This was Yahweh’s word which he spoke to Jehu, saying, “Your sons to the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” So it came to pass.
Parallel translations
- KJV This was the word of the LORD which he spake unto Jehu, saying, Thy sons shall sit on the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation. And so it came to pass.
- BSB So the word of the LORD spoken to Jehu was fulfilled: “Four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.”
- NKJV This was the word of the Lord which He spoke to Jehu, saying, “Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.” And so it was.
- NASB This is the word of the Lord which He spoke to Jehu, saying, “Your sons to the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” And so it was.
- NLT So the Lord’s message to Jehu came true: “Your descendants will be kings of Israel down to the fourth generation.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Zechariah's death fulfilled the Lord's word to Jehu that his sons would reign to the fourth generation.
Overview
The narrator explicitly notes the fulfillment of God's promise to Jehu (10:30), confirming the reliability of every word the Lord speaks. God's faithfulness extends both to His promises of blessing and to the limits He sets, all coming to pass exactly. This precise fulfillment strengthens confidence that God's word never fails, a foundation for trusting His promises in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- 2 Kgs 10:30Yahweh said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in executing that which is right in my eyes, and have done to Ahab’s house according to all that was in my heart, your descendants shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”
- 2 Kgs 9:25–26Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, “Pick him up, and throw him in the plot of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember how, when you and I rode together after Ahab his father, Yahweh laid this burden on him:
- John 19:24Then they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to decide whose it will be,” that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which says, “They parted my garments among them. For my cloak they cast lots.” Therefore the soldiers did these things.
- Zech 1:6But my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn’t they overtake your fathers? “Then they repented and said, ‘Just as Yahweh of Armies determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us.’”
- 2 Kgs 14:29Jeroboam slept with his fathers, even with the kings of Israel; and Zechariah his son reigned in his place.
- John 19:36–37For these things happened, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “A bone of him will not be broken.”
- Mark 13:31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
- 2 Kgs 13:10In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz began to reign over Israel in Samaria for sixteen years.
- Acts 1:16“Brothers, it was necessary that this Scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was guide to those who took Jesus.
- John 10:35If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken),
- 2 Kgs 13:13Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat on his throne. Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
- 2 Kgs 13:1In the twenty-third year of Joash the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria for seventeen years.
- Num 23:19God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
- 2 Kgs 9:36–37Therefore they came back, and told him. He said, “This is Yahweh’s word, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘The dogs will eat the flesh of Jezebel on the plot of Jezreel,
- 2 Kgs 10:10Know now that nothing will fall to the earth of Yahweh’s word, which Yahweh spoke concerning Ahab’s house. For Yahweh has done that which he spoke by his servant Elijah.”
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Christ at the center
Amid the long decline toward exile, the promise to David's house refuses to die; the flickering lamp kept burning anticipates the coming King who will not fail or be cut off.
How 2 Kings 15:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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