References (26)
And Joram slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. And Ahaziah his son reigned in his place.
[Ahaziah began to reign in 841 BC.]
And in the twelfth year of Joram, son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah, son of Jehoram, king of Judah, began to reign. [In the first year, Joram reigned with his father Ahab, see also .]
Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's [queen mother's] name was Athaliah (Hebr. Ataljaho), daughter of Omri, king of Israel.
And King Joram returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had inflicted on him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael, king of Aram. And Ahaziah, son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Joram, son of Ahab, in Jezreel, because he was sick.
And Jehu rode in a chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram was lying there. And Ahaziah (Hebr. Achazjaho), king of Judah, had come down to see Joram.
And Joram said, "Get ready," and they prepared his chariot. And Joram, king of Israel, and Ahaziah, king of Judah, went out and got into their chariots, and they went out to meet Jehu. They found him in the territory of Jezreel, in the land of Naboth.
And Joram turned his hands and fled, and said to Ahaziah, "It is treachery, Ahaziah."
And Ahaziah, king of Judah, saw this and fled [south] along the road by the garden house (Hebr. Bet Haggan) [may be modern Jenin south of Jezreel]. But Jehu followed him and said, "Strike him down [while he is] in the chariot." On the hill up to Gor, which is near Ivleam [he was struck], but he fled [on] to Megiddo and died there.
Ahaziah had begun to reign over Judah [the Southern Kingdom] in the 11th year of [the 9th king of the Northern Kingdom] Joram, son of Ahab.
[In the first year, Joram probably reigned together with his father. The year of accession was usually counted in the Southern Kingdom, while the year of accession was not counted in the Northern Kingdom. Hence the indication of 12 years in .]
Jehu met the brothers of Ahaziah, king of Judah, and said, "Who are you?" They replied, "We are the brothers of Ahaziah, and we are going down to greet the sons of the king and the sons of the queen mother."
When Athaliah (Hebr. Ataljaho), the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed (killed) the whole royal family (all the royal seed).
But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram [another name for Jehoram, see ], the sister of Ahaziah, took Joash [also called Jehoash], Ahaziah's son, and took him away from the king's sons who were slain, him and his nurse, and hid them in the bedchamber, and they were hidden from Athaliah, so that he was not slain.
And Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the sacred things that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had set apart (consecrated), and his own sacred objects, and all the gold that was in the treasury of the house of the Lord (Yahweh) and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazael, king of Aram, who had withdrawn from Jerusalem.
[Jehoahaz reigned in the Northern Kingdom from 814 to 798 BC. He did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord (), and God allowed the king of Aram to defeat Israel time and time again, drastically reducing Jehoahaz's army (). Jehoahaz prays to God, and God sends an anonymous deliverer (perhaps Elisha and Jehoash, see ). This is the only time it is mentioned that a king in the north receives an answer to prayer, see .]
In the 23rd year of Joash, son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, began to reign over Israel in Samaria and reigned for 17 years.
And Jehoash, king of Israel, took Amaziah, king of Judah, Jehoash's son, Ahaziah's son, at Beit-Shemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate [on the north side of Jerusalem] to the Corner Gate [on the west side], 400 cubits [180 meters].
his son Joram,
his son Ahaziah,
his son Joash,
They went up against Judah and broke in there and carried away all the treasures that were in the king's palace, as well as his sons and wives, so that he had no son left except Jehoahaz, his youngest son.
[Ahaziah reigned over Judah (the Southern Kingdom) for one year (886-885 BC), followed by Queen Athaliah (Hebr. Ataljaho), who reigned for six years (885-879 BC).]
The inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, Joram's youngest son, king after him, for all the older sons had been killed by the band of robbers who had come with the Arabs to the camp. So Ahaziah, Joram's son, became king of Judah.
Ahaziah was 22 [42] years old when he becameking, and he reigned for one year in Jerusalem. His mother [the queen mother] was named Athaliah (Hebr. Ataljaho), the daughter of Omri [the 6th king of the Northern Kingdom].
[The Hebrew text says 42 years, but the Greek translation and several others say 22 years, as in the parallel passage in .]
So he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he had received at Ramah in the battle against Hazael, king of Aram. And Ahaziah,king of Judah , son of Joram, went down to visit Joram, son of Ahab, in Jezreel, because he was ill.
But it was to Ahaziah's destruction that God had determined he should come to Joram. When he arrived there, he went with Joram to meet Jehu, the son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab.
And it came to pass, when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, that he met the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah who were in Ahaziah's service, and he killed them.
Then he searched for Ahaziah, and they seized him where he was hiding in Samaria. They brought him to Jehu and killed him. But they buried him, for they said, "He was the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart." There was no one left in the house of Ahaziah to take over the kingdom.
When Athaliah (Hebr. Ataljaho), the mother of Ahaziah [the queen mother], saw that her son was dead, she rose up and spoke against [killed] the entire royal family of Judah. [In , the word avad (destroyed, killed) is used. The Greek translation has "killed," while the Hebrew text has davar, which means "to pronounce judgment/death" on all male offspring in the house of Judah.]
But just as the royal children were about to be killed, the king's daughter Joshabath secretly took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, away from the royal sons and brought him and his nurse into the bedroom. There, Joshabath, the daughter of King Joram and wife of the priest Jehoiada—who was also Ahaziah's sister—hid him from Athaliah so that she would not kill him.
And Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, was captured [792 BC] at Beit-Shemesh by Joash, king of Israel. When he had brought him to Jerusalem, he broke down a section of the wall of Jerusalem, from the Ephraim Gate to the Ponem Gate, 400 cubits [about 200 meters, probably the northern and most vulnerable side].
