And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead; for the band of men that came in the camp with the Arabians had slain all the elder ones. And Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Athaliah, daughter of Omri.
A king's record here holds three facts: his age, the length of his reign, and his mother's name. Each one carries weight. The age raises a well-known question about the text. The mother's name explains everything that follows.
Older English translations read "forty and two years old" here. But 2 Kings 8:26 says twenty-two. Commentators treat the higher number as a copying slip, and the reason is simple.
"Forty-two" in 2 Chronicles 22:2 is doubtless a transcriber's error. His father was only forty at his death.
A son cannot be two years older than his own father. Old copies in other languages agree. "The Syriac and Arabic copies read 22 in both passages," notes the Morrish Bible Dictionary.
So does a scribe's mistake damage the Bible? One writer answers with a distinction:
Names, numbers, and the like are especially liable to error in transcription. The way people keep or use Scripture is different in its very nature from inspiration. Only ignorance or fraud confuses the two.
Another writer notes how rare such cases are:
In some extremely rare cases an error may have occurred. In 2 Kings 8:26 Ahaziah's age is 22 years, while in 2 Chronicles 22:2 it is 42 — possibly the result of a copying error. But our faith does not depend on this detail.
The verse calls her the daughter of Omri, though she belongs to the next generation down. Her family ties run through both kingdoms at once.
His mother was Athaliah, daughter of Omri. This was a common way of speaking among the Jews. She was in fact the granddaughter of Omri, the head of this dynasty. She was the daughter of Ahab and the wife of Jehoram of Judah. So she was the sister of Jehoram of Israel.
Athaliah did not arrive in Judah by accident. Ahaziah's grandfather Jehoshaphat put her there.
Poor young Ahaziah still reaps the harvest of the unfortunate alliance of his grandfather Jehoshaphat. The evil is spreading like yeast and doing its dreadful work. His mother Athaliah, granddaughter of the wicked Omri and daughter of Ahab, was his adviser in doing evil. What might have been, if his grandfather Jehoshaphat had not allied himself with Ahab and his house, and married his son Jehoram to Athaliah!
The damage did not stop with Ahaziah:
The godly Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab was the origin of all this, for evil bears fruit that goes on reproducing itself for a long time.
Ahaziah came to the throne as the only son left alive, and he lasted a year. The record names his mother because she guided him. Another king dealt with his own mother very differently.
All Jehoram's sons had been killed except Ahaziah, the youngest, so the people made him king. He took the throne at the age of 22, and he reigned only one year. Sadly, the Lord's judgment on his father did not turn him to the Lord. Instead, he followed the ways of the house of Ahab. His mother was Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and he accepted the wicked advice of his mother. How different from Asa, who removed his mother from the place of queen mother because she had made an idol.
This has a direct message for homes today:
This should make Christian mothers realise their responsibility. It should stir them up to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord. On the other hand, it shows what happens when the head of a Christian family marries a woman of the world. The result is morally disastrous for the children born of that marriage.
- Alliance — Jehoshaphat, a godly king, married his son into Ahab's house. Commentators call that step the origin of the ruin that followed.
- Mother — that marriage made Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and granddaughter of Omri, the queen mother in Judah.
- Counsel — the record names her because she guided her son. Asa shows the other way: he removed his own mother from that place.
- One year — Ahaziah's whole reign lasted twelve months. It was the short, bitter harvest of a seed planted two generations before.
- Numbers — the "forty-two" of older versions is taken as a copying slip, since his father died at forty. How people copy Scripture is one thing; inspiration is another. Faith does not rest on a digit.