2 Kings 1:17

DEATH OF AHAZIAH, 2 Kings 1:17-18.

17. He died according to the word of the Lord His death, like that of the two companies of fifties, was a judgment from Heaven. It would not do to punish those messengers of the king for insolence towards Jehovah and his prophet, and let the king himself go clear. So this impious monarch is made to drag out his last days under the consciousness of being an object of Jehovah’s wrath.

Jehoram reigned in his stead This Jehoram was a brother of Ahaziah, and succeeded him on the throne because he had no son.

In the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat On the probable reason for this likeness of names among the kings of the two rival kingdoms, see note on 1 Kings 22:44. According to 1 Kings 22:42, Jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years, and according to 2 Kings 3:1, Ahab’s son, Jehoram, began to reign in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, whence it appears, as our margin expresses it, that Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram, was made prorex some years before his father’s death. Compare also 2 Chronicles 21:3. But according to 2 Kings 8:16, Jehoshaphat’s Jehoram began to reign in the fifth year of Ahab’s Jehoram, which, according to the above statements, would be the twenty-third year of Jehoshaphat. Now, how could Ahab’s Jehoram begin to reign in the second year of Jehoshaphat’s Jehoram, and yet the latter begin to reign in the fifth year of the former? A solution of the difficulty, in which Usher, Lightfoot, Patrick, Keil, and Wordsworth substantially agree, is thus stated by the last-named commentator: “Jehoshaphat made two sessions of sovereignty to his son Jehoram one partial and temporary, the other total and final. The first was made in the seventeenth year of his reign, because he then quitted Jerusalem in order to join Ahab against the Syrians, (1 Kings 22:0;) he then left his son Jehoram to act as viceroy in his absence. But in the twenty-third year of his reign Jehoshaphat associated his son Jehoram with him in the entire sovereignty, and therefore the eight years of that son (2 Kings 8:17) are not to be reckoned from Jehoshaphat’s death, but from the twenty-third year of his reign, two years before his death.”