In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, began to reign.
This verse dates Judah's new king by Israel's king — a sign of how tangled the two thrones had become. Writers trace that tangle back to a marriage two generations earlier.
He was the last son left to Jehoram of Judah. One writer explains why Scripture gives two different dates for the start of his reign.
Ahaziah must have reigned as his father's deputy during the last year of his father's sickness. This is clear from comparing 2 Kings 8:25 with 9:29. He was the youngest and only remaining son of Jehoram (2 Chron. 21:17)... Somehow his mother escaped the fate of Jehoram's other wives, who were carried off captive during the Philistine-Arabian invasion. She "was his counsellor to do wickedly." 2 Chron. 22:4 seems to hint that his father Jehoram repented during his last sufferings, and had pulled away a little from the house of Ahab. This is because it says they "were his (Ahaziah's) counsellors after the death of his father, to his destruction." His father's death removed the check, and he at once joined himself to his mother's relatives in their sins and their wars.
Ahaziah did not invent the mixture he inherited. His grandfather Jehoshaphat had tied Judah's royal family to Ahab's house by marriage.
The record makes his connection with Ahab prominent. He too did evil in the sight of the Lord. He made an alliance with Ahab's son Joram (or Jehoram), who was still king in Israel... Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, made an unholy alliance with the wicked murderer Ahab, King of Israel (1 Kings 22). It had resulted in the marriage of his son with Athaliah, the wicked daughter of a wicked father. And Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son, was dragged down by her and she became the ruination of her son Ahaziah. A dreadful harvest!
Another writer points to that same alliance, and to how long evil keeps bearing fruit:
The pious Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab was the origin of all this, for evil bears fruit which continues long to reproduce itself.
One writer draws a lesson from these two short reigns for believers today.
The short history of King Jehoram and King Ahaziah of Judah is woven in here to link the order of events together. It still presents serious and instructive features. The daughter of Ahab (the husband of Jezebel) was the wife of Jehoram of Judah. Ahaziah, Jehoram's son, was also "the son-in-law of the house of Ahab." These profane alliances led both of them into the ways of the kings of Israel. The same holds true at all times. A Christian yoked together with a child of the world is bound to lose his testimony and even the appearance of his Christianity. The world is never improved by the Christian's alliance with it.
Ahaziah's reign ended in the judgment that fell on Ahab's house. One writer links that end back to the first compromise, and shows why a good man's bad example does so much damage.
The first evil begun by a pious king continues. His son's practice is far from pious. This is because a good man's bad example has immense influence, above all with those who are not good. It hardens them, and so works deep and lasting mischief. We are told that "the destruction of Ahaziah was of God, by coming to Joram: for when he came, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu." And so he came under the same judgment.
Israel's royal line was wiped out. Judah's line survived — not because its kings were better, but because of a promise.
The royal house of Israel is destroyed, and not a single man is left. God begins the trial of His patience again with a new dynasty, that of Jehu. But it is not so with the house of Judah. The faithful God keeps His word, for He had said that He would give David "always a lamp for his sons" (2 Kings 8:19). In the person of Joash He keeps for Himself a feeble candle stub, and He does not put it out. Through Joash an era of blessing and of the fear of the Lord would begin for the kingdom of Judah.
- Seed — Jehoshaphat tied his family to Ahab's house by marriage. That alliance was the origin of all that follows, and the evil kept reproducing itself long after he died.
- Soil — Ahaziah had already ruled beside his sick father. His father's death removed the last check, and Athaliah and Ahab's relatives became his advisers.
- Fruit — The yoke that joined Judah to Israel cost Judah its distinctness. A believer tied to the world loses his testimony, and the world is never improved by the tie.
- Harvest — Ahaziah went to visit the wounded Joram, and went out with him against Jehu. He fell under the same judgment, through the friendship he inherited.
- Mercy — The line survived anyway, because God had promised David a lamp — a faint flame He refused to put out.
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, the daughter of Omri king of Israel.
Ahaziah takes Judah's throne at twenty-two and reigns a single year. Then the record pauses to name his mother — Athaliah, of the royal house of Israel. That one detail explains the rest. How did the line of David get tied to the house of Ahab?
The verse calls Athaliah the daughter of Omri, but earlier in the same chapter she is Ahab's daughter. One commentator resolves the wording and traces the family lines that put Ahaziah inside Ahab's circle from birth.
His mother was Athaliah, called the daughter of Omri. That was a common way of speaking among the Jews. She was in fact the granddaughter of Omri, the head of this royal line. She was also the daughter of Ahab and the wife of Jehoram of Judah (v. 18). So she was the sister of Jehoram of Israel. Ahaziah himself was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab.
Ahaziah did not choose his mother. A generation earlier his grandfather Jehoshaphat, a king known for his devotion, made an alliance with the house of Ahab.
The kings of Israel had set the deadly example of a path that led Judah and all Israel to ruin (see 2 Kings 16:3). The godly Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab was where all this began, for evil bears fruit that goes on reproducing itself for a long time.
Athaliah was more than a name in the record. She advised her son, and he took her advice. One writer sets her beside an earlier king of Judah who faced the same test and chose the opposite.
Sadly, the Lord's judgment on his father did not move him to turn 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 his mother's wicked advice (v. 3). How different from Asa! Asa removed his own mother from her place as queen mother, because she had made an idol, an image of Asherah (2 Chron. 15:16). Anyone who chooses to ignore the Lord leaves himself open to being led into every kind of evil.
The parallel record in 2 Chronicles 22:2 says Ahaziah was forty-two when he became king. One reference work shows why the number here is the right one, using the family's own dates.
2 Kings 8:26 says he was 22 years old when he began to reign, but 2 Chr. 22:2 says he was 42. The second figure is surely a copyist's mistake, since his father was only 40 years old when he died. 2 Chr. 21:5, 20. The Syriac and Arabic copies read 22 in both passages.
Ahaziah reached the throne because there was nobody else left.
Since all Jehoram's sons had been killed except Ahaziah, the youngest, the people made him king.
One writer traces how that single year ended.
He formed an alliance with Joram king of Israel and went with him against Hazael king of Syria. Joram was wounded and went to Jezreel to be healed. Ahaziah later went to visit Joram, and God brought about his death by Jehu, when Jehu cut off the house of Ahab.
One writer turns these two verses of family history into a question for parents today.
The wife of Jehoram of Judah was Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab (2 Kings 8:18); Ahaziah was the son of Athaliah (2 Kings 8:26). This should make Christian mothers realize their responsibility. It should stir them to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord. On the other hand, it shows that when the head of a Christian family marries a woman of the world, the result is morally disastrous for the children born from that marriage.
The line looks finished. Yet one writer points to the reason Judah survived.
His son Jehoram followed his father's bad example. He married Ahab's daughter and did evil before the LORD, just as his father-in-law Ahab did. But the LORD would not wipe out the house of David. His covenant with David held back His righteous anger from falling on Judah. That covenant was a powerful influence for mercy in dark days of unbelief and evil.
- Root — Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab started the whole disaster. Evil bears fruit, and that fruit keeps reproducing long after the man who planted it is dead.
- Marriage — the alliance brought Jehoram and Athaliah together. Through her, a king of David's line is called son-in-law of the house of Ahab.
- Counsel — a mother's voice shapes a reign. Athaliah advised Ahaziah into evil. Asa faced the same test and removed his mother from her position.
- Harvest — one year on the throne, then death at Jehu's hand. Writers read this as a warning to parents about who they marry and how they raise their children.
- Mercy — the house of David should have ended here. God's covenant with David kept the line alive through Judah's darkest generation.