2 Kings 9 - NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
9:2 Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Although King Joram of Israel himself had retired wounded to Jezreel (8:28–29), his army was still at Ramoth Gilead; Jehu, elsewhere simply called “Jehu son of Nimshi” (e.g., v. 20; 1Ki 19:16), was one of its commanders, now destined to be Israel’s next king. He appears as such in Assyrian records.
9:10 no one will bury her. It was considered a terrible thing in Israel not to be afforded a proper burial (see Dt 28:25–26; Jer 16:4, which capture the horror well). A similar view of burial is reflected in a curse that concludes the inscription on a ninth-century BC boundary stone found at Sippar in Mesopotamia. The curse inflicts the violator with having no children, a hard life and no proper burial.
Certainly in Mesopotamia the importance of the burial of the body was connected with a belief that, without burial, the etemmu (ghost) of the deceased would not find its natural place among the community of the dead and would therefore have no rest. In addition, the lack of a burial prevented the ongoing care of the dead at the burial site in the form of mortuary rites—it dissolved community between the living and the dead. One way to ensure that a dead individual did indeed lose his or her individual and social identity was, as this verse implies, to feed the body to animals (see note on 1Ki 14:11). In such a case, some Mesopotamian texts suggest, the dead person was consigned to a formless and chaotic reality and perhaps even to the world of demons.
9:22 A similar accusation is made by Hittite king Mursili II to depose his late father’s Babylonian wife on the grounds that she practiced sorcery.
9:30 she put on eye makeup, arranged her hair and looked out of a window. The significance of these actions is not entirely clear. It could mean nothing more than that Jezebel meets her end proudly, dressed up as a queen should be. It is intriguing nonetheless that her posture echoes the “woman in the window” motif found on carved ivory plaques from various ancient Near Eastern sites, which may represent the goddess Astarte, one of the consorts of Baal. In this case, Jezebel is represented as the very incarnation of the religion she brought into Israel from Sidon. Alternatively, Jezebel’s reference to Zimri (v. 31) may be a not-so-subtle warning about the failure of Israel’s last military coup. By making herself alluring, she may be encouraging him to take over the harem and thus establish his legitimacy through her.
9:32 eunuchs. It was common practice in the ancient world for the king to have a harem (cf. 1Ki 11:3) and for the harem to be provided with guards. These guards were typically eunuchs (castrated men), so that the king could be sure that the males who were in close proximity to his women were not capable of sexual relationships with them.
Eunuchs also performed an important role in the official hierarchy of the ancient Near East more generally. In Neo-Assyrian sources, e.g., they are attested at the royal court, in the army, in the bureaucracy, and in the provincial administration. They functioned, among many roles, as the king’s personal attendants, cooks, palace guards, scribes and envoys to foreign rulers. They belonged to an official guild or corps, headed by the rab ša reši, who was one of the king’s closest advisors. It was a great honor to belong to this corps, and it was also a path to material advancement.
Perhaps in order that their loyalty should be assured, Assyrian eunuchs received significant grants of arable land and laborers from the king and various tax exemptions. Although this has been a matter of dispute among Assyriologists, it now seems more than likely that the beardless figures found in various Neo-Assyrian reliefs are intended as representations of eunuchs—a contention supported by the numerous seals of Neo-Assyrian officials (the majority of all the Neo-Assyrian seals) that likewise depict beardless worshipers.
9:36 dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh. Jezebel’s gruesome end is paralleled in the Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers, in which the elder brother kills his own wife for her treachery, casts her to the dogs, and then sits mourning for his young brother, who had fled because of his older brother’s false accusation. For the significance of animals eating the flesh, see note on 9:10.
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