The Kings Of Israel And Judah. Day 130, Ahaziah King Of Judah, Part Two

Ahaziah, son of Jehoram and grandson of Jehoshaphat, sits on the throne of Judah. But he will only reign for one year because he is a wicked man. He would have had no chance at the throne at all if his older brothers had not been killed by raiding parties of enemy nations. Because only his life was spared out of all of Jehoram's sons, and because Jehoram died in his thirties of a disease of the bowels, Ahaziah ascended to the throne at the age of twenty-two.

Like his father, Ahaziah worships Baal instead of the one true God. In yesterday's study we were told that Ahaziah's mother, Athaliah the daughter of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel of the northern kingdom of Israel, does everything she can to encourage him to be cruel and wicked like her mother and her late father. Ahaziah's advisers, who were formerly officials of Ahab, also encourage him to live in sin. Today we will find their bad advice leading to his death.

"He also followed their counsel when he went with Joram son of Ahab king of Israel to wage war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead." (2 Chronicles 22:5a, 2 Kings 8:28a) Although Joram is one of the sons of Ahab, he is less wicked than King Ahaziah. Earlier in our study of the kings we were told that Joram eschewed the religion of his father and reverted back to the religious practices put in place by King Jeroboam. King Jeroboam's religious practices were a perversion of those commanded by the Lord (creating golden calf images to represent the Lord, worshiping at Dan and Bethel instead of at the temple in Jerusalem) but Jeroboam's state religion did not repudiate the Lord entirely or involve the reprehensible pagan rites of Baal worship. Nevertheless, Joram is not acting on good advice when he decides to try to retake the city of Ramoth Gilead from the hands of the Arameans. Ahaziah is not acting on good advice when he agrees to join him.

You'll recall that Hazael assassinated King Ben-Hadad of Aram and assumed the throne. We talked about how it is the opinion of many Bible scholars that Hazael was the chief commander of the Aramean army at the time when he took Ben-Hadad's life; if so, he is a formidable opponent. Not only do the Aramean forces outnumber the combined forces of Israel and Judah (as they also outnumbered them when King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat banded together against them) but this man is a skilled fighter and strategist. Joram is wounded in the battle and must retreat to his palace to recuperate. "The Arameans wounded Joram; so he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds they inflicted on him at Ramoth in his battle with Hazael king of Aram. Then Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab because he had been wounded." (2 Chronicles 22:6b, 2 Kings 8:28b-29) These two kings are related to each other, since Ahaziah's mother is the sister of Joram, which explains why the armies of the northern and southern kingdoms teamed up against a common enemy. This is also why Ahaziah is concerned about the health of Joram and visits him to see how he is recovering.

If Ahaziah had been a godly man---or even if he had sought godly counsel---he would not have gone to Jezreel to visit Joram. This visit is the means by which the Lord will remove him from the throne of Judah. Joram will also be removed from his throne by the man anointed by Elijah earlier in our study of the kings. "Through Ahaziah's visit to Joram, God brought about Ahaziah's downfall. When Ahaziah arrived, he went out with Joram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab. While Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he found the officials of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's relatives, who had been attending Ahaziah, and he killed them. He then went in search of Ahaziah, and his men captured him while he was hiding in Samaria. He was brought to Jehu and put to death. They buried him, for they said, 'He was a son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart.' So there was no one in the house of Ahaziah powerful enough to retain the kingdom." (2 Chronicles 22:7-9) 

Tomorrow's text from 2 Kings will describe the deaths of Joram and Ahaziah in far more detail. But as we conclude our text from 2 Chronicles we find Ahaziah referred to as a "son of Jehoshaphat" although he was actually Jehoshaphat's grandson. The term "the son of" is used both literally and figuratively in the Bible: literally when it refers to someone's actual son, figuratively when it refers to someone's direct descendant. We are told that no one in the house of Ahaziah was powerful enough to retain the kingdom because before long we will find the queen mother, Athaliah, attempting to reign over the kingdom in her son's place. She will want so badly to reign over the nation that she will try to put all of Ahaziah's sons---her own grandsons!---to death so they can lay no claim to the throne.