all the princes of the line were slaughtered by the rulers of Samaria;
the worshippers of Baal were massacred, and the land purified from this
idolatry. Still Jehu would not part with the calves of Dan and Bethel;
and he was therefore warned that his family should likewise pass away
after the fourth generation.

Elisha had already wept at the fore-knowledge of the miseries which
Hazael of Syria should bring upon Israel; and Hazael, murdering his
master Benhadad by stifling him with a wet cloth as he lay sick on his
bed, became a dreadful enemy to Samaria. So much broken was the force of
Jehoahaz, Jehu's son, that at one time he had only one thousand foot,
fifty horse, and ten chariots; but after this, prosperity began to
return to the Israelites. Joash, his son, was a mighty king, and would
have been still greater, if he would have believed that obeying the
simple words of the prophet Elisha on his death-bed would bring him
victory. Yet so much greater was his force than that of Judah, that when
Amaziah sent him a challenge, he replied by the insulting parable of the
thistle and the cedar. Jeroboam II., his son, was likewise prosperous;
but neither blessings nor warnings would induce these kings to forsake
their golden calves. Amos, the herdsman-prophet of Tekoa, was warned
to say nothing against the king's chapel at Bethel; and Hosea in vain
declared that Ephraim was feeding on wind, and following after the
east-wind, namely, putting his trust in mere empty air. So in the time
of Zechariah, son to Jeroboam, came the doom of the House of Jehu, and
in 773 the king was murdered by Shallum, who only reigned a month, being
killed by his general, Menahem. Again, Menahem's son, Pekahiah, was
killed by his captain Pekah, a great warrior, who made an attack upon
Ahaz of Judah, and slew one hundred and twenty thousand Jews in one day.
Many more with all their spoil were brought captives to Samaria; but
there was some good yet left in Israel, and at the rebuke of the prophet