He was of English ancestry (his grandfather Jehu Burr had been born in Lavenham, Suffolk, England, in 1625, settled in the Connecticut Colony as a young man, and died there in 1692).
With this understanding of chronology, Thiele showed that the 14 years between Ahab and Jehu were really 12 years, which meant that he could date their reigns precisely, for Ahab is mentioned in the Kurk Stele which records the Assyrian advance into Syria/Palestine at the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC, and Jehu is mentioned on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III paying tribute in 841 BC.
He also protests against God's dealings with the houses of Baasha and Jehu, who are supposed to have provoked punishment from Heaven, the latter for his shedding the blood of Jezreel (Hos. i. 4) and the former for his having exterminated the house of Jeroboam (I Ki. xvi. 7), whilst according to other prophecies they were in so doing only fulfilling a commandment of God (I Ki. xvi. 14, and 2 Ki. x. 30).
When a non-king was anointed, such as Elijah's anointing of Hazael and Jehu, it was a sign that Hazael was to be king of Syria and that Jehu would king of Israel.
In 2004, Jehu survived a 33-foot fall from a hotel window in Ljubljana, Slovenia by completing a mid-air loop and gymnasts' landing to escape with only a broken ankle.