Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Kings 10:6

"Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, If ye be on my side, and if ye will hearken unto my voice, take ye the heads of the men your master`s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by to-morrow this time. Now the king`s sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who brought them up." — 2 Kings 10:6 (ASV)

The second time. —Some manuscripts, the Septuagint, and the Arabic read “a second letter.”

Take ye the heads. —Jehu knew his men. The cool cynicism of his savage order is worthy of a Sulla or a Marius.

The heads of the men your master’s sons. —Literally, the heads of the men of the sons of your master. Some manuscripts, the Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, as well as the manuscripts mentioned by Origen, omit the word men. Thenius thinks that this word is used to indicate that only male descendants of Ahab were to be put to death (?). The Alexandrian Septuagint omits sons; and four Hebrew manuscripts read instead house. The Authorised Version, however, is a permissible interpretation of the Hebrew.

Come. —LXX., bring (them), which is a natural conjecture.

To Jezreel. —A journey of more than twenty miles.

By tomorrow this time. —Jehu is urgent for dispatch, because time is all-important. He wishes to convince the people of Jezreel as soon as possible that none of the royal princes were left to claim the crown, and that the nobles of Samaria have joined his cause.

Now the king’s sons ... brought them up. —This is a correct translation. According to the Masoretic punctuation, and supposing that the particle ’eth (rendered “with”) might here be used merely to introduce the subject, one might render: “Now the king’s sons were seventy persons; the great men of the city were bringing them up.”

However, such a usage of ’eth is very doubtful (Compare 2 Kings 6:5). In any case, the sentence is only a parenthetic reminder of what was stated in 2 Kings 10:1. The total of seventy is perhaps not to be taken as exact, as seventy is a favourite round number (See Note on 1 Chronicles 1:42).