“When the messenger came and told him. ‘They have brought the heads of the king’s sons.’ King Jehu said. ‘Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.’ Then in the morning, when he went out, he stood, and said to all the people. ‘You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master, and killed him. But who struck down all these? Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of Yahweh, which Yahweh spoke concerning the house of King Ahab. Yahweh has done what he said by his servant Elijah.’ King Jehu killed all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his leaders, close friends, and his priests, until he left him no survivor.”
You guessed it, why not the whole family and friends? King Jehu had the heads of the 70 sons of King Ahab placed on a heap at the city gate. He went out there and said he was guilty of killed King Jehoram. However, Yahweh wanted the whole family of Ahab wiped out as pronounced by the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings, chapter 21. Then King Jehu wiped out and killed anyone close to the house of King Ahab. All the leaders, friends, and priests did not survive the wrath of King Jehu, Elijah, and Yahweh.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 