2 Kings 8:25

the twelfth year of the reign of Joram: Ahaziah became king of Judah in 841 BC. This year was crucial in ancient Near Eastern history. By the end of the year, both Joram and Ahaziah were dead. Hazael became the confirmed king of Damascus, and Shalmaneser III of Assyria controlled the region.

AHAZIAH SUCCEEDS HIM. (Kg2 8:24)

Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead--(See on Ch2 22:1).




Next: 2 Kings Chapter 9

As among common persons there are some that we call little men, who make no figure, are little regarded, as less valued, so among kings there are some whom, in comparison with others, we may call little kings. This Ahaziah was one of these; he looks mean in the history, and in God's account vile, because wicked. It is too plain an evidence of the affinity between Jehoshaphat and Ahab that they had the same names in their families at the same time, in which, we may suppose, they designed to compliment one another. Ahab had two sons, Ahaziah and Jehoram, who reigned successively; Jehoshaphat had a son and grandson names Jehoshaphat had a son and grandson names Jehoram and Ahaziah, who, in like manner, reigned successively. Names indeed do not make natures, but it was a bad omen to Jehoshaphat's family to borrow names from Ahab's; or, if he lent the names to that wretched family, he could not communicate with them the devotion of their significations, Ahaziah - Taking hold of the Lord, and Jehoram - The Lord exalted. Ahaziah king of Israel had reigned but two years, Ahaziah king of Judah reigned but one. We are here told that his relation to Ahab's family was the occasion, 1. Of his wickedness (Kg2 8:27): He walked in the way of the house of Ahab, that idolatrous bloody house; for his mother was Ahab's daughter (Kg2 8:26), so that he sucked in wickedness with his milk. Partus sequitur ventrem - The child may be expected to resemble the mother. When men choose wives for themselves they must remember they are choosing mothers for their children, and are concerned to choose accordingly. 2. Of his fall. Joram, his mother's brother, courted him to join with him for the recovery of Ramoth-Gilead, an attempt fatal to Ahab; so it was to Joram his son, for in that expedition he was wounded (Kg2 8:28), and returned to Jezreel to be cured, leaving his army there in possession of the place. Ahaziah likewise returned, but went to Jezreel to see how Jehoram did, Kg2 8:29. Providence so ordered it, that he who had been debauched by the house of Ahab might be cut off with them, when the measure of their iniquity was full, as we shall find in the next chapter. Those who partake with sinners in their sins must expect to partake with them in their plagues.

Are they not written in the book of the chronicles - Several remarkable particulars relative to Joram may be found in 2 Chron. 21.

In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel did Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah begin to reign. He is called Jehoahaz, and said to be the youngest son of Jehoram, 2 Chronicles 21:17.

In the twelfth year of Joram.

Object. It was in the eleventh year of Joram, .

Answ. Either, first, He began to reign in the confines of Joram’ s eleventh and twelfth year, in the very end of his eleventh year, or towards the beginning of the twelfth, whence it is indifferently ascribed to the one or the other. Or, secondly, The one year of Ahaziah did concur with the latter half of Joram’ s eleventh year, and the former half of his twelfth year: and if he could not be said to

begin to reign in both these years, yet he might unquestionably be said to reign in both of them; and the Hebrew word, both here and , properly signifies he reigned, and not he began to reign, as it is translated. Or, thirdly, Ahaziah began to reign with his father, and during his life, according to the late examples both in Judah and Israel, there being also special occasion for it, by reason of Joram’ s cruel and long sickness, , &c.; and this was in Joram’ s eleventh ear, and then his father died, and he began his single reign in Joram’ s twelfth year.

Ahaziah, called also Jehoahaz, , and Azariah, .

Reign of Ahaziah of Judah (cf. Ch2 22:1-6). - Ahaziah, the youngest son of Joram, ascended the throne in the twenty-second year of his age. The statement in Ch2 22:2, that he was forty-two years old when he became king, rests upon a copyist's error, namely, a confusion of כ twenty with מ forty. Now, since his father became king at the age of thirty-two, and reigned eight years, Ahaziah must have been born in the nineteenth year of his age. Consequently it may appear strange that Ahaziah had brothers still older than himself (Ch2 21:17); but as early marriages are common in the East, and the royal princes had generally concubines along with their wife of the first rank, as is expressly stated of Joram in Ch2 21:17, he might have had some sons in his nineteenth year. His mother was called Athaliah, and was a daughter of the idolatrous Jezebel. In Kg2 8:26 and Ch2 22:2 she is called the daughter, i.e., grand-daughter, of Omri; for, according to Kg2 8:18, she was a daughter of Ahab. Omri, the grand-father, is mentioned in Kg2 8:26 as the founder of the dynasty which brought so much trouble upon Israel and Judah through its idolatry.