SUMMARY
Ahaziah is completely controlled by northern influences, more so than any other king. Chief among those northern influences is his mother Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel and granddaughter of Omri, the powerful king of Israel.
ANALYSIS
Curiously, Ahaziah was older than his father (v. 2; see also 21:5, 20 where his father is forty years old at the time of his death!), unless we read “twenty” for “forty-two” (with the SeptuagintThe Septuagint is a pre-Christian (third to first century BCE) Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. It is believed that the term Septuagint derives from the number of scholars-seventy (or seventy-two)-who reputedly did the work of translation. More) or “twenty-two” (with the NIV that accepts the Syriac and 2 Kings 8:26). Other matters are of greater significance:
- As in Jehoram’s reign, Ahaziah is under the influence of his mother Athaliah and thus becomes entangled in northern alliances (2 Chronicles 22:3-6).
- Ahaziah dies in Jehu’s bloody coup (2 Kings 8:28-10:31), though the details of that rebellion are differently construed and drastically abbreviated. No harmonization seems possible between the different circumstances of the king’s death. The Chronicler, not concerned with the lengthy details, tips his hand in the words of verse 7, “But it [the death of Ahaziah] was ordained by God.” Ahaziah died, in accordance with God’s will, because of his northern alliances. Furthermore, his death precipitated a threat to the promise of an eternal dynasty (1 Chronicles 17:12) since now “the house of Ahaziah had no one able to rule [better, “seize hold of”] the kingdom” (2 Chronicles 22:9).
