Bible Commentaries
2 Chronicles 22

Verse 2

2 Chronicles 22:2. Forty-and-two years old was Ahaziah— Twenty-and -two years old. Houbigant; the Syriac and Arabic versions. See 2 Kings 8:26. Others say, that we should read, Ahaziah was the son of the two-and-forty years; i.e. counting from the beginning of the reign of the house of Omri, from which he descended by the mother's side.

Verse 9

2 Chronicles 22:9. And he sought Ahaziah, &c.— And when he pursued Ahaziah himself, they found him as he lay hid at Samaria. See 2 Kings 9:27. Houbigant.

REFLECTIONS.—1st, Ahaziah, called Jehoahaz, the name being the same in signification, who alone had escaped the massacre of the Arabians, succeeded his father. The account that we have of him is bad, very bad. He was influenced by the worst of counsellors, an idolatrous mother, and his wicked relations of the house of Ahab; the consequence of which was, that, instead of taking warning by his father's miserable end, he continued, after his death, in the same evil ways, and followed the abominations of the house of Ahab, to the destruction both of body and soul. Forgetting the danger that Jehoshaphat had run in a former expedition against Ramoth-gilead, he consents to join with the king of Israel, in attacking it; where Joram being wounded, and returning to be cured at Jezreel, thither Ahaziah, appointed to destruction, went to visit him, and met his death with Joram from the sword of Jehu. Yet, from regard to his grandfather, they shewed his corpse respect, and gave leave for his honourable interment in the sepulchre of his fathers. See 2 Kings 9:28. Note; (1.) The most unhappy situation for a young man is, to be under the influence of wicked advisers. (2.) The companion of wicked men justly perishes with them.

2nd, Never was the promise made to David, to human view, more in danger of failing. The monster Athaliah, to usurp the throne, destroys all her grand-children, and the whole seed-royal of Judah: one babe only of a year old, as a brand from the burning, is snatched from the massacre by the care of his aunt, the wife of Jehoiada. Note; Vain is every attempt of earth or hell to defeat the word of truth; one jot or tittle of it shall never fail.