He walked also after their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, to the war against Hazael the king of Syria at Ramoth-Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.
One decision sums up Ahaziah's one-year reign: he took his direction from the family of Ahab and marched out to war beside Ahab's son. The verse reads like a military note. Commentators see in it the harvest of a marriage arranged two generations earlier. They ask what happens when a godly family ties itself to people who do not fear God.
The chapter has already named his advisers: his mother Athaliah and the house of Ahab. One writer shows how they took full control once his father died.
2 Chronicles 22:4 seems to hint that his father Jehoram repented during his last sufferings, and had partly broken away from the house of Ahab. That verse says the house of Ahab became his counsellors after his father's death, and led him to his ruin. His father's death removed the check on him. At once he joined his mother's relatives in their sins and their wars. This friendship cost him his life.
Ramoth-gilead was not new ground. One writer sets the grandson's choice beside his grandfather's.
So Ahaziah accepted advice from the house of Ahab. He joined Jehoram the son of Ahab in war against Hazael king of Syria. His grandfather had made the mistake of joining Ahab in battle, and God rebuked him sharply for it. Yet Ahaziah was so friendly with Joram king of Israel that he went to visit him after Joram was wounded in battle.
Another writer names what the alliance was in God's eyes, and what it cost the young king.
This alliance with the kings of Israel was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord... after opposing Hazael, God's rod against Israel, Ahaziah lays himself open to the blows of Jehu, the second of God's rods against his ally. These judgments on Israel neither move him nor hold him back in his path, and now they will reach his own person!
Jehoshaphat was a godly king who made one bad friendship. His grandson copied the friendship without any of the godliness.
"He even followed their counsel and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to make war." That is, the first evil begun by a godly king carries on. His son's practice is far from godly. The bad example of a good man has immense influence, above all with those who are not good. It hardens them, and so does deep damage that cannot be rooted out.
Ahaziah did not start the trouble; he inherited it. One commentator shows him still paying a bill his grandfather ran up.
Poor, young Ahaziah still reaps the harvest of the unfortunate alliance of his grandfather Jehoshaphat. The evil keeps spreading like yeast. His mother Athaliah, granddaughter of the wicked Omri and daughter of Ahab, was his counsellor to do wickedly... What might have been if his grandfather Jehoshaphat had never tied himself by marriage to Ahab and his house, and had never married his son Jehoram to Athaliah!
The damage reached past one lost battle and one short reign. One writer follows the cost down three more generations, and back onto Jehoshaphat himself.
Turn to the first chapter of Matthew's Gospel. There you will find that these three kings — Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah — are blotted out of "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." They are not counted at all in our Saviour's genealogy... The shame of it, the tragedy, the eternal loss, to this great and good man; and all for the sake of being friends with the world... David brought blessings on his family for four generations: Jehoshaphat brought a curse.
One writer presses the point onto our own dealings with the world.
The world will never give anything to a child of God without making large demands in return. Jehoshaphat had let Ahab kill sheep and oxen for him, so he would have found it hard to refuse Ahab's wish about Ramoth-gilead. The safest way therefore is to be no debtor to the world. Jehoshaphat should have had nothing whatever to do with Ahab; he should have kept himself pure... If we join with the world in its schemes, we must expect to be identified with it in its convulsions.
- Counsel. Ahaziah's ruin came from his advisers. Once his father died, nothing held him back, and he joined his mother's relatives in their sins and their wars.
- Repetition. Ramoth-gilead was the very venture God had rebuked his grandfather for. An ignored warning becomes a road walked twice.
- Example. A good man's one compromise carries immense weight with those who are not good; it hardens them, and the mischief is hard to undo.
- Harvest. Ahaziah reaped a crop he had not planted: a marriage alliance made two generations earlier was still bearing fruit in him.
- Identification. Join the world in its plans and you share its collapse. Three of Jehoshaphat's descendants are missing from the Saviour's genealogy.
And he returned to be healed in Jizreel because of the wounds that were given him at Ramah, when he fought with Hazael king of Syria. And Azariah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab at Jizreel; for he was sick.
Ahaziah's trip to Jezreel looks like an ordinary family visit. A king calls on a wounded relative. Yet Chronicles treats that short journey as the turning point of his whole reign. Why should a courtesy call be fatal, and what had already happened long before Ahaziah set out?
Ahaziah inherited this friendship with the northern kingdom. His grandfather Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, had tied his family to Ahab, king of Israel, and the tie held for generations.
Jehoshaphat's connection with Ahab was not to his honour, and how disastrous it was for his son, who married Ahab's daughter! This was doubtless the result of the friendship between the two kings.
That marriage brought Ahab's daughter Athaliah into the royal line of Judah. The cost fell on Jehoshaphat's descendants.
It was sad that the Lord rebuked Jehoshaphat for his ties with the ungodly. The results for his heirs were far more serious.
Ahaziah acted on counsel. His mother and Ahab's household became his counsellors once his father was dead. One writer sees a hint in the text that the father's death removed a restraint.
2 Chronicles 22:4 seems to hint that his father Jehoram repented during his last sufferings, and had partly broken away from the house of Ahab. It says of the house of Ahab that "after the death of his father they were his counselors, to his undoing." His father's death removed the check, and he at once joined his mother's relatives in their sins and their warfare.
An earlier king of Judah faced the same pull from his mother and acted in the opposite way.
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... Anyone who chooses to ignore the Lord leaves himself open to be led into every kind of evil.
The verse moves from a battlefield wound to a sickbed visit. One writer traces both back to the alliance behind them.
This alliance with the kings of Israel was detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Jehoram of Israel suffered the same fate at Ramoth as Ahab, who had been wounded by the Syrians at the same place years before. He went back to Jezreel to be healed of his wounds. It was there that his ally Ahaziah, king of Judah, came to show his sympathy. By the world's standards this was an act of simple courtesy. But Ahaziah had fought against Hazael, God's rod against Israel, and now he puts himself under the blows of Jehu, the second of God's rods against his ally.
Some older translations call the king "Azariah" in this one verse. The ESV and the rest of the chapter call him Ahaziah, and a third name for him appears earlier in Chronicles.
He is called AZARIAH in 2 Chronicles 22:6, and JEHOAHAZ in 2 Chronicles 21:17. "In proper names," says Fürst, "those with related meanings were often interchanged."
The next verse gives the verdict on the trip.
Ahaziah's close friendship with the king of Israel proved his undoing. He visited the wounded king just as Jehu, at God's command, carried out His vengeance on the idol-worshipping and wicked house of Ahab... The divine commentary on this is, "But it was ordained by God that the downfall of Ahaziah should come about through his going to visit Joram" (verse 7).
One writer looks behind these alliances and sees an enemy at work.
The idol worship, the rebellions, and the alliances with Gentile nations or with an Israel that had abandoned God are all so many attacks by Satan against Christ. His hatred is aimed more at the COMING KING than at the people of the kingdom.
- Inherited. Jehoshaphat's friendship with Ahab produced a marriage. That marriage produced Ahaziah. The tie outlived the man who made it.
- Advised. Ahab's household became Ahaziah's counsellors after his father died. The check on him was gone.
- Innocent-looking. Visiting a wounded ally looks like plain courtesy. It was also the step that put him under the sword God had raised up.
- Named. Older translations call him Azariah here and Jehoahaz in 21:17 — one man, one ruin, under three related names.
- Fatal. The verse that follows calls his downfall God's own doing, arranged through this very visit.
But his coming to Joram was from God the complete ruin of Ahaziah. And when he had come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom Jehovah had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab.
Ahaziah reigned one year. It ended not with a battle he chose, but with a visit he made — a courtesy call on his wounded relative Joram, king of Israel. Chronicles explains what was really happening behind that visit.
The text itself explains why Ahaziah died.
Ahaziah's association and close friendship with the king of Israel proved his undoing. He visited the wounded king of Israel when Jehu, at God's bidding, carried out His vengeance on the idolatrous and wicked house of Ahab. Jehu killed the king in Samaria, along with the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers. The divine commentary on this is, "And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God by coming to Joram" (verse 7).
(The quote uses an older translation. Its "was of God" is what the ESV calls "ordained by God.")
Ahaziah had already gone to war alongside Joram. What changed was not his habit but the hour.
So Ahaziah accepted advice from the house of Ahab. He joined Jehoram the son of Ahab to fight against Hazael king of Syria. His grandfather had wrongly joined Ahab in going to battle, and God rebuked him severely for it. But Ahaziah was so friendly with Joram king of Israel that he went to visit him after Joram was wounded in battle (v. 6). But the time had come when God had sent Jehu the son of Nimshi to cut off the house of Ahab.
The grandfather named there is Jehoshaphat. He served God, yet tied his family to Ahab's.
That is, the first evil begun by a pious king continues. The practice of his son is far from pious, for the bad example of a good man has immense influence, especially with those who are not good. It hardens them, and so works deep mischief that can never be rooted out... And so he came under the same judgment.
One writer applies this to marriage in particular, and to how far a single choice travels.
In Jehoram we get another instance of the evils of a worldly match (2 Chron. 21:6). The unbeliever often leads the Christian astray. We cannot remember a single case where, in such a marriage, the Christian brought the unbeliever right. In this case the evil is worse still, for not only is the husband led wrong, but the child also is led astray (22:3) by the evil counsels of his mother. This is often the case, especially when the mother is the unbeliever. And so the result of one false step may descend to generations.
The LORD anointed Jehu against Ahab's house, not against Judah's king. Ahaziah died anyway, because of the company he had joined.
Disaster after disaster falls on Judah as a result of this connection with the house of Ahab. To connect oneself with what claims to be of God, according to His religion, but is not so, is intolerable to God. The only son left to Jehoram is killed by Jehu, as sharing in the wickedness of Ahab's family.
God ordered the outcome, but the men caught up in it still answer for their own hearts. Jehu is the clearest case.
God, in His righteous judgment, used Jehu to deal with the wicked house of Ahab. But He was not unaware of the mixed motives that drove Jehu. In carrying out the vengeance of the Lord, Jehu was only indulging his own cruel heart for his own ends. If God has to deal in judgment, it is His strange work. If Jehu undertakes to deal with evil, it is to him a congenial task.
Behind the sword lay a longer campaign — against the royal line itself.
Satan was always plotting against the house of David. By the enemy's sword or by treachery from within, he seemed to have almost destroyed it. By this time he knew that the One who would crush his head would come from that family. If he could destroy it, all Israel would be his prey... How marked the judgment of God on these two kings! The first, Jehoram, dying of a dreadful disease, buried without honour; the second killed by the sword, a poor runaway fugitive. But it was the vengeance of God (2 Chron. 22:7).
- Alliance. A godly king tied his family to Ahab's house. A good man's bad example does deep and lasting damage to those who are not good.
- Counsel. One worldly marriage reached the grandson through his mother's advice. One false step can "descend to generations."
- Visit. What looked like kindness to a sick relative was the appointed road. The hour had come for Jehu to cut off Ahab's house.
- Verdict. Jehu was not sent against Judah's king. Ahaziah still fell with the family he had joined, judged as sharing their wickedness.
- Vengeance. Chronicles calls the whole thing God's doing. Yet the man God used, Jehu, still answers for the cruel heart he indulged in doing it.