"(Now Joram and all Israel had been defending Ramoth Gilead ... but King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds which the Syrians had given him ...)" 2 Kings 9:14-15

 OLD TESTAMENT PARENTHESES (16)

"(Now Joram and all Israel had been defending Ramoth Gilead
... but King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the
wounds which the Syrians had given him ...)" 2 Kings 9:14-15

THIS has a connection with the previous parenthesis, for it concerns Ahab's son, Joram, and the fulfilment of the prophecies which Elijah the Tishbite had made about him.

THE purpose of the parenthesis is to explain why Joram was at that time in the family palace at Jezreel. He had gone there for convalescence. When Jehu was commissioned to execute this evil king, he fully expected to do so at Jezreel and for this reason tried to avoid any information reaching the king there (v.15).

IT was to Jezreel that Jehu was seen to be driving with such furious determination (v.20) and in fact it was there that Jezebel was killed in fulfilment of Elijah's prophecy (v.36). In a strange way, however, God had other purposes for the appointed judgment on Ahab's son, and Joram helped to fulfil them by his action in going out to meet the aggressor. 

God had determined the actual place where the death was to take place; it was to be in the property which Ahab had so wickedly acquired but which never bore his name, for it was still called "the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite" (v.21).

AT first Joram was confident that he could handle the situation with regard to Jehu and went out to challenge him. Whether his action was due to foolhardiness or whether it was genuine courage, the fact remains that he went as far as Naboth's land before realising too late that he had been betrayed.

IT was no chance happening that the encounter took place on "the portion of the field of Naboth" and that it was there that Ahab's son met his end. His body was thrown out of the chariot and abandoned in that same field.

GOD had announced His condemnation of Naboth's murder by Ahab and Jezebel and affirmed that it would be avenged. Jezebel's end was to be that her body would be devoured by dogs in the city of Jezreel (1 Kings 21:23) and so it was. So far as Ahab's son was concerned, the place of reckoning would be the very place which had been so wrongfully acquired by his parents. After he had made the kill, Jehu remembered the prophecy made at the time (v.26). He little realised how he himself would be used by God to fulfil it.

THE fate of both Joram and Jezebel makes gruesome reading, but it pinpoints the accuracy of God's judgments. He had made it clear that Joram's death was to be in Naboth's field, and so it happened.

 We may take courage from this happening by realising that if the Lord watched over the actual place and circumstances of the deaths of such sinners, He will not be less concerned with the place and manner of the departure of His believing people when the time comes for us to leave the earth. We can trust Him that He has got it all in hand.

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints" (Psalm 116:15).