And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering
the burnt offering
The chief of the priests of Baal, whose office it was to do this service:
that Jehu said to the guard, and to the captains, go in and slay them,
let none come forth;
this he said to the eighty men set to guard the temple, and the officers over them; and perhaps they might also have a reinforcement, since such a number seems scarcely sufficient to destroy so many as were here; though indeed it must be considered they were armed men:
and they smote them with the edge of the sword;
put them all to death:
and the guard and the captains cast them out;
those that were slain, as the Targum, their dead bodies; but it can hardly be thought they would be at the trouble of casting them out, when the house was to be pulled down, and made a jakes (a common sewer or dung house) of, as follows; rather therefore it should be rendered, "they cast" or "flung themselves" F21 with great force, and in great haste, as Kimchi, and rushed out of the temple, being eager to do as follows:
and went to the city of the house of Baal;
to pull it down; to some city near Samaria where was a temple of Baal; or rather this may design the buildings about the temple of Baal, in which the priests and their families lived, and were so large that they might be called a city of themselves.