2 Chronicles 21:1 - Exposition

The parallel for this verse is 1 Kings 22:50 ; and, with the exception of one word, it is an exact parallel. To understand the questions set in motion by the last clause of the verse, comparison must be made of 2 Kings 1:17 ; 2 Kings 3:1 ; 2 Kings 8:16 . For anything that appears here, we should take for granted that Jehoram now first began to exercise any royal authority and enjoy any royal dignity. But the first of the just-quoted passages says Jehoram (of Israel) succeeded his wicked brother Ahaziah in the second year of Jehoram (of Judah), son of Jehoshaphat. In the second of the above-quoted passages, however, we are told that the same Jehoram (of Israel) succeeded to the throne in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, which date tallies with our parallel of last chapter ( 1 Kings 22:41 ), to the effect that Jehoshaphat himself began to reign in Ahab's fourth year, and Ahaziah in Jeho-saphat's seventeenth year. While, lastly, the third of the above-quoted references says that in the fifth year of Joram (of Israel), "Jehoshaphat being then King of Judah" (which, however, is itself an unfaithful rendering of what must be a corrupt text), his son Jehoram "began to reign." It has therefore been conjectured that the royal name was given Jehoram (of Judah) by his father in his father's sixteenth year, and that in his twenty-third year he further invested him with some royal power (our 2 Kings 8:3 gives some plausibility to this conjecture), from which last date Jehoram's "eight years" ( 2 Kings 8:17 ; 2 Chronicles 21:5 , 2 Chronicles 21:20 ) must be reckoned; this was not less than two years before the death of Jehoshaphat. Were it not for the countenance that our third verse (describing the cut-and-dried arrangements that the father made for his sons) gives to the tenableness of the above conjectures, we should prefer the conjecture that the passages commented upon are so much corrupt text.