Ahaziah became king in 841 B.C. because the raiders, who came with the Arabs into the camp, had killed all the older brothers, 2 Chronicles 22:1 / 2 Chronicles 21:17. He only reigned for one year, 2 Chronicles 22:2 / 2 Kings 8:25-26.
We are told that Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, 2 Chronicles 22:2. Since his father was forty years old when he died, many commentators suggest that the account of 2 Kings 8 has the correct reading of twenty-two years old, 2 Kings 8:26.
Some translations say that Athaliah was the ‘daughter’ of Omri, 2 Chronicles 22:2 / 2 Kings 8:26. She would have been the granddaughter of Omri, because she was the daughter of Ahab. The word ‘daughter’ is often used to refer to one as a descendant.
Ahaziah followed in the idolatrous ways of Ahab, and his mother encouraged him to act wickedly, 2 Chronicles 22:3 / 1 Kings 16:29-19:18, and did evil in the eyes of the Lord, 2 Chronicles 22:4 / 2 Kings 8:27.
War once again breaks out, and so, Ahaziah and Joram, that is, Jehoram, king of Israel in the north, go out against Hazael at Ramoth Gilead, 2 Chronicles 22:5 / 2 Kings 8:28. They were trying to reclaim the city that was under Aramean control, 1 Kings 22:29-36.
Josephus, in his writings, says the following.
‘Joram was struck by an arrow in the course of the siege, but remained until the place was taken. He then withdrew to Jezreel, 1 Kings 18:45 / 1 Kings 21:1, leaving his army under Jehu within the walls of the town.’
The Arameans wounded Joram, and so he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arameans had inflicted on him, 2 Chronicles 22:5 / 2 Kings 8:28-29. Then Ahaziah, king of Judah, went down to Jezreel to see Joram, son of Ahab, because he had been wounded, 2 Chronicles 22:6 / 2 Kings 8:29.
It appears at this point in history that the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah have a good relationship with one another. The house of Ahab was now on the thrones of both Israel and Judah, but God appears to use Joram’s illness in Jezreel to bring Ahaziah from Jerusalem, 2 Chronicles 22:7. In doing so, the two branches of Ahab’s house were brought together and brought to an end at the same time.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Appropriately, the final settlement of God’s account with the house of Ahab would take place at Jezreel, at that very vineyard of Naboth, where through Ahab’s murder of that righteous man, the dogs licked his blood, and, in the next chapter, we shall see how the dogs indeed licked the blood of Ahab in the person of his grandson Ahaziah in the very same place. None of God’s prophecies ever failed!’
Joram and Ahaziah rode out and met Jehu at the plot of ground that had belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite, 2 Chronicles 22:7 / 2 Kings 9:21. Remember, Naboth’s vineyard, which was his inheritance, had been stolen by Ahab and Jezebel, 1 Kings 21:1-18, and so, this is the perfect place to bring down the house of Ahab, 1 Kings 21:19.
It’s quite clear that Ahab and Jezebel’s sinful actions were, they were involved in idolatry and witchcraft, 2 Kings 9:22, and it’s quite clear that these practices were carried on by their son, hence why Joram was killed, and Ahab’s household was coming to an end.
Joram runs away while calling out to Ahaziah, ‘treachery, Ahaziah! 2 Kings 9:23. Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between the shoulders and the arrow pierced his heart and he slumped down in his chariot, 2 Kings 9:24. Jehu then commands Bidkar, his chariot officer to pick him up and throw him on the field that belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite, 2 Kings 9:25 / 1 Kings 21:1-29.
He asks Bidkar to remember how both of them were riding together in chariots behind Ahab, his father, when the Lord said, ‘yesterday He saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, and He will surely make him pay for it on this plot of ground,’ 2 Kings 9:25-26.
And so, Jehu tells him to pick Joram up and throw him on that plot, in accordance with the word of God, 2 Kings 9:26. Because Jehu understood that his mission was from God, that he was to destroy the house of Ahab, he doesn’t hang around in the task of killing all the descendants of Ahab and Jezebel.
When Ahaziah saw what had happened, he ran to Beth Haggan, 2 Kings 9:27. Ahaziah had a good friendship with Joram, and because of this friendship, Ahaziah joined in with the house of Ahab’s sinfulness.
This is the reason why Jehu said that he, too, should be killed, 2 Kings 9:27. They wounded Ahaziah in his chariot on the way up to Gur near Ibleam, but he escaped to Megiddo and died there, 2 Chronicles 22:8-9 / 2 Kings 9:27.
Although God had willed the execution of the house of Omri, to whose dynasty Ahab and his evil family belonged, Jehu’s murderous deeds in their totality were not approved by God.
Jehu’s envoys killed him, but they allowed his servants to bury him, 2 Kings 9:28. Ahaziah’s body was taken by chariot to Jerusalem, and they buried him with his ancestors in his tomb in the City of David, 2 Kings 9:28.
We are told that in the eleventh year of Joram, 2 Kings 9:29 / 2 Chronicles 21:18-19. Ahaziah had become king of Judah, 2 Kings 9:29. So there was no one in the house of Ahaziah powerful enough to retain the kingdom, 2 Chronicles 22:9.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following concerning the year.
‘The twelfth according to 2 Kings 8:25. The discrepancy may be best explained from two ways of reckoning the accession of Ahaziah, who is likely to have been regent for his father during at least one year, 2 Chronicles 21:19.’
Jehu was the new king of Israel whose mission was to completely eradicate the house of Ahab, Hosea 1:3-5. When Jehu came to Jezreel, he killed the house of Ahab, and after finding Ahaziah, he killed him too, 2 Kings 9:30-37.
Although the text says that ‘Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah’, 2 Chronicles 22:10 / 2 Kings 11:1, we must remember that sometimes daughters were called ‘mother’. In 2 Kings, we find that Athaliah was actually the daughter of Ahab, 2 Kings 8:18 / 2 Kings 8:26. She reigned as queen of Judah in the south from 853 to 841 B.C.
When Athaliah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to destroy the whole royal family of the house of Judah, 2 Chronicles 22:10 / 2 Kings 11:1. It appears that because she was Ahab’s daughter, her husband Jehoram didn’t get involved with Jehu when he was killing the descendants of Ahab, 2 Kings 11:1-3 / 2 Chronicles 22:10-23:21.
To make sure Athaliah remained in power, she killed all the sons of Jehoram, not the sons of Athaliah, 2 Kings 11:1-3. The royal seed would include the descendants of Jehoshaphat of the Davidic line.
Whilst she killed all the sons of Jehoram, Jehosheba, who was Jehoiada’s wife and Joash’s aunt, took Joash away from Athaliah and hid him, her nephew, 2 Chronicles 22:11 / 2 Kings 11:2, for six years in the temple, 2 Chronicles 22:12 / 2 Kings 11:3.
It was during these six years that Athaliah reigned as queen of Judah, not knowing that Joash lived in secret in the temple not far from where she resided, 2 Chronicles 22:11 / 2 Kings 11:3.
This is clearly God working through Jehosheba, 2 Chronicles 22:11 / 2 Kings 11:2, as He was preserving the seedline of David, God had promised that through David One would come to sit on his throne, 2 Samuel 7:13.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Nothing but the miraculous intervention of the Divine providence could have saved the line of David at this time, and preserved the prophecy relative to the Messiah. The whole truth of that prophecy, and the salvation of the world, appeared to be now suspended on the brittle thread of the life of an infant of a year old, 2 Chronicles 24:1, to destroy whom was the interest of the reigning power! But God can save by few as well as by many. He had purposed, and vain were the counter-exertions of earth and hell.’