2 Chronicles 22: Summary and Commentary

Verse 2

22:2-4 The queen mother, Athaliah, exercised significant influence over the king (see study note on 15:16). Athaliah was very much like her mother, Jezebel (see 22:10–23:15; cp. 1 Kgs 16:31–21:28), and she followed in the footsteps of her grandfather Omri (see 1 Kgs 16:21-26).

22:2 one year: Ahaziah, also known as Jehoahaz, reigned briefly over Judah in 841 BC.

Verse 5

22:5-6 Ramoth-gilead, a Levitical city in the territory of Gad (Josh 21:38), was located on a major trade route and was strategic for Aram and Israel. • Jezreel, at the foot of Mount Gilboa in the plain of Jezreel, became the summer home of the Israelite kings.

Verse 7

22:7-9 The death of Ahaziah was a punishment for his alliance with the king of Israel. The Judahite king who lived by the counsel of the Israelite house of Omri shared their fate and found no refuge there at the time of his death. Ahaziah’s infidelity brought David’s line almost to the same point as Saul’s line, with no one left to assume the throne.

Verse 10

22:10-12 Athaliah was never regarded as a legitimate monarch; she was given no royal formula of age or length of reign as were other rulers. Her destruction of the rest of Judah’s royal family concentrated on potential male successors; those who were ineligible to reign, such as Ahaziah’s sister, survived the slaughter. Jehosheba was Ahaziah’s half sister, the daughter of King Jehoram by a wife other than Athaliah. The six years of Athaliah’s reign were from 841 to 835 BC.

Verse 1

We have here an account of the reign of Ahaziah, a short reign (of one year only), yet long enough, unless it had been better. He was called Jeho-ahaz (Ch2 21:17); here he is called Ahaz-iah, which is the same name and of the same signification, only the words of which it is compounded are transposed. He is here said to be forty-two years old when he began to reign (Ch2 22:2), which could not be, for his father, his immediate predecessor, was but forty when he died, and it is said (Kg2 8:26) that he was twenty-two years old when he began to reign. Some make this forty-two to be the age of his mother Athaliah, for in the original it is, he was the son of forty-two years, that is, the son of a mother that was of that age; and justly is her age put for his, in reproach to him, because she managed him, and did what she would - she, in effect, reigned, and he had little more than the title of king. Many good expositors are ready to allow that this, with some few more such difficulties, arise from the mistake of some transcriber, who put forty-two for twenty-two, and the copies by which the error should have been corrected might be lost. Many ancient translations read it here twenty-two. Few books are now printed without some errata, yet the authors do not therefore disown them, nor are the errors of the press imputed to the author, but the candid reader amends them by the sense, or by comparing them with some other part of the work, as we may easily do this.

The history of Ahaziah's reign is briefly summed up in two clauses, Ch2 22:3, Ch2 22:4. His mother and her relations were his counselors to do wickedly, and it was to his destruction.

I. He did wickedly. Though by a special providence of God he was preserved alive, when all his brethren were slain, and reserved for the crown, notwithstanding he was the youngest of them - though the inhabitants of Jerusalem, when they had buried his father ingloriously, made him king, in hopes he would take warning by that not to tread in his steps, but would do better for himself and his kingdom - yet he was not influenced by the favours either of God or man, but walked in the way of the house of Ahab, did evil in the sight of the Lord like them (Ch2 22:3, Ch2 22:4), that is, he worshipped, Baalim and Ashtaroth, supposing (as the learned bishop Patrick thinks) that by these demons, as mediators, they might have easier access to the supreme Numen, the God of Israel, or that these they might resort to at all times and for all matters, as being nearer at hand, and not of so high a dignity, but of a middle nature between the immortal God and mortal men - deified heroes; so they worshipped them as the church of Rome does saints and angels. That was sufficiently bad; but I wish there was no reason to suspect worse. I am apprehensive that they looked upon Jehovah, the God of their fathers, to be altogether such a one as these Baalim, and them to be as great and as good as he, nay, upon one account, more eligible inasmuch as these Baalim encouraged in their worshippers all manner of lewdness and sensuality, which the God of Israel strictly forbade.

II. He was counselled by his mother and her relations to do so. She was his counsellor (Ch2 22:3) and so were they, after the death of his father, Ch2 22:4. While his father lived he took care to keep him to idolatry; but, when he was dead, the house of Ahab feared lest his father's miserable end should deter him from it, and therefore they were very industrious to keep him closely to it, and to make him seven times more a child of hell than themselves. The counsel of the ungodly is the ruin of many young persons when they are setting out in the world. This young prince might have had better advice if he had pleased from the princes and the judges, the priests and the Levites, that had been famous in his good grandfather's time for teaching in the knowledge of God; but the house of Ahab humoured him, and he walked after their counsel, gave himself up to be led by them, and did just as they would have him. Thus do those debase and destroy themselves that forsake the divine guidance.

III. He was counselled by them to his destruction. So it proved. Those that counsel us to do wickedly counsel us to our destruction; while they fawn, and flatter, and pretend friendship, they are really our worst enemies. Those that debauch young men destroy them. It was bad enough that they exposed him to the sword of the Syrians, drawing him in to join with Joram king of Israel in an expedition to Ramoth-Gilead, where Joram was wounded, an expedition that was not for his honour. Those that give us bad counsel in the affairs of religion, if regarded by us, may justly be made of God our counsellors to do foolishly in our own affairs. But that was not all: by engaging him in an intimacy with Joram king of Israel, they involved him in the common ruin of the house of Ahab. He came on a visit to Joram (Ch2 22:6) just at the time that Jehu was executing the judgment of God upon that idolatrous family, and so was cut off with them, Ch2 22:7-9. Here, 1. See and dread the mischief of bad company - of joining in with sinners. If not the infection, yet let the destruction be feared. Come out from Babylon, that falling house, Rev 18:4. 2. See and acknowledge the justice of God. His providence brought Ahaziah, just at this fatal juncture, to see Joram, that he might fall with him and be taken as in a snare. This we had an account of before, Kg2 9:27, Kg2 9:28. It is here added that he was decently buried (not as Jehoram, whose dead body was cast into Naboth's vineyard, Kg2 9:26), and the reason given is because he was the son (that is, the grandson) of good Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with his heart. Thus is he remembered with honour long after his death, and some respect shown even to his degenerate unworthy seed for his sake. The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot.

Verse 10

We have here what we had before, Kg2 11:1, etc. 1. A wicked woman endeavouring to destroy the house of David, that she might set up a throne for herself upon the ruins of it. Athaliah barbarously cut off all the seed-royal (Ch2 22:10), perhaps intending to transmit the crown of Judah after herself to some of her own relations, that though her family was cut off in Israel by Jehu it might be planted in Judah. 2. A good woman effectually preserving it from being wholly extirpated. One of the late king's sons, a child of a year old, was rescued from among the dead, and saved alive by the care of Jehoiada's wife (Ch2 22:11, Ch2 22:12), that a lamp might be ordained for God's anointed; for no word of God shall fall to the ground.

Verse 2

Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign—(Compare Kg2 8:26). According to that passage, the commencement of his reign is dated in the twenty-second year of his age, and, according to this, in the forty-second year of the kingdom of his mother's family [LIGHTFOOT]. "If Ahaziah ascended the throne in the twenty-second year of his life, he must have been born in his father's nineteenth year. Hence, it may seem strange that he had older brothers; but in the East they marry early, and royal princes had, besides the wife of the first rank, usually concubines, as Jehoram had (Ch2 21:17); he might, therefore, in the nineteenth year of his age, very well have several sons" [KEIL] (compare Ch2 21:20; Kg2 8:17).

Athaliah the daughter of Omri—more properly, "granddaughter." The expression is used loosely, as the statement was made simply for the purpose of intimating that she belonged to that idolatrous race.

Verse 3

his mother was his counsellor . . . they were his counsellors—The facile king surrendered himself wholly to the influence of his mother and her relatives. Athaliah and her son introduced a universal corruption of morals and made idolatry the religion of the court and the nation. By them he was induced not only to conform to the religion of the northern kingdom, but to join a new expedition against Ramoth-gilead (see Kg2 9:10).

Verse 5

went . . . to war against Hazael, king of Syria—It may be mentioned as a very minute and therefore important confirmation of this part of the sacred history that the names of Jehu and Hazael, his contemporary, have both been found on Assyrian sculptures; and there is also a notice of Ithbaal, king of Sidon, who was the father of Jezebel.

Verse 6

Azariah went down—that is, from Ramoth-gilead, to visit the king of Israel, who was lying ill of his wounds at Jezreel, and who had fled there on the alarm of Jehu's rebellion.

Verse 9

he sought Ahaziah, and they caught him (for he was hid in Samaria)—(compare Kg2 9:27-29). The two accounts are easily reconciled. "Ahaziah fled first to the garden house and escaped to Samaria; but was here, where he had hid himself, taken by Jehu's men who pursued him, brought to Jehu, who was still near or in Jezreel, and at his command slain at the hill Gur, beside Ibleam, in his chariot; that is, mortally wounded with an arrow, so that he, again fleeing, expired at Megiddo" [KEIL]. Jehu left the corpse at the disposal of the king of Judah's attendants, who conveyed it to Jerusalem, and out of respect to his grandfather Jehoshaphat's memory, gave him an honorable interment in the tombs of the kings.

So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom—His children were too young to assume the reins of government, and all the other royal princes had been massacred by Jehu (Ch2 22:8).

Verse 10

ATHALIAH, DESTROYING THE SEED ROYAL SAVE JOASH, USURPS THE KINGDOM. (Ch2 22:10-12)

Athaliah . . . arose and destroyed all the seed royal—(See on Kg2 11:1-3). Maddened by the massacre of the royal family of Ahab, she resolved that the royal house of David should have the same fate. Knowing the commission which Jehu had received to extirpate the whole of Ahab's posterity, she expected that he would extend his sword to her. Anticipating his movements, she resolved, as her only defense and security, to usurp the throne and destroy "the seed royal," both because they were hostile to the PhÅ“nician worship of Baal, which she was determined to uphold, and because, if one of the young princes became king, his mother would supersede Athaliah in the dignity of queen mother.

Verse 12

he was with them hid in the house of God—Certain persons connected with the priesthood had a right to occupy the buildings in the outer wall, and all within the outer wall was often called the temple. Jehoiada and his family resided in one of these apartments.

Next: 2 Chronicles Chapter 23