Jehu, ben Omri

The last book of Reigns describes the fall of Jezebel's kingdom to Jehu. The book (famously) has no chariot in this race so treats everyone horribly; it treats the queen mother as a virago and Jehu as an upstart, which he was. But how upstart? What did Jehu call himself?

In the ancient world, which is not so different from our world, nobles tended to be related to the King. Later, Darius on taking over Iran will tout himself as an "Achaemenid" cousin to dear Cyrus II.

Back to Jehu, the Bible gives some genealogy: son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi, no Omri in sight. But when the Assyrians demanded tribute they got it from the "Son Of Omri". This is usually considered a mistake. The assumption of any erreur is that the errateur didn't much care. However late last month, we were reminded that the Assyrians did care - if they were dealing with a man of little repute, they'd say so for the insult. Hazael to them was "son of nobody".

This suggests that Nimshi may have been a son of Omri shunted aside in the succession; equally (perhaps more) likely, an Omride daughter or granddaughter might have entered that line. Ahab would have kept this branch around in the court, in case Jezebel wasn't providing sons. Jezebel was not the sort of queen who would permit other girls into Ahab's chambers; and indeed, nobody calls Jehu "ben Ahab". But outside Ahab: this woman had all motive to distrust Omri's clan.

BACKDATE 12/11