Bible Synapse
Was Jehu the son of Nimshi or his grandson?
Hard question · Genealogies · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
God tells Elijah: “Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel”.
And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel–meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.
Elisha sends a young prophet to anoint “Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi”.
And when thou comest thither, look out there Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi, and go in, and make him arise up from among his brethren, and carry him to an inner chamber;
“So Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi conspired against Joram.”
So Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi conspired against Joram. (Now Joram had kept Ramoth–gilead, he and all Israel, because of Hazael king of Syria.
The watchman: “the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously”.
And the watchman told, saying, He came even unto them, and cometh not again: and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously.
The objection
1 Kings 19:16 calls Jehu “the son of Nimshi”. But 2 Kings 9:2 and 9:14 call him “the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi”, which makes Nimshi his grandfather. Critics ask which he was.
The answer
He was Nimshi’s grandson, and the Bible says so plainly: 2 Kings 9:2 and 9:14 give the full form, “Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi”. Hebrew ben, ‘son’, is used freely of a grandson or later descendant, so the short form, ‘son of Nimshi’, is not a different claim but a shorter way of naming the same family. It was evidently the usual way of referring to him: the watchman on the tower of Jezreel uses it (2 Kings 9:20), and so does 2 Chronicles 22:7.
The same chapter of 2 Kings uses both forms within a few verses, so the writer plainly did not think them in conflict. Barnes’ Notes suggests that Jehu was commonly known by his grandfather’s name perhaps because his father had died and his grandfather had brought him up. This Jehoshaphat, Jehu’s father, should not be confused with Jehoshaphat king of Judah, who had died a few years before Jehu came to the throne.
From the classic commentators
In reality the grandson of Nimshi. But he seems to have been commonly known by the above title 2 Kings 9:20; 2 Chronicles 22:7, perhaps because his father had died and his grand-father had brought him up.Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, on 1 Kings 19:16