What does 2 Kings 10:36 Mean?

Context Summary

Jehu was earnest enough in uprooting all traces of Baal-worship, but he permitted the worship of the calves and was careless in the matter of personal religion, 2 Kings 10:31. How much easier it is to see and rebuke the sins of others, than to take heed to our own ways! It is comparatively easy to detect and destroy the sinner, without personally yielding to the claims of God ourselves. The judge who administers the law may be a transgressor of it, and all the more keen in inflicting penalty as if to satisfy his own uneasy conscience. And we who utter God's solemn warnings against sin must not yield in thought to the sins that we denounce in act.

The Israelites were short in their duty to God, and God cut them short in territory, in wealth, and in power. Hazael thus fulfilled Elisha's anticipations, 2 Kings 8:12. Those eastern tribes that were attracted by the fatness of the land and settled there first, were the first to suffer. Those who choose for this life only, are the first to deteriorate and perish. It was so with Lot! [source]

Chapter Summary: 2 Kings 10

¹  Jehu, by his letters, causes seventy of Ahab's sons to be beheaded
⁸  He excuses the fact by the prophecy of Elijah
¹²  At the shearing house he slays forty-two of Ahaziah's brothers
¹⁵  He takes Jehonadab into his company
¹⁸  By subtilty he destroys all the worshippers of Baal
²⁹  Jehu follows Jeroboam's sins
³²  Hazael oppresses Israel
³⁴  Jehoahaz succeeds Jehu