Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
2 Chronicles 22:2

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 2 Chronicles 22:2. Forty and two years old was Ahaziah — 2 Kings 8:26. Ahaziah might have been twenty-two years old, according to 2 Kings 8:26, but he could not have been forty-two, as stated here, without being two years older than his own father! See the note there. The Syriac and Arabic have twenty-two, and the Septuagint, in some copies, twenty. And it is very probable that the Hebrew text read so originally; for when numbers were expressed by single letters, it was easy to mistake מ mem, FORTY, for כ caph, TWENTY. And if this book was written by a scribe who used the ancient Hebrew letters, now called the Samaritan, the mistake was still more easy and probable, as the difference between [Samaritan] caph and [Samaritan] mem is very small, and can in many instances be discerned only by an accustomed eye.

The reading in 2 Kings 8:26 is right, and any attempt to reconcile this in Chronicles with that is equally futile and absurd. Both readings cannot be true; is that therefore likely to be genuine that makes the son two years older than the father who begat him? Apage hae nugae!

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Jezebel’s Baalism in Judah (21:1-23:21)

The Baalism of Ahab and Jezebel remained strong in the northern kingdom during the successive reigns of their sons Ahaziah and Joram (2 Kings 1:1-15). It spread to Judah in the reign of Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram, who was married to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (21:1-20; see notes on 2 Kings 8:16-24).

Judah’s next king, Ahaziah, at the direction of his mother Athaliah and her northern relatives, cooperated with the idolatrous northern kingdom, and as a result met an early death (22:1-9; see notes on 2 Kings 8:25-29; 2 Kings 9:21-29; 2 Kings 10:12-14). The kings of both Judah and Israel were killed by Jehu, whose anti-Baal revolution in the northern kingdom is recorded in 2 Kings 9:1-36.

Upon the king of Judah’s death, Athaliah seized the throne for herself. She ruled for six years, during which she did all within her power to establish the northern Baalism of her parents in Judah. But the priests and Levites remained faithful to God. The Levites were the temple guards, and the writer emphasizes the part they played (in cooperation with the palace guards) in getting rid of Athaliah and restoring the throne to the Davidic dynasty. The Chronicler also points out that although the coup took place in the temple grounds, no one except the priests and Levites entered the temple buildings. People still had to respect the temple’s holiness (22:10-23:21; see notes on 2 Kings 11:1-20). The death of Athaliah marked the end of Jezebel’s Baalism in Judah.

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

THE BRIEF EVIL REIGN OF AHAZIAH
VI. AHAZIAH (842 B.C.) AHAZIAH MADE KING OF JUDAH

"And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead; for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned. Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Athaliah the daughter of Omri. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab; for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly."

"Ahaziah his youngest son" The youngest son of Jehoram is called Jehoahaz in the previous chapter (2 Chronicles 21:17); "But Jehoahaz and Azariah are equivalent names."Albert Barnes, Chronicles, p. 402. There was nothing unusual about variations in Hebrew names. "Bathsheba was also known as Bathshua; and her father was called Amiel or Eliam. Either spelling of such duplicate names gave the same meanings in Hebrew."A. L. Breslich in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, p. 416.

"Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign" Ahaziah's father was only forty-two years old when he died (2 Chronicles 21:5), so we should follow later renditions which read, "Twenty and two years" instead of "Forty and two."

"Athaliah the daughter of Omri" She was actually the daughter of Ahab and a granddaughter of Omri; but such a loose usage of the terms son or daughter is quite common in the O.T.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For “42” read “22” (see the marginal reference). Ahaziah’s father, Jehoram, was but 40 when be died 2 Chronicles 21:20.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 22

Now the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son ( 2 Chronicles 22:1 )

Who is also called Jehoahaz. Ahaziah or Jehoahaz are one and the same. They made him the

king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all of the older sons. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned. And he was forty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Athaliah the daughter of Omri. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab ( 2 Chronicles 22:1-3 ):

Now something is wrong here. I'm going to have to go home and figure this out. Ahaziah, forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign. I have to look that up, because his dad was only forty years old when he died. So something's wrong with the things here. Perhaps the copyist error. I'll have to look that up in my commentaries.

His mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri. Or granddaughter of Omri. They don't have words granddaughter. Omri was the father of Ahab. And he also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab.

for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly. Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the LORD like the house of Ahab: for they were his counselors after the death of his father to his destruction. And he walked in their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab the king of Israel to war against Hazael the king of Syria at Ramothgilead: and the Syrians smote Joram ( 2 Chronicles 22:3-5 ).

He also continued the same friendship with the kings of the north and he went up. And he, too, was invited to come into the battle with Jehoram against Syria. Or Jehoram rather went to battle against Syria. Jehoram was injured and was recovering from his wounds that he had received in the battle when Ahaziah went up to visit him and to comfort him. This is the time when Jehu rebelled against the reign of Jehoram, came to him and killed him. And they also found Ahaziah there and Jehu killed him also. And so they brought his body back. And they buried him there. So rather than bringing it back for burial in Jerusalem.

Now when her son was killed, Athaliah then took over the reigning of Judah, and in taking over the reign, immediately she killed all of the other sons in order that there would be no other heir apparent to the throne, except that one of the nurses grabbed one of the little sons and she hid him so that he was not slain. He was just a baby at the time that he was hidden away. And they took him to the priest Jehoiada and they raised him there in the temple.

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

F. Ahaziah ch. 22

The house of Ahab also strongly influenced Ahaziah (2 Chronicles 22:3). His mother was Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. Because of his apostasy, Jehu executed Ahaziah, along with his uncle Joram, the king of Israel. Ahaziah had no descendant who could succeed him on the throne when he died (2 Chronicles 22:9). His mother killed all his sons except one, whom the high priest and his wife hid away when he was only an infant (2 Chronicles 22:10-11).

"The fact that royal infants may regularly have been put into the care of wet nurses or foster mothers becomes the key to Jehosheba’s frustrating Athaliah’s plans; the suckling child was overlooked and could have escaped detection as he grew by mingling with other priests’ children or perhaps as a temple devotee like the young Samuel." [Note: Dillard, 2 Chronicles, pp. 179-80.]

The place where they hid him was evidently a bedding storeroom. [Note: Payne, p. 510.]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Forty two and years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign,.... In 2 Kings 8:26, he is said to be but twenty two years old at his accession to the throne, which is undoubtedly most correct; for this makes him to be two years older than his father when he died, who was thirty two when he began to reign, and reigned eight years, 2 Chronicles 21:20, different ways are taken to solve this difficulty; some refer this to Jehoram, that he was forty two when Ahaziah began to reign, but he was but forty when he died; others to the age of Athaliah his mother, as if he was the son of one that was forty two, when he himself was but twenty two; but no instance is given of any such way of writing, nor any just reason for it; others make these forty two years reach to the twentieth of his son Joash, his age twenty two, his reign one, Athaliah six, and Joash thirteen; but the two principal solutions which seem most to satisfy learned men are, the one, that he was twenty two when he began to reign in his father's lifetime, and forty two when he began to reign in his own right; but then he must reign twenty years with his father, whereas his father reigned but eight years: to make this clear they observe b, as Kimchi and Abarbinel, from whom this solution is taken, that he reigned eight years very happily when his son was twenty two, and taken on the throne with him, after which he reigned twenty more ingloriously, and died, when his son was forty two; this has been greedily received by many, but without any proof: the other is, that these forty two years are not the date of the age of Ahaziah, but of the reign of the family of Omri king of Israel; so the Jewish chronology c; but how impertinent must the use of such a date be in the account of the reign of a king of Judah? all that can be said is, his mother was of that family, which is a trifling reason for such an unusual method of reckoning: it seems best to acknowledge a mistake of the copier, which might easily be made through a similarity of the numeral letters, מב, forty two, for כב, twenty two d; and the rather since some copies of the Septuagint, and the Syriac and Arabic versions, read twenty two, as in Kings; particularly the Syriac version, used in the church of Antioch from the most early times; a copy of which Bishop Usher obtained at a very great price, and in which the number is twenty two, as he assures us; and that the difficulty here is owing to the carelessness of the transcribers is owned by Glassius e, a warm advocate for the integrity of the Hebrew text, and so by Vitringa f: and indeed it is more to the honour of the sacred Scriptures to acknowledge here and there a mistake in the copiers, especially in the historical books, where there is sometimes a strange difference of names and numbers, than to give in to wild and distorted interpretations of them, in order to reconcile them, where there is no danger with respect to any article of faith or manners; and, as a learned man g has observed of the New Testament,

"it is an invincible reason for the Scripture's part, that other escapes should be so purposely and infinitely let pass, and yet no saving and substantial part at all scarce moved out of its place; to say the truth, these varieties of readings, in a few by-places, do the same office to the main Scriptures, as the variation of the compass to the whole magnet of the earth, the mariner knows so much the better for these how to steer his course;''

and, with respect to some various readings in the Old Testament, Dr. Owen h observes, God has suffered this lesser variety to fall out, in or among the copies we have, for the quickening and exercising of our diligence in our search of his word:

he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name also [was] Athaliah, the daughter of Omri, see 2 Kings 8:26.

b In Hieron. Trad. Heb. in Paralip. fol. 85. E. c Seder Olam Rabba, c. 17. So Ben Gersom. d See Kennicott's Dissert. 1. p. 98. e Philolog. Sacr. p. 114. f Hypotypol Hist. Sacr. p. 67. g J. Gregory's Preface to his Works. h Divine Original of the Scripture, p. 14.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned.   2 Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri.   3 He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly.   4 Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the LORD like the house of Ahab: for they were his counsellors after the death of his father to his destruction.   5 He walked also after their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth-gilead: and the Syrians smote Joram.   6 And he returned to be healed in Jezreel because of the wounds which 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 Jezreel, because he was sick.   7 And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God by coming to Joram: for when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab.   8 And it came to pass, that, when Jehu was executing judgment upon the house of Ahab, and found the princes of Judah, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah, that ministered to Ahaziah, he slew them.   9 And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him, (for he was hid in Samaria,) and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they buried him: Because, said they, he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart. So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.

      We have here an account of the reign of Ahaziah, a short reign (of one year only), yet long enough, unless it had been better. He was called Jeho-ahaz (2 Chronicles 21:17; 2 Chronicles 21:17); here he is called Ahaz-iah, which is the same name and of the same signification, only the words of which it is compounded are transposed. He is here said to be forty-two years old when he began to reign (2 Chronicles 22:2; 2 Chronicles 22:2), which could not be, for his father, his immediate predecessor, was but forty when he died, and it is said (2 Kings 8:26) that he was twenty-two years old when he began to reign. Some make this forty-two to be the age of his mother Athaliah, for in the original it is, he was the son of forty-two years, that is, the son of a mother that was of that age; and justly is her age put for his, in reproach to him, because she managed him, and did what she would--she, in effect, reigned, and he had little more than the title of king. Many good expositors are ready to allow that this, with some few more such difficulties, arise from the mistake of some transcriber, who put forty-two for twenty-two, and the copies by which the error should have been corrected might be lost. Many ancient translations read it here twenty-two. Few books are now printed without some errata, yet the authors do not therefore disown them, nor are the errors of the press imputed to the author, but the candid reader amends them by the sense, or by comparing them with some other part of the work, as we may easily do this.

      The history of Ahaziah's reign is briefly summed up in two clauses, 2 Chronicles 22:3; 2 Chronicles 22:4. His mother and her relations were his counselors to do wickedly, and it was to his destruction.

      I. He did wickedly. Though by a special providence of God he was preserved alive, when all his brethren were slain, and reserved for the crown, notwithstanding he was the youngest of them--though the inhabitants of Jerusalem, when they had buried his father ingloriously, made him king, in hopes he would take warning by that not to tread in his steps, but would do better for himself and his kingdom--yet he was not influenced by the favours either of God or man, but walked in the way of the house of Ahab, did evil in the sight of the Lord like them (2 Chronicles 22:3; 2 Chronicles 22:4), that is, he worshipped, Baalim and Ashtaroth, supposing (as the learned bishop Patrick thinks) that by these demons, as mediators, they might have easier access to the supreme Numen, the God of Israel, or that these they might resort to at all times and for all matters, as being nearer at hand, and not of so high a dignity, but of a middle nature between the immortal God and mortal men--deified heroes; so they worshipped them as the church of Rome does saints and angels. That was sufficiently bad; but I wish there was no reason to suspect worse. I am apprehensive that they looked upon Jehovah, the God of their fathers, to be altogether such a one as these Baalim, and them to be as great and as good as he, nay, upon one account, more eligible inasmuch as these Baalim encouraged in their worshippers all manner of lewdness and sensuality, which the God of Israel strictly forbade.

      II. He was counselled by his mother and her relations to do so. She was his counsellor (2 Chronicles 22:3; 2 Chronicles 22:3) and so were they, after the death of his father,2 Chronicles 22:4; 2 Chronicles 22:4. While his father lived he took care to keep him to idolatry; but, when he was dead, the house of Ahab feared lest his father's miserable end should deter him from it, and therefore they were very industrious to keep him closely to it, and to make him seven times more a child of hell than themselves. The counsel of the ungodly is the ruin of many young persons when they are setting out in the world. This young prince might have had better advice if he had pleased from the princes and the judges, the priests and the Levites, that had been famous in his good grandfather's time for teaching in the knowledge of God; but the house of Ahab humoured him, and he walked after their counsel, gave himself up to be led by them, and did just as they would have him. Thus do those debase and destroy themselves that forsake the divine guidance.

      III. He was counselled by them to his destruction. So it proved. Those that counsel us to do wickedly counsel us to our destruction; while they fawn, and flatter, and pretend friendship, they are really our worst enemies. Those that debauch young men destroy them. It was bad enough that they exposed him to the sword of the Syrians, drawing him in to join with Joram king of Israel in an expedition to Ramoth-Gilead, where Joram was wounded, an expedition that was not for his honour. Those that give us bad counsel in the affairs of religion, if regarded by us, may justly be made of God our counsellors to do foolishly in our own affairs. But that was not all: by engaging him in an intimacy with Joram king of Israel, they involved him in the common ruin of the house of Ahab. He came on a visit to Joram (2 Chronicles 22:6; 2 Chronicles 22:6) just at the time that Jehu was executing the judgment of God upon that idolatrous family, and so was cut off with them, 2 Chronicles 22:7-9; 2 Chronicles 22:7-9. Here, 1. See and dread the mischief of bad company--of joining in with sinners. If not the infection, yet let the destruction be feared. Come out from Babylon, that falling house, Revelation 18:4. 2. See and acknowledge the justice of God. His providence brought Ahaziah, just at this fatal juncture, to see Joram, that he might fall with him and be taken as in a snare. This we had an account of before, 2 Kings 9:27; 2 Kings 9:28. It is here added that he was decently buried (not as Jehoram, whose dead body was cast into Naboth's vineyard, 2 Kings 9:26), and the reason given is because he was the son (that is, the grandson) of good Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with his heart. Thus is he remembered with honour long after his death, and some respect shown even to his degenerate unworthy seed for his sake. The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot.