants would reign in Israel for four generations (2 Kings 15:8-12), we can reasonably conclude that Hosea's prophecies were written before the conquest of the northern kingdom and also before the assassination of Zechariah. This is a rather obvious conclusion in view of Hosea's prophecy in 1:4 that Yahweh would "in a little while... avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu." Had Zechariah already been assassinated, the prophet would surely have referred to the end of the house of Jehu as a fait accompli rather than an event still in the future at that time.
Because 2 Kings comes before Hosea in the arrangement of books in the Bible, some think that the Kings writer praised Jehu for massacring the royal family of Israel and then later the prophet Hosea condemned it, but actually Hosea condemned the massacre at least a century and a half before the Kings writer praised it. This is a logical conclusion reached from the closing content of 2 Kings, which recorded Nebuchadnezzar's second sacking of Jerusalem in 587 BC (2 Kings 25:8-12). Obviously, this book could not have been completed before the date of the final events that it recorded. As I will notice later, it should not be surprising to Jayawardena that two biblical writers, separated in time by 150± years, when there were no libraries or Internet files to consult for historical information, would have taken opposite positions on an event like the massacre at Jezreel. This, of course, doesn't mean that Jayawardena's latest position on the Jezreel massacre is automatically incorrect, but when I show through explication of the appropriate biblical passages that he probably is wrong again, his recognition of biblical errancy, admitted earlier, should ease his pain of having to abandon another "explanation" of biblical discrepancy. He can always find comfort in rationalizing that the inconsistency in the opinions of Hosea and the Kings writer in the matter of the massacre at Jezreel was just another one of those errors that biblical writers sometimes made in "inconsequential matters."
Now before I analyze his second passage in Hosea cited above as "proof" that the "blood of Jezreel," in Hosea 1:4 referred to "the blood of the children of Israel shed by their enemies (in particular the Syrians) during the Jehu dynasty," readers should notice that in 1:11, Hosea predicted that Judah and Israel would be gathered together into one nation again under one head [ruler], a prediction that he ended by saying, "[F]or great shall be the day of Jezreel." Since Hosea said in 1:4-5 that Yahweh would (1) punish the house of Jehu "for the blood of Jezreel" and (2) put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel by "break[ing] the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel," a more sensible interpretation of the word Jezreel, as the prophet used it in verse 11 where he spoke of the greatness of the "day of Jezreel," would be that he meant it to symbolize circumstances that would bring about the new unified nation that would arise after Yahweh had punished the house of Jehu and put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel "in the valley of Jezreel." To see those circumstances as the purging of both Israel's guilt for Jehu's massacres at Jezreel and the people's personal guilt for various "sins" that will be identified and discussed as we go along is perfectly sensible
Hosea 2:1-6: Say to your brother, Ammi, and to your sister, Ruhamah, 2 Plead with your mother, plead
Ammi and Ruhamah were the second and third children born to Hosea's "wife of whoredom," after Jezreel, in chapter one. Ammi meant "you are not my people" and Ruhamah meant "has not obtained mercy." Gomer, their mother, was Hosea's "wife of whoredom," who symbolized Israel, which Hosea thought had become an unfaithful "wife" to Yahweh. Hosea, however, foresaw a reformation in which Israel would turn from its "unfaithfulness" to Yahweh and would become unified again with Judah, so in the verses that follow, he led his readers up to the time of this reformation. The passage continues:
Hosea 2:7-13: She shall pursue her lovers, but not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then she shall say, "I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now." 8 She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal. 9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season; and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness. 10 Now I will uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. 11 I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals. 12 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, "These are my pay, which my lovers have given me." I will make them a forest, and the wild animals shall devour them. 13 I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals, when she offered incense to them and decked herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says Yahweh.
Through the predicted punishment of the house of Jehu and putting an end to the house of Israel by breaking its bow in the valley of Jezreel, Yahweh would put an end to all of the mirth of his unfaithful wife Israel and thereby punish her for having participated in "the festival days of the Baals." At that time, the stage would be set for the reformation and formation of a unified nation of Israel and Judah, which the following verses predicted:
Hosea 2:14-23: Therefore, I will now allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. 15 From there I will give her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. 16 On that day, says Yahweh, you will call me, "My husband," and no longer will you call me, "My Baal." 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. 18 I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh. 21 On that day I will answer, says Yahweh, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth; 22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; 23 and I will sow him for myself in the land. And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, "You are my people"; and he shall say, "You are my God."
After all of these reforms and the blessings that Yahweh would bring upon his reclaimed wife, "[T]hey shall answer Jezreel." Yahweh would then have pity on Lo-ruhamah and would say to Lo-ammi, "You are my people." When we look at the broader context of Jayawardena's last "proof text," we see that Hosea was using here the word Jezreel to symbolize conditions that would make possible the reunification of Judah and Israel, which Hosea obviously thought would then enjoy a permanent state of Utopia forever. To say, as Jayawardena did, that Hosea had used the word to mean the "blood of the children of Israel" who had been killed during the reign of the Jehu dynasty is an arbitrary interpretation that has no textual support. My explications of the texts cited above by Jayawardena show that Hosea's primary concern was the spiritual unfaithfulness of Yahweh's wife Israel, which had occurred through Baal worship. Those who take the time to read the entire book will see a repeated emphasis on Israel's devotion to Baal but nothing to indicate that Hosea was upset over "the blood of the children of Israel" who had been killed during the Jehu dynasty. If there is any textual evidence that this was Hosea's primary concern, Jayawardena should quote and explicate it.
In his summary of his solution, Jayawardena writes:
This "blood" is avenged upon the house of Jehu because they continued and promoted the cult of calf worship introduced by Jeroboam (and so "made Israel to sin"), which was the chief cause of divine judgment on the northern kingdom by enemy nations such as Syria.
The text in dispute contained two prophecies: (1) Yahweh would punish the house of Jehu "for the blood of Jezreel." (2) Yahweh would put an end to the house of Israel. A quick look again at the text will confirm this double prophecy:
Hosea 1:4 And Yahweh said to him [Hosea], "Name him Jezreel; for in a little while [1] I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and [2] I will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.
If Hosea meant what Jayawardena is claiming, then the prophet could have used a few lessons in how to write with clarity, because the adverbial phrase "for the blood of Jezreel" is positioned to give the impression that it modified punish and not both punish and cause. If Hosea had meant that Yahweh would both punish the house of Jehu and cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease, and that he would do both because of the blood of Jezreel, he should have positioned the disputed phrase where it would clearly indicate that it modified both predictions. The following rewording would communicate the meaning that Jayawardena is claiming for Hosea 1:4:
And Yahweh said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for because of the blood of Jezreel, in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu and cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to end.
Now there is no doubt that "the blood of Jezreel" was the reason for both predictions of punishment in this rewritten version of the verse, but as the phrase was actually placed in the verse, it leaves the definite impression that the blood of Jezreel was the reason only for the predicted punishment of the house of Jehu. The rest of the book of Hosea focused primarily on Baal worship in Israel, which would be Hosea's reason for Yahweh's causing the house of Israel to cease so that Yahweh could replace it with a nation in which both Judah and Israel would be reunified and worship him.
Jayawardena writes:
Starting from Jeroboam, all the kings of Israel were, in addition to being culpable for their own idolatry, responsible for the blood of the people of Israel in leading them in idolatry
The Bible was written in a time when people superstitiously believed that the gods controlled almost every event in human lives. In times of prosperity and good fortune, the people thought that their gods were pleased with them. In times of misfortune and calamity, they thought that they had displeased their gods. In the inscription on the Moabite Stone, for example, king Mesha of Moab said that Omri, the king of Israel, had "oppressed Moab many days, because Chemosh was angry with his land." This same belief was reflected many times in the Bible.
The author or authors of Judges repeatedly attributed adversity and oppression by other nations to the failure of the people to please their god Yahweh:
Judges 2:11-14: Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh and worshiped the Baals; 12 and they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger. 13 They abandoned Yahweh, and worshiped Baal and the Astartes. 14 So the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the power of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.
Judges 3:7-8: The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, forgetting Yahweh their God, and worshiping the Baals and the Asherahs. 8 Therefore the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of King Cushan-rishathaim of Aram-naharaim; and the Israelites served Cushan-rishathaim eight years.
Judges 3:12-14 The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh; and Yahweh strengthened King Eglon of Moab against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of Yahweh. 13 In alliance with the Ammonites and the Amalekites, he went and defeated Israel; and they took possession of the city of palms. 14 So the Israelites served King Eglon of Moab eighteen years.
This was a recurring theme in the book of Judges. The people would do evil in the sight of Yahweh, and then some kind of adversity would follow. Eventually, the adversity, usually some kind of foreign oppression, would end, and change of fortune would immediately be attributed to their having "cried out to Yahweh" (Judges 3:9,15). Such accounts merely reflected a belief of the times, because the people then thought that their gods were involved in every event in their lives. When disasters and calamities happened, such as defeats in battles or conquests by invading armies, they reasoned that they had done something that displeased their gods. This kind of thinking was an excellent example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc [after this, therefore because of this] fallacy, which has no doubt resulted in many silly superstitions, such as beliefs that breaking mirrors or walking under ladders will cause bad luck. After occasions of tragedy it was always easy to find something considered wrong by contemporary societal standards, so it was common in those days to blame famines, oppression, or conquests, or whatever on actions believed to have angered the gods.
That was no doubt the case in Jayawardena's "proof text" cited above. 1 Kings 14:14-16 does say that Yahweh would cut off the house of Jeroboam and "give up Israel" because of the sins of Jeroboam, but readers should keep in mind that the book in which this condemnation appears was, as I pointed out above, written well after the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 722 BC. The question of why Yahweh would have allowed this to happen to his "chosen people" was a bothersome question that demanded an explanation, and the author of the books of Kings had one: It happened because of the sins of Jeroboam. It would never have occurred to the writer that it had happened because, as a modern English idiom says, "shit happens." No, if it happened, there had to have been a reason, so Jeroboam was made the scapegoat, even though he had reigned and died of apparently natural causes (1 Kings 14:19-20) in 901 BC, 179 years before the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 722 BC. Yahweh certainly took his good sweet time getting around to "cutting off" the house of Israel for the sins of Jeroboam, didn't he?
I trust that I was not the only one to notice how Jayawardena was trying to play both sides of the street. Earlier, he had said that "the blood of Jezreel" was the deaths of the children of Israel who had died under the reigns of the Jehu dynasty and that it was because of those deaths that "God" was going to put an end to the house of Israel, but then he turned around and cited a "proof text" that says that Yahweh would "cut off" Israel because of the sins of Jeroboam. Let's look at a full quotation of what Jayawardena's "proof text" says:
1 Kings 14:14-16: Moreover Yahweh will raise up for himself a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam today, even right now! 15 "Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; he will root up Israel out of this good land that he gave to their ancestors, and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their sacred poles, provoking Yahweh to anger. 16 He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and which he caused Israel to commit."
This passage is rather easy to understand. It put an after-the-fact blame on Jeroboam for the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom and the deportation of its people to regions beyond the Euphrates. Jayawardena, then, needs to make up his mind. Did Yahweh destroy the northern kingdom and send its population into captivity because of the sins of Jeroboam or did he do it because of the blood of the children of Israel who had been killed during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty? He can't have it both ways.
Sensible readers, of course, will realize that the author of Kings was simply interpreting events in accordance with his religious beliefs. A national calamity had happened, and someone had to be responsible for it. He made Jeroboam the scapegoat. Later on, in 2 Kings, he made king Manasseh the scapegoat for the Babylonian conquest of Judah and the subsequent captivity of its population (2 Kings 23:26-27; 2 Kings 24:3-4). This was just the way that superstitious people living in superstitious times thought, but if the Kings writer was correct in saying that Yahweh would destroy the northern kingdom because of the sins of Jeroboam, then Jayawardena's claim that Hosea prophesied the destruction of the northern kingdom because of the sins of the Jehu dynasty can't also be right. Jayawardena contends:
Because he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, i.e., calf worship, Jehu had been warned of divine judgment against his house, the execution of which was postponed to the fourth generation in consideration of the fact that he served God in the matter of the destruction of the house of Ahab (2 Kings 10:29-31).
Well, here is a question for Jayawardena. If Jehu had departed from the sins of Jeroboam, would Yahweh have spared and protected the kingdom of Israel? If so, then the prophecy in 1 Kings 14:14-16, quoted above, would have failed, because this prophecy said that Yahweh would "cut off" Israel because of Jeroboam's sins. Which way, then, does Jayawardena want it? Did Yahweh cause the kingdom of Israel to end because of the sins of Jeroboam or because of the sins of the house of Jehu? He can't have it both ways.
Jayawardena explains his solution as follows:
The solution to the problem lies in a correct interpretation of Hosea 1:4-5 and, in particular, the phrase "the blood of Jezreel." As mentioned above, the contradiction results from taking this phrase as a reference to those killed by Jehu in Jezreel. Unfortunately, most apologists have also tried to reconcile the two verses on that basis.
Of course they have. Why wouldn't readers of Hosea 1:4-5 think that the phrase "the blood of Jezreel" referred to people who had been killed in Jezreel? Could it be that those "most apologists" that Jayawardena referred to have tried to reconcile the two verses "on that basis" because they are intellectually honest enough to recognize that there is no other sensible interpretation of the "blood of Jezreel" than that it was a reference to Jehu's massacre of the royal family of Israel at Jezreel?
Next Jayawardena goes on to consider "a very simple and basic objection" to his interpretation:
But before I start discussing the meaning of the phrase "the blood of Jezreel," I would like to state what appears to be a very simple and basic objection to this phrase being a reference to the blood spilt by Jehu in Jezreel. A list of all those of the house of Ahab killed by Jehu according to 2 Kings 9-10 is given below:
If Hosea is pronouncing judgment upon the house of Jehu for any killings carried out by him during his reign, then it is for destroying the house of Ahab, to which 1-7 above relate. The reader will note, however, that out of the seven, only 1, 3, and 5 involve blood-spilling in Jezreel. The number of Jehu's victims of the house of Ahab outside of Jezreel at least equals
Even though he later indicated an awareness of it, Jayawardena has completely ignored here that there were three Jezreels: one was a city that became the royal capital of the kings of Israel, another one was a valley (Joshua 17:16; Judges 6:33) in which the royal city of the northern kings was later located, and the third one was a city located in the territory of Judah (Joshua 15:56), where David's wife Ahinoam was born (1 Samuel 25:43). Not only is it unlikely that Hosea 1:4 was referring to this third Jezreel, but it is certain that he was including the valley of Jezreel in his prophecy against the house of Jehu:
Hosea 1:4-5: And Yahweh said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
In other words, Hosea was predicting that when Yahweh put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel it would be done by events that could be called "break[ing] the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." When Jayawardena's list of seven is analyzed, one can see that all of those murders can be attributed either to Jezreel or the valley of Jezreel. Jayawardena excluded from "the blood of Jezreel" the murder of king Ahaziah of Judah, who was visiting his uncle Joram of Israel at the time, because Jehu's archers wounded him at the descent of Gur, and he later died at Megiddo, but the descent of Gur is located by Ibleam (2 Kings 9:27), which is on the western side of the valley of Jezreel. Megiddo itself, as biblical reference maps and books like Eerdmans Bible Dictionary will confirm, is located "on the edge of the slope of the Mt. Carmel ridge, on the edge of the Jezreel valley" (1987, p. 706). Hence, there is no reason to exclude Ahaziah from the blood that was shed at Jezreel.
Jayawardena also excluded the 42 relatives of Ahaziah who were massacred at Beth-eked, but the location of this place is uncertain. Since these kinsmen of Ahaziah were on their way to Jezreel to visit Ahaziah, there is no way that he can state with certitude that their murders did not happen in the valley of Jezreel. The fact that Jehu met them and ordered their death while he was on the way to Samaria (2 Kings 10:12) and that after he had resumed his journey to Samaria, he met Jehonadad and invited him to ride in the chariot on to Samaria would imply that Jehu was still some distance from Samaria when he encountered Ahaziah's kinsmen. The parallel account of Ahaziah's assassination indicates that these kinsmen were indeed somewhere in the valley of Jezreel:
2 Chronicles 22:8-9: When Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he met the officials of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers, who attended Ahaziah, and he killed them. 9 He searched for Ahaziah, who was captured while hiding in Samaria and was brought to Jehu, and put to death.
As previously noted, the account of the massacre in 2 Kings claims that Jehu's bowmen wounded Ahaziah when he fled the scene after Joram was killed when going out to meet Jehu:
2 Kings 11:23-27: Then Joram reined about and fled, saying to Ahaziah, "Treason, Ahaziah!" 24 Jehu drew his bow with all his strength, and shot Joram between the shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart; and he sank in his chariot. 25 Jehu said to his aide Bidkar, "Lift him out, and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I rode side by side behind his father Ahab how Yahweh uttered this oracle against him: 26 'For the blood of Naboth and for the blood of his children that I saw yesterday, says Yahweh, I swear I will repay you on this very plot of ground.' Now therefore lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground, in accordance with the word of Yahweh." 27 When King Ahaziah of Judah saw this, he fled in the direction of Beth-haggan. Jehu pursued him, saying, "Shoot him also!" And they shot him in the chariot at the ascent to Gur, which is by Ibleam. Then he fled to Megiddo, and died there.
It would not have been possible for Ahaziah to have died both in Megiddo and Samaria, if Samaria in the chronicler's version meant the city of Samaria, but if Samaria here meant the geographical region known as Samaria, then Ahaziah by dying in the city of Megiddon would have also died in the region of Samaria. This would be somewhat like one newspaper account today saying that a person died in Chicago while another account says that he died in Illinois. We know that both would be right. Hence, if Jayawardena wants to reconcile the various biblical texts so that the accounts of the massacre at Jezreel will be inerrant
Jayawardena claims that his numbers 4 [the beheading of Ahab's 70 sons] and 7 [the massacre of "all who remained of Ahab in Samaria"] could not be included in the term "the blood of Jezreel." These are actually the only two examples in his quibble that have any real merit to them, because they all appear to have been killed in Samaria, the city. However, Jehu issued in Jezreel the ultimatum to their guardians to kill the 70 sons of Ahab (2 Kings 10:1-7), and after the guardians of Ahabs sons had obeyed the ultimatum, the heads of Ahab's sons were sent to Jezreel and displayed in two piles at the entrance into the city, so it would be pretty much of a petty quibble to argue that these 70 sons of Ahab could not be included in the term "blood of Jezreel."
As for "all who remained of Ahab" that were killed in Samaria, they were part of a massacre that began at Jezreel and was overseen by Jehu in Jezreel, so there would be no reason to exclude them from the term "blood of Jezreel." There are ample precedents of massacres that took their names from the towns either close to or in the actual killing fields. The infamous My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968, in Vietnam would be a well known example. The massacre began outside the village of My Lai when soldiers from the 1st platoon of Charlie Company encountered peasant farmers outside the village. They were the first victims of the My Lai massacre even though they weren't actually killed in the village. Some of the villagers came out to meet the soldiers, and they were killed too, outside the actual village. From there, the massacre continued in the village, and culminated in the killing of villagers fleeing for their lives across rice paddies, again outside the actual village. Later, in mopping up operations, villagers who were seen coming out of hiding places were also killed. Many of the killings, then, took place outside of the actual village, but no one would consider it improper to refer to those killed in rice paddies and ditches outside of the village as victims of the My Lai massacre. I could cite other examples beside the My Lai massacre, but it is sufficient to show that Jayawardena is simply quibbling when he tries to exclude some of the victims of Jehu's massacre from the term "blood of Jezreel." This is really rather amusing. Jayawardena had no trouble finding "the children of Israel" who had been killed during the Jehu dynasty in the term "blood of Jezreel," but he doesn't think that some of the actual victims of Jehu's massacre that brought him to power should be included in the term:
Therefore, it would be very inaccurate to refer to the massacre of the house of Ahab by Jehu as "the blood of Jezreel."
I just showed that this would be no more inaccurate than referring to Vietnamese peasants who had been killed outside of the village as victims of the My Lai massacre. Jayawardena continues:
If Hosea was condemning the house of Jehu for the destruction of the house of Ahab by Jehu, he could have simply had God say "I will punish the house of Jehu for his destruction of the house of Ahab," which would have been far more accurate.
This would have left room for quibbling about who were members of the house of Ahab at that time. Would those who were not actually blood relatives of Ahab, such as Jehoram's "great men, his familiar friends, and his priests" (2 Kings 10:11), have been included in the term "house of Ahab"? As the tale was told, the victims of the massacre were first named, as in the example just cited, and then identified as a part of those "remaining" to Ahab. Anyway, this is just another part of Jayawardena's quibbling. When someone refers to Lt. William Calley, Jr.'s, conviction for the My Lai massacre, I doubt if anyone hearing this reference would wonder if the crime for which he was convicted included those who were killed near but not actually in My Lai proper. So it is with "the blood of Jezreel"; its meaning would leave little doubt except with someone trying to "explain" a biblical discrepancy.
I can illustrate this with "the blood of Naboth," an expression that was also used in the story of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel. Naboth, a contemporary of Ahab, had owned a vineyard that Ahab wanted, but Naboth refused to sell it to him (1 Kings 21:1-4), so Ahab's wife Jezebel conspired to have Naboth convicted and killed on a trumped up charge of having cursed Yahweh (vs:5-16). The scheme worked, and after Naboth had been stoned to death, Ahab took possession of his vineyard. For the crime against Naboth, however, Yahweh sent the prophet Elijah to tell him that on the very spot where dogs had licked "the blood of Naboth," dogs would also lick his own blood (vs:17-19). With this brief summation of the story in mind, one can easily understand what Jehu, after having killed Joram, meant in the passage below where he referred to "the blood of Naboth":
2 Kings 9:25-26: Jehu said to his aide Bidkar, "Lift him [Joram] out, and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I rode side by side behind his father Ahab how Yahweh uttered this oracle against him: 26 'For the blood of Naboth and for the blood of his children that I saw yesterday, says Yahweh, I swear I will repay you on this very plot of ground.' Now therefore lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground, in accordance with the word of Yahweh."
In reading this, anyone familiar with the murder of Naboth would never scratch his head and wonder what "the blood of Naboth" had meant in the orders that Jehu gave to his aide Bidkar. It obviously referred to the event in which the blood of Naboth was shed. In the same way, there is no sensible interpretation of "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 except to understand that it was referring to the blood that Jehu had shed in the massacre at Jezreel. If not, why not?
Jayawardena writes:
Indeed, "the house of X" is the usual expression used in the Bible when referring to the destruction of the family and relatives of the Hebrew kings (see, for example, 1 Kings 13:34; 15:29; 16:12; 2 Chronicles 21:7; 22:10).
Yes, it was, so what is Jayawardena's point? The issue is not what "the house of so-and-so" meant, but what "the blood of Jezreel" meant. I think that I have pretty well removed all doubt that it referred to the atrocities committed by Jehu at Jezreel. If, for example, the house of Jehu referred to those who were descendants of Jehu, why wouldn't the blood of Jezreel refer to those who were killed at the only massacre known to have been committed by Jehu at Jezreel? Jayawardena adds:
Alternatively, Hosea could have had God say "I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, the ascent of Gur, Samaria, and Beth-eked"!
Likewise, modern reporters could have said that Lt. Calley was convicted for the massacre at My Lai and its nearby rice paddies and ditches, but those familiar with the incident would understand that all of the massacres in that region on that day are covered by the umbrella term "My Lai Massacre." In defense of his interpretation, Jayawardena presents the following analogy:
By analogy, imagine that Al Qaeda had attacked four locations in the U.S., one after another, including the World Trade Center, and all with similar numbers of casualties. How inaccurate and incomprehensible it would have been if the President had appeared on television afterward and said, "The U.S. will punish Al Qaeda for the blood of the World Trade Center!" Why single out one location when American citizens died in all four?
Jayawardena probably couldn't have selected a worse example to try to shore up his quibble. On the same day, that the World Trade Center was attacked, another plane crashed into the Pentagon, and yet another one crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside, probably from efforts by passengers to thwart the plan to hit still a third target. Bush has devised a single term to refer to the terrorist activities of that day. Rather than appealing to the attack on the "World Trade Center," he will use the term "nine-eleven" as a catch-all umbrella term to stir emotional acceptance of whatever policies of his are being questioned. Whenever we hear him or his defenders use the term, we understand what they are referring to. No one hearing the term would think that it referred to, say, the devastation caused by the tsunami of December 26, 2004, in Southern Asia or the hurricane Katrina on the gulf coast, but to assign arbitrary meanings like these to the term "nine-eleven" would be just as ridiculous as Jayawardena's attempt to make "the blood of Jezreel" refer not to the people massacred at Jezreel but to "the children of Israel" who were killed by the Syrians during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty.
At this point, Jayawardena began an attempt to prove his spin on the meaning of the phrase "blood of Jezreel," which I will reply to in part two of my point-by-point response to his 2006 attempt to solve the Jehu problem.
"The Blood of Jezreel" in Context
After a lengthy introduction to his latest position on the "blood of Jezreel" matter, Jayawardena began an expansion of his general introductory comments:
It cannot be overemphasized that scriptures should be interpreted in their proper context. In biblical hermeneutics, the context of a verse is, in order of priority: first, its immediate context, i.e., the verses immediately preceding and following; second, the rest of the book in which the verse is found; and third, the whole Bible.
Jayawardena's comments about literary interpretation standards were sound until he got to his third one. To say that a verse in the Bible must be interpreted within the context of the whole Bible is an indefensible literary principle, because it assumes that everything that the Bible says is true. It is certainly sound to interpret a specific verse by considering what the author said elsewhere in the same book that contains that verse, because it is reasonable to think that the comparison of passages written by the same person would give possible insights into the meanings of the language used by this person; however, despite what is taught in hermeneutic courses, it is not literarily sound to think that what writer B may have said about subject Y would be a reliable way to interpret what writer A had said about subject Y. The principle that Jayawardena is proposing here is a familiar one with biblical inerrantists. It contends that scripture should be allowed to interpret scripture, but it is a fallacious premise based, as I just said, on an assumption that the Bible is inerrant in its entirety. In other words, this let-scripture-interpret-scripture "hermeneutic principle" attempts to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. The "argument" works like this: scripture A says thus and so, but scripture B says something that apparently contradicts A; therefore, one of the scriptures must not mean what it seems to say. Otherwise, there will be a contradiction in the Bible. This whole "argument" is based on the assumption that the Bible is consistent in everything it says, and so writer B could not have contradicted writer A. This assumption is then used to justify the assignment of some figurative or allegorical meaning to one of the texts
This argument is a resort to the fallacy of special pleading, because it accords the Bible interpretative privileges that would not be accorded any other literary forms. If, for example, one should read a story by John Steinbeck in an anthology of American literature and encounter a statement that contradicts something that Ernest Hemingway said on the same subject in one of his stories in the same anthology, the reader would never feel an obligation to engage in verbal gymnastics that would assign some figurative meaning to one of the texts so that what Steinbeck said would agree with what Hemingway said. He would recognize instead that the two books were written by different authors and that different authors will often have conflicting opinions. Even Bible fundamentalists don't think that all of the books of the Bible were written by the same person. They think that some of the Bible was written by Moses, some of it by Joshua, some of it by David, some of it by Solomon, and so on. Whether these books were written by the people to whom authorship has been attributed, it is nevertheless obvious that biblical books were written by different people. Since that is recognizably true, there is every reason to suppose that the writers had different opinions even in theological matters, so it is literarily unsound to argue that one should let a text written by Solomon (presumably) interpret a text written by Moses (presumably) or to let a text written by David (presumably) interpret a text written by the apostle Paul, and so on.
To show just how illogical Jayawardena's position is on this hermeneutic principle, I will remind readers that he took the time in the introduction of his newest "solution" to the Jehu problem to point out that he is not a biblical inerrantist. He went on to say that inerrancy is "an invention of theologians," so I want him to tell us why he thinks that one should let possibly errant scriptures interpret possibly errant scriptures. What if one using this method appeals to an errant passage to let it interpret another passage whose meaning is in dispute? Would that not make his interpretation of the disputed passage questionable? Jayawardena owes us an explanation here. Just how can he be sure that in his appeals to other scriptures in order to interpret Hosea 1:4, he is not appealing to errant passages that contain mistakes that would invalidate his interpretation of Hosea 1:4? How does he even know that Hosea 1:4 itself is not errant? Why isn't it possible that the prophet Hosea and the author of 2 Kings simply had conflicting opinions about the massacre at Jezreel and that one of those opinions is right and the other one wrong? If the Bible is indeed errant, as Jayawardena admits, why would that not be a reasonable hypothesis to consider?
Next Jayawardena appeals to the "context" of "the blood of Jezreel":
In order for us to look at the context of the phrase in question, we need to first look at the background, theme, and message of the book of Hosea.
How can we be sure that when we look at "the background, theme, and message of the book of Hosea," we will not be looking at an erroneous background, an erroneous theme, and an erroneous message? In determining the background or theme or message of the book of Hosea, how can we know that we won't be looking at some passages that contain errors? If, as Jayawardena claims, the Bible does contain errors, how does he know that some of those errors are not in the book of Hosea? As I just asked, how does he even know that Hosea 1:4 itself is not an errant passage? When someone acting in the role of biblical apologist abandons the claim of inerrancy, he puts himself into a rather precarious position when he appeals to other scriptures to explicate the meaning of any given passage, because he has no way of knowing whether he is trying to interpret a possibly errant passage by appealing to another possibly errant part of the Bible.
Jayawardena continues:
Some 200 years before the prophet Hosea's time, the ten tribes had seceded from the united kingdom and set up an independent kingdom under Jeroboam I, with the Golden Calf as its official national god (1 Kings 12).
Although this is true, it does absolutely nothing to prove that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred not to Jehu's massacre of the royal family of Israel at Jezreel but to "the blood of the children of Israel shed by their enemies" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty. What passages can Jayawardena appeal to that would let us know that his interpretation of "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 is correct? In the biblical account of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel, the writer used the term "blood of Naboth" in obvious reference to the murder of the man named Naboth:
2 Kings 9:24-26: Jehu drew his bow with all his strength, and shot Joram between the shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart; and he sank in his chariot. 25 Jehu said to his aide Bidkar, "Lift him out, and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I rode side by side behind his father Ahab how Yahweh uttered this oracle against him: 26 'For the blood of Naboth and for the blood of his children that I saw yesterday, says Yahweh, I swear I will repay you on this very plot of ground.' Now therefore lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground, in accordance with the word of Yahweh."
The story of the conspiracy to kill Naboth so that Ahab could claim his vineyard is related in 1 Kings 21:1-16, so the only sensible interpretation of "the blood of Naboth" in the passage quoted above is that Jehu had used it idiomatically to mean the murder of Naboth. I will, in fact, be showing later that the Hebrew word dâm [blood] was often used to convey the sense of murder, but for now I will just point out the obvious and say that one would have to stretch imagination beyond reasonable limits to argue that Jehu's use of the term "blood of Naboth" meant anything but the murder of Naboth. In the same way, one must stretch imagination, as Jayawardena is now doing, to make "the blood of Jezreel" mean anything except the murders that were committed at Jezreel. The only substantial difference in the two expressions is that the one referred to the person who was murdered while the other referred to the place where the murders occurred. By directly associating those murders [blood] to the house of Jehu, the prophet Hosea conveyed very clearly that he was referring to the murders that Jehu had committed at Jezreel.
If not, why not? Jayawardena writes:
Though there are some references in his book to Judah, Hosea's message was principally for Israel, the northern kingdom.
This is true again, but just how has Jayawardena been able to determine that "Hosea's message" was inerrant? How can he know that at least some of the passages that he relied on to derive this interpretation of Hosea did not contain errors? Furthermore, if we assume the complete inerrancy of everything in the book of Hosea, how does Hosea's direction of his "message... principally for Israel, the northern kingdom" prove Jayawardena's claim that "the blood of Jezreel" in 1:4 referred not to Jehu's massacre of the royal family of Israel at Jezreel but to "the blood of the children of Israel shed by their enemies" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty? That is what Jayawardena must literarily establish, and so far he has said nothing that accomplishes this.
Next Jayawardena defends his interpretation of "the blood of Jezreel" by appealing to a point of dubious relevance:
He lived in the tragic final days of the northern kingdom, during which no less than six kings (following Jeroboam II) reigned within 25 years.
Earlier I analyzed texts in Hosea that suggest the dates of Hosea's prophetic ministry. I pointed out that Hosea made no mention of either the assassination of Zechariah of Israel, which occurred in 746 BC or of the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in 722 BC. The assassination of Zechariah marked the end of the Jehu dynasty (2 Kings 15:10-12), and the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom marked its end as an independent country. Hosea's silence on these two significant events, which would have been exactly what the prophet had predicted in 1:4, indicates that the prophet wrote his book well before "the final days of the northern kingdom," so even though he may have lived at that time, he undoubtedly wrote his prophecies before then. At any rate, I fail to see how Jayawardena can prove anything about the meaning of the phrase "the blood of Jezreel" by pointing out that Hosea may have lived "in the final days of the northern kingdom." Just how would Hosea's having lived at that time prove that he used "the blood of Jezreel" to mean "the blood of the children of Israel shed by their enemies" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty?
Jayawardena continues:
Of these, four were murdered by their successors while in office (Zechariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, and Pekah), and one was captured in battle (Hoshea).
And this does what to prove that the phrase "the blood of Jezreel" referred to the killing of "the children of Israel" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty and not to the people whom Jehu had killed at Jezreel? That is what Jayawardena must establish, but so far he has presented only textual summations that prove nothing at all about the meaning of the blood of Jezreel as Hosea used it.
Again, Jayawardena appeals to irrelevant details:
Only one (Menahem) was succeeded on the throne by his son. It was a time of Assyrian expansion westward, and Menahem accepted this world power as overlord and paid tribute (2 Kings 15:19-20).
I have to ask the same question: What does this do to prove Jayawardena's claim that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred not to the people whom Jehu had killed at Jezreel but to "the blood of the children of Israel shed by their enemies" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty? If the term meant what Jayawardena is claiming, he must establish that meaning by contextual analyses and not through the summarizing of events that happened during the time of Hosea.
Jayawardena continues:
But shortly afterward, in 733 B.C., Israel was dismembered by Assyria because of the intrigue of Pekah, who had usurped Israel's throne by killing Pekahiah, son and successor of Menahem. Following the disloyalty of Hoshea (the last king of Israel) to Assyria, Samaria was captured and its people exiled in 722-721 B.C., thus bringing the northern kingdom to an end.
True again, but how does it prove that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred not to the people whom Jehu had killed at Jezreel but to "the blood of the children of Israel shed by their enemies" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty? As I pointed out earlier, Hosea made no mention of either the assassination of Zechariah of Israel, which occurred in 746 BC or of the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in 722 BC, silences that indicate that Hosea's prophecies were written before the events that Jayawardena summarized above from the history of the northern kingdom as it was reported in 2 Kings. I fail to see, then, how events that happened in the northern kingdom after Hosea's prophecies were written could have any relevance to what he meant by the phrase blood of Jezreel in 1:4, especially since the records of those events in 2 Kings made no references at all to Jezreel. As I have often pointed out to biblical inerrantists who resort to all sorts of speculations to make the Bible not mean what it obviously says, the meanings of words must always be determined by the contexts in which they are used. Even though he disavows belief in biblical inerrancy, this same literary principle would apply also to Jayawardena's interpretative claims, so if this phrase meant what he is claiming, he must find contextual evidence that this was what Hosea meant. Summations of the history of Israel during and after Hosea's time cannot establish the meaning of his language unless those summations contain contextual analyses, and I have yet to find anything remotely resembling contextual analyses in Jayawardena's historical summations. Instead, Jayawardena offers the following:
During the period of Hosea's prophecy, the nation was in a mess. Rejection of the true God and wholesale adoption of idolatrous practices brought about a moral and political landslide.
Well, there is a bit of question begging here. In saying that there had been a "[r]ejection of the true God," Jayawardena has assumed that Yahweh was the "true God," but that is a question that he must prove; he can't just beg it. He also has a bit of the post hoc ergo propter hoc, i.e., after this therefore because of this, fallacy in the statement above. If we assume that the northern kingdom was caught in "a moral and political landslide" in Hosea's time, that would in no way prove that these conditions had been caused by a "rejection of the true god" and "wholesale adoption of idolatrous practices." Periods of social and political advancements and declines have run in cycles throughout history. Nations like Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Greece, etc. experienced throughout their histories periods of advancement and decline. They all, however, practiced what would have been "idolatrous" religions to Jayawardena, so if idolatry is what causes "moral and political landslides," how does Jayawardena explain the advancements that occurred in the countries just mentioned when they were worshiping idols and offering sacrifices to them. Otherwise, I basically agree with what Jayawardena said above. In Hosea's time, there had been extensive rejections of the god Yahweh, and those rejections had obviously disturbed the prophet. That, however, in no way proves that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred not to the people whom Jehu had massacred at Jezreel but to the killing of "the children of Israel" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty. To establish this as the meaning of the phrase, Jayawardena must analyze the context in which the statement was made, but so far, he has said nothing by way of contextual analysis to support his interpretation. He has simply asserted it. I, on the other hand, showed above that the term "blood of Naboth" was used in obvious reference to a person named Naboth (1 Kings 21:1-16), so Jayawardena needs to show us contextual reasons why the term "blood of Jezreel" was not a reference to murders that had been committed at Jezreel. If there were any contextual support for the interpretation he is claiming, Jayawardena would have cited it long ago.
Jayawardena continues:
Internal strife racked the nation with bloody coups being commonplace. Into this mess stepped Hosea and called the nation to repent and return to the true God.
Before I continue analyzing his recap of Israelite history in Hosea's time, I must again point out that he is engaging in question begging by assuming that Yahweh was "the true God." As I pointed out above, even if we assume that Yahweh was the "true God," that would in no way prove that the term "blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 meant what Jayawardena is claiming. He must cite contextual evidence that Hosea used the expression to mean the shedding of the blood of "the children of Israel" during the time of the Jehu dynasty, and so far, he has not done that. He has only asserted that it meant this.
Jayawardena appeals to further irrelevant details:
His message was one of divine judgment for Israel's religious apostasy and moral bankruptcy, mixed with divine love for the nation and promises of its restoration.
Indeed, as I pointed out above. Like other ethnocentric Hebrew prophets, Hosea believed that the god Yahweh would bring about a reformation that would once again unite the northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah) into one nation over which "one head" would rule (1:10-11), but this does what to prove that Hosea used the term "blood of Jezreel" in the sense that Jayawardena is claiming? Furthermore, Jayawardena seems not all bothered by the failure of Hosea's prophecy that the northern and southern kingdoms would once again be unified under "one head." Perhaps he considers this prophecy failure one of the cases of errancy in the Bible.
Again Jayawardena provides a summation of Israelite history when contextual analysis is what is called for:
Eventually, Hosea predicted the fall of Israel to Assyria and said that "the thing itself [the golden calf] shall be carried to Assyria" (10:5-6).
Obviously, Hosea was opposed to the practice of worshiping the golden calves, which was apparently widespread in his time, but I fail to see how his opposition to the practice would prove that he had used the blood of Jezreel in 1:4 to mean the killing of "the children of Israel" during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty and not to the murders committed by Jehu in his usurpation of power by massacring the royal family of Israel. Jayawardena's continual summations of Israelite history do nothing to establish that the phrase "blood of Jezreel" meant what he claims. He must establish that through contextual analysis, and so far his article has shown no interest in contextual analysis.
Jayawardena returns to the text:
With the above in mind, let us now look at Hosea 1:4-5, quoted below:
And the Lord said unto him [Hosea], Call his name Jezre-el; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood [or bloodshed] of Jezre-el upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Isra-el. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Isra-el in the valley of Jezre-el. (KJV)
Keep in mind what I said earlier: Hosea 1:4 obviously prophesied two different events that Yahweh would bring about: (1) the destruction of the house of Jehu and (2) the destruction of the nation of Israel. For the convenience of readers, I will quote the most relevant part of my earlier discussion in the box below:
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A simple illustration will show that two punishments were obviously made in the disputed text. If modern candidates running for congressional offices later this year should promise that if they are elected they will (1) punish by impeachment the Bush administration for the blood shed in Iraq and (2) bring an end to the political party that favors the rich, who would think that the candidates were saying that they would impeach the Bush administration for having pursued a policy that favored the rich? The promise clearly contains two entirely separate pledges: (1) to punish the Bush administration by impeachment for the blood shed in Iraq, and (2) to bring to an end the political party that favors the rich. The phrase "for the blood shed in Iraq" would obviously apply only to number 1, i.e., the impeachment pledge. So it is in Hosea 1:4. It predicted two events: (1) punishment of the house of Jehu and (2) an end of the kingdom of Israel. The reason for the first event was the blood that Jehu had shed at Jezreel, and the reason for the second one, as even Jayawardena's own explication of the rest of the book of Hosea shows, was the abandonment of Yahwism for the worship of other gods.
Jayawardena writes:
Hosea's ministry began with God commanding him to take a "wife of whoredoms" and have "children of whoredoms" by her. This was to symbolically represent the fact that the northern kingdom, represented by Gomer, had departed from the true God and committed "whoredom" spiritually (Hosea 1:2).
Yes, that was clearly Hosea's view, and it was because of this symbolic "whoredom" that he thought that Yahweh was going to "cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to end," but the first half of the prophecy was that Yahweh would punish the house of Jehu "for the blood of Jezreel." As I showed earlier, the phrase "for the blood of Jezreel" is placed within the sentence so that it can modify only the first prediction, i.e., punishment of the house of Jehu. If my explication is incorrect, Jayawardena must show where it went wrong, as I have shown where his erred.
Jayawardena writes:
Israel was God's wife (Ezekiel 16:8), and so to forsake God and go after idols was spiritual harlotry (Exodus 34:15-16; Deuteronomy 31:16).
Yes, Hosea obviously thought this, but as I have shown above, after Hosea had said that Yahweh would punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, he predicted that Yahweh would also cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to end, and from there, he went on to explain that Israel's abandonment of Yahwism for the worship of other gods, especially Baalism, was why Yahweh was going to cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to end. Jayawardena is trying to make the "blood of Jezreel" apply to both parts of the prophecy, but as I showed earlier, this phrase was placed within the sentence where it would modify only the first part of the prophecy, which was that Yahweh would punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. Jayawardena is trying to put a broader application onto the phrase than what Hosea likely intended.
Jayawardena writes:
Hosea married Gomer, who bore a son who was given the symbolic name "Jezreel"
As I previously showed, when Jayawardena first presented this interpretation of the meaning of Jezreel, a more likely interpretation is that the word was being used to convey the source of Gomer's fertility. As Jayawardena's own explications are showing, Hosea was upset over the widespread worship of Baal, who was seen by some of his worshipers as the source of fertility, so Gomer's "whoredom" was likely that she had been involved in cultic prostitution. Giving the name Jezreel to her first child would have been a way of acknowledging that the source of her fertility had actually been "God" or Yahweh rather than Baal. This is easily a correct interpretation of the use of Jezreel in Hosea 1:4, and as long as it is, Jayawardena must show us that it was being used to mean that "God was going to judge Israel" and "sow," in the sense of scattering the Israelites among other nations, rather than to mean that Gomer's conception was the result of God's sowing fertility.
Further evidence that the word Jezreel in Hosea 1:4 was intended to convey a sense of fertility that was "sown" or derived from God can be found in an analysis of the word. According to Brown, Driver, and Briggs, this word was derived from zâra' and 'êl. The latter, of course, meant god, and zâra' meant "to sow," but also, according to Brown, Driver, and Briggs, was sometimes used to convey the sense of "to conceive or become pregnant." This latter sense is found in Leviticus 12:2
Hosea 2:21-23: On that day [when Yahweh takes Israel to be his wife again] I will answer, says Yahweh, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth; 22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; 23 and I will sow him for myself in the land. And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah [Gomer's second child, whose name meant "that has not obtained pity"], and I will say to Lo-ammi [Gomer's third child, whose name meant "not my people"], "You are my people"; and he shall say, "You are my God."
Notice how Jezreel was used in a context that associated it with God's sowing in the land and bringing about fruit. Hosea had said earlier that Yahweh would bring about a cessation of prosperity and, among other punishments, "lay waste" the vines and fig trees of Israel (2:10-13), but on the day when he took Israel again to be his wife, this would change, and he would bless the land again and restore its fertility. Jayawardena said above that the "theme" of the book of Hosea was important in understanding the "context" in which "the blood of Jezreel" had been used, and the theme of the passage just quoted above is clearly that Yahweh was the source of fertility.
I will continue to explicate the expression "blood of Jezreel" as I continue through Jayawardena's "solution" to the Jehu problem, but we have already seen plenty of evidence that the term, as it was applied to Gomer's first child, was being used in the sense of divine fertility and not as any kind of reference to the blood of the children of Israel who had been killed during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty. Anyway, the meaning of Jezreel has now become irrelevant, because Jayawardena said here in the revised section that he asked me to post that he "[does] not now think
As Jayawardena correctly notes, the word bow was used at times to symbolize the military power of a nation, and so "breaking the bow" would mean that the military might of the nation had been broken:
As a token of this God would destroy "the bow of Israel" (military prowess
The issue, however, is not what breaking the bow of Israel meant but what the prophet thought was the reason why it was going to be broken. I hate to sound like a broken record, but again I have shown that Hosea 1:4 contained two predictions: (1) the house of Jehu would be punished, and (2) the kingdom of the house of Israel would be brought to an end. I went on to show that the adverbial phrase "for the blood of Jezreel" was placed within the sentence where it would modify just the punishment of the house of Jehu. No reason per se was given in the verse for the second prediction, i.e., bringing the kingdom of the house of Israel to an end, but, as even Jayawardena's own explications are showing, the rest of the book of Hosea gave the reason for the second one. Yahweh would cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to end because of the "sins" of the nation, chief of which was its toleration of idolatry.
Again, Jayawardena offers a historical summation without any contextual analysis:
The beginning of the end of the northern kingdom started with an invasion of Israel by Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria (called "Pul" in 2 Kings 15:19), to whom king Menahem paid tribute (2 Kings 15:19-20). From that time onward Israel became a vassal state until the kingdom was brought to an end by king Shalmaneser V (2 Kings 17:3-6).
This summation of historical events that happened in the northern kingdom after the time of Hosea does nothing to establish Jayawardena's claim that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 meant not the blood that Jehu had shed at Jezreel but the blood of the children of Israel, who had died during the reigns of the house of Jehu. Jayawardena has yet even to offer a plausible explanation for why Hosea would have put such a twist as this onto a phrase that had obvious connotations of a specific historical event. The fact that the northern kingdom eventually came to an end, as Hosea had predicted, would in no way prove that Yahweh had pulled the strings that caused this to happen. In the first place, Hosea could have easily seen events in his time that gave him reasonable cause to predict that the northern kingdom's days were numbered. Ezekiel, for example incorrectly prophesied the everlasting destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel 26-28), but even if this prophecy had come about as predicted, there would have been nothing remarkable about it, because the prophet Ezekiel claimed that he was a captive in Babylonia during the time of Nebuchadnezzar (Ezekiel 1:1-3), so he could have easily seen or heard indications of an impending Babylonian invasion of Tyre and wrongly assumed that a small city state was doomed if the powerful kingdom of Babylon laid siege to it. Hosea, likewise, could have been party to information that would have enabled him to make an educated guess that the kingdom of Israel was going to be destroyed.
Jayawardena writes:
Though not recorded in the historical books of the Old Testament, the "bow of Israel" must have been broken by Assyria in some decisive battle in the Valley of Jezreel about 724 B.C., though Samaria held out under siege for some three years longer.
Jayawardena claimed that he isn't a biblical inerrantist, but he assumed here the inerrancy of the Bible by saying that "'the bow of Israel' must have been broken by Assyria in some decisive battle in the Valley of Jezreel." Why would Jayawardena think this? Well, Hosea prophesied that Yahweh would break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel, so if he predicted this Jayawardena assumes that it must have happened. If Jayawardena isn't actually an inerrantist, he apparently wants to be one.
Jayawardena returns to peppering his article with historical points that do nothing to support his case:
The "Valley of Jezreel" is a plain in northern Israel which has been a major battlefield of nations throughout history. It took its name from the town of Jezreel, which stood between Megiddo and Beth Shean, and between Mount Carmel and Mount Gilboa.
And this does what to prove that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred not to the massacre that Jehu had committed at Jezreel but to the "blood of the children of Israel" who had been killed during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty? I suspect that Jayawardena is hiding his lack of contextual evidence behind his lengthy summations of Israelite history that made no references at all to Jezreel.
Again, Jayawardena writes:
It was a natural battlefield. The Midianites, Amalekites, and people of the east once crossed the Jordan and encamped in the Valley of Jezreel to fight with the Israelites (Judges 6:33; cf. 1 Samuel 29:1).
Yes, this is what the passages cited claim, but how do they in any way prove that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 referred not to the massacre that Jehu had committed at Jezreel but to the "blood of the children of Israel" who had been killed during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty? Jayawardena seems to think that everyone should just automatically accept as fact anything that he asserts.
Jayawardena finally makes a contextual effort to find his meaning of "the blood of Jezreel":
The name "Jezreel" alludes to "Israel" by a play of letters and sounds
However, in order to defend his interpretation of the phrase, Jayawardena has taken the "pun" route, which inerrantists have used before when they couldn't find what they wanted explicitly stated in the Bible. An example of this ploy is the way that inerrantists have tried to find the Persian conquest of Babylon in Daniel 5, which says that the Babylonian kingdom was "received" by "Darius the Mede" (v:30-31). Since historical records clearly indicate that Babylon fell to the Persians rather than to the Medes, inerrantists have claimed that the writer of Daniel indicated through a pun two verses earlier that he knew that the Persians had actually conquered the city. In my exchanges with Everette Hatcher on the book of Daniel, he claimed that in a pun used to interpret the word peres in the message that the mysterious hand had written on the wall (5:28), Daniel showed his awareness that Babylon had fallen to the Persians. In Aramaic, the word perac [peres] meant "to split" or "divide," so because its spelling was similar to Pârac [Persia], inerrantists like Hatcher have claimed that Daniel was showing through a pun that he knew that Babylon had fallen to the Persians. In other words, when inerrantists couldn't find their position explicitly stated in the book of Daniel, they found it in a "pun," as if their god were incapable of directly stating that Babylon was conquered by the Persians.
This is what Jayawardena has done in his search for textual evidence to support his claim that "the blood of Jezreel" in Hosea 1:4 meant not the massacres that Jehu committed at Jezreel but the killing of the children of Israel during the reigns of the Jehu dynasty. Not finding any real contextual evidence to support this claim, Jayawardena has also taken the "pun" route. The transliterated spelling of Jezreel is Yizre'ê'l and the spelling of Israel is Yisrâ'êl. Although the spellings and pronunciations are similar, whether Yizre'ê'l was intended as a pun or not is really a matter of speculation. The story of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel was told in 2 Kings 9-10, where the words Yizre'ê'l and Yisrâ'êl were used 12 and 17 times respectively. Are we to assume that the author of 2 Kings was punning in these chapters whenever he used the word Jezreel in the same contexts with Israel?
As I have shown, Hosea 1:4 was a two-part prophecy: first, Yahweh would punish the house of Jehu; second, Yahweh would bring the house of Israel to an end. Earlier I showed linguistic evidence that the expression "the blood of Jezreel" was so placed in the verse that, unless the "inspired" prophet was a sloppy writer, it could modify only the first part of the prophecy. I went on to show that the rest of the book was devoted primarily to explaining why Yahweh was going to bring the kingdom of Israel to an end. I further showed how Hosea could easily have placed "for the blood of Jezreel" within the prophecy to make it clearly modify both parts. Linguistic evidence, therefore, just does not support the spin that Jayawardena wants to put onto this prophecy. The pun that he thinks he sees in the prophecy is just a straw he is grabbing to try to make "the blood of Jezreel" mean what he wants it to mean.
Despite his assertion that "[t]his definite allusion reinforces what is already obvious from other verses," I just showed that the "allusion" that Jayawardena thinks he sees in the prophecy is far from "definite." It is more of an illusion than an allusion. He goes on to write:
[W]hatever Hosea writes in the first chapter or elsewhere concerning "Jezreel" must refer to God's dealings with the nation Israel, and Israel alone.
In the beginning of this essay I explicated the prophecy within its full context of chapter one to show that Jezreel very likely was used to symbolize the fertility that comes from Yahweh rather than Baal, whose worship Hosea's wife Gomer had likely been involved in. Then further along in this part, I analyzed chapter two to show that Jezreel was being used to represent the fertility that Yahweh would send upon the land after he had taken Israel to be his "wife" again. The spin that Jayawardena is trying to put upon "the blood of Jezreel" is too strained to be believed.
Although Jayawardena claims that "[t]he house of Jehu is mentioned in Hosea 1:4-5 only insofar as they are included in the judgment of the nation for idolatry, this simply is not the case. As I showed above, the house of Jehu was the subject of the first punishment that Hosea prophesied, and his placement of "for the blood of Jezreel" within this prophecy clearly indicates his belief that Yahweh would punish the house of Jehu "for the blood of Jezreel." The second part of the prophecy pertained to ending the nation of Israel, and that prophecy was clearly separated from the phrase "the blood of Jezreel," which Jayawardena is trying to make a reference to only the nation of Israel, but in explicating the prophecy earlier, I showed how simple it would have been to word it so that readers would understand that "the blood of Jezreel" referred also to the part that predicted the end of "the kingdom of Israel." The fact that Hosea did not write it that way is sufficient reason to think that he didn't mean for it to refer to that part of his prophecy.
In the absence of other biblical passages in which "the blood of Jezreel" was mentioned, we have to use common sense to determine its probable meaning in Hosea 1:4. One way to apply common sense would be to compare "the blood of Jezreel" to similar expressions elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. Although this would not be an infallible way to determine its meaning, it will at least give us insights int