2 Chronicles 22
PATcalamities, which the prophet threatened, come upon him: and then the Word of the Lord, saith the Targuin, smote him with a disease, for which there was no remedy.
2 Chronicles 22:1
Jx.ND the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah i his youngest son king in his stead. They declared him king, and set him on his father’s throne: but tho kingdom was his of right, without the suffrage of the people. - For.theband of men that came with the Arabians to the camp.] Mentioned in the foregoing chapter, ver. 16. Had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king ofJudah reigned.] This band of men came up with the Arabians, but, it seems, acted by themselves; and killed those in cold blood, whom the Arabians had carried captive, (chap. xxi. 17.)
2 Chronicles 22:2
Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. Many ways there are to reconcile this with 2 Kings viii. 2G. where it is said he was two-and-twenty years old when he began to reign. (See my annotations on that place.) The shortest and plainest way is to acknowledge an error in the copyist or transcriber: for some Greek copies have here twentytwo years old; and so it is in the Syriac and Arabic translations: and our great primate Usher found it so, in a copy which he procured, at great charge, from that of the patriarch of Antioeh. Piscator also acknowledges, there is no other way, that he knew, to solve this doubt. His mother’s name also was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri.] His grand-daughter, for she was Ahab’s daughter, (chap. xxi. 6. and see 2 Kings viii. 26.)
2 Chronicles 22:3
He also walked in the ways of the house ofAhab: for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly. She had the greater power of him, because she had saved him, together with herself, when the other wives and children of Jehoram were carried away captive. And she is said to have advised him to do wickedly, because she led him into a worse idolatry than that of Jeroboam’s. Which is called the way of the house ofAhab; not because they were the yol. n. first inventors of it, but the chief establishers of it in these parts. It did not consist merely in the worship of God by an image, which was the way of Jeroboam, but in the worship of other gods beside the God of Israel: viz. Baalgods, or Baalim. Supposing, either by these to have easier access to ^ the sovereign God the Lord of hosts; or that these they might resort unto at all times, and for all matters, as being nearer at hand, and not of so high a dignity. Whereas Jehovah, the God of Israel, Most High, either managed not smaller matters, or might not be troubled with* them. For such was the conceit of the heathen, that the souls of great men after death had the honour to be agents between the supreme God and men, as being of a middle nature between them; which the Greeks called demons, and the Scriptures call Baalim. (Sec Mr. Mede, booki. discourse xliii. 243.) Ver; 4. Wlierefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like • the house of Ahab; for they were his counsellors, after the death of his father, to his destruction.] His father was so bad, that there was no need any other should endeavour to t seduce him, while he lived: but when he was dead, his mother’s kindred thought it necessary to confirm him in his • idolatry.
2 Chronicles 22:5
He walked also after their counsel. In other matters as well as in religion., And went with Jehoram the son ofAhab king of Israel, to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth-Gilead: and the Syrians smote Joram.] Though he would not imitate his grandfather in that which was good in him, yet he followed his bad example; in joining with Ahab’s son, as Jehoshaphat had with Ahab, in the like war.
2 Chronicles 22:6
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 Azariah the son of Jehoram king ofJudah went down to see Jehoram the son ofAhab at Jezreel, because he was sick.] These two verses have been explained in 2 Kings viii. 28, 29.
2 Chronicles 22:7
And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God, by coming to Joram: for, when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house ofAhab.] See how this* was done in 2 Kings ix. 21. 27. and what I have noted there.. *
2 Chronicles 22:8
And it came to pass, that when Jehu was executing judgment upon the house ofAhab, and found the princes • of Judah, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah, that ministered to Ahaziah, he slew them.] As they were going to Samaria. (See 2 Kings x. 13, 14.)
2 Chronicles 22:9
And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him (for he was hid in Samaria), and brought him to Jehu; and when they had slain him, they buried him: because (said they) he is the son of Jehoshapliat, who sought the Lord with all his heart. So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.] The story of his death is related here a little more particularly than in the book of the Kings. (See what I have noted there concerning the whole, 2 Kings ix. 27, 28.) )>.v:
2 Chronicles 22:10
But when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, sato. that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seedroyal of the house ofJudah. See 2 Kings xi. 1."
2 Chronicles 22:11
But Jehoshabeath, the daughter qfthe king. i.e, Of the former king, Jehoram, 4»t 1 A COMMENTARY UPON [chap* XXIII. Took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons that tvere slain, and put him and his nnrse in a bedcltamber.] See concerning this my annotations upon 2 Kings xi. 2. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife ofJehoiada the priest (for site was the sister of Ahaziah), hid him from Athaliah, so that she slew him not J] She was the sister of Ahaziah by the father’s side, though not by the mother’s: for Jehoram had many’wives, as we read in the foregoing chapter.
2 Chronicles 22:12
And he was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land. See in the place abovenamed what I have noted about the place wherein ho was hid in the house of God: which the Targum here fancies was in the very holy of holies; into which none but the high-priest might enter, and that but once a year. But if this’should’pass for truth, we must not understand it of the most holy place itself, but of some" chamber over it; as Beckius there observes, which will not justify this exposition; for, as I have observed before, there was no entrance into the room over it; nor is there any ground to think there was any building over it..
And it came to pass, in process of time, after the end of two years, Jiis bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. The last words seem to import, that there was a complication of other diseases, together with his dysentery: all which were very grievous, and a suitable punishment to his horrid wickedness. / And his people made no burning for him like the burning of his fathers.’] See upon chap. xvi. 14. -
TJiirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired. Some think the meaning is, he was weary of his life, being so full of pain, as to desire to die, rather than live in such misery. But the most natural sense is, that his people did not wish he should live any longer, but were glad his reign was so short: as appeared by. their contempt of him, in making no burning for. him, nor burying him in the sepulchre of the kings, as it here follows. Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings.] They shewed some respect to him, but not such as expressed any esteem for him.