2 Chronicles 22

2 Chronicles 22:1-9

We have here, 1. Ahaizah’s wicked life, and untimely death, ver. 1—9. 2. Aṭkalah murders all the feed-royal, and uspops the throne, ver. 10—12.

1. AND the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaizah his youngst son, king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp, had slain all the eldest. So Ahaizah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned. 2. Forty and two years old was Ahaizah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem: his mother’s name also was Aṭkalah the daughter of Omri. 3. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counself to do wickedly. 4. Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the LORD, like the house of Ahab: for they were his counselfers after the death of his father, to his destruction. 5. ¶ He walked also after their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel, to war against Hazael king of Syria, at Ramoth-gilead: and the Syrians smote Joram. 6. And he returned to be healed in Jezreel, because of the wounds: which were given him at Ramah, when he fought with Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaizah the son of Jehoram king of Judah, went down to see Je-horam the son of Ahab at Jezreel, because he was sick. 7. And the destruction of Ahaizah was of God by coming to Joram: for when he was come, he went out with Jeho-ram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab. 8. And it came to pass, that when Jehu was executing judgment upon the house of Ahab, and found the princes of Ju-sah, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaizah, that mi-histred to Ahaizah, he shew them. 9. And he fought Ahaizah: and they caught him (for he was hid in Sa-maria) and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they buried him, because (said they) he or the son of Jehoshaphat, who fought the LORD with all his heart. So the house of Ahaizah had no power to keep still the kingdom.

Ahaizah, called Jehoahaz, the name being the same in signification, who alone had escaped the massacre of the Arabians, succeeded his father at the age, it is said, of forty-two, or rather at twenty-two, See 2 Kings viii. 26. Various methods have been desvsed to reconcile this difficulty; but the most natural, and indeed the only satisfactory solution, is to acknowledge an error in the transcriber, the Heshew numerals for 22 and 42 being very liable to be mistaken. The Syriac and Arakic versions, with some copies of the Septuagint, read it twenty-two.

The account we have here of Ahaizah is bad, very bad. He was influenced by the work of counselfors, an idolatrous mother, and his wicked relations of the house of Ahab; the consequence of which was, that, instead of taking warning by his father’s miserable end, he continued, after his death, in the same evil ways, and followed the abominations of the house of Ahab, to the destruction both of body and foul. Forgetting the danger Jehoshaphat had run in a former expedition against Ra-mosh-gilead, he consents to join with the king of Israel in attackin.

attacking it, where Joram being wounded, and returning to be cured at Jezeel: thither Ahaziah, appointed to destruction, went to visit him, and met his death with Joram, from the tunnel of Jehu. Yet in respect to his grandfather, they shewed his corpse respect, and gave leave for his honourable interment in the leguishes of his fathers; See 2 Kings ix. 28. Nies. (1.) The most unhappy situation for a young man, is to be under the influence of wicked advisers. (2.) They whom God dooms to ruin, cannot fly from their destiny. (3.) The companion of wicked men justly perishes with them.

10. ¶ But when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, the arose, and ‘destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah. 11. But Jehofsabeath the daughter of the king, took Joath the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons that cure Sain, and put him and his nurse in a bed-chamber. So Jehofsabeath the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest (for she was the sister of Ahaziah) hid him from Athaliah, so that she slew him not. 12. And he was with them ‘hid in the house of God six years, and ‘Athaliah reigned over the land.

11. 10-12. Never was the promise made to David, to human error, more in danger of failing. The mother Athaliah, to usurp the throne, destroys all her grand-children, and the whole seed-royal of Judah: one little only of a year old, as a brand from the burning, is snatched from the massacre by the care of his aunt, the wife of Jehoiada. Nies, Vain is every attempt of earth or hell to defeat the word of truth; one jot or tunic of it shall never fail.