2 Kings 13:1

REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ, KING OF ISRAEL, 2 Kings 13:1-9.

1. Three and twentieth year There is a discrepancy between this verse and 2 Kings 13:10. If Jehoahaz began to reign in the twenty-third, and his son Jehoash in the thirty-seventh year of Joash, king of Judah, Jehoahaz must have reigned, not seventeen years, as says this verse, but fourteen, or at most fifteen, years. To meet the difficulty some assume that there is an error in the text, and that we should read one and twentieth, or two and twentieth year. Others suppose that Jehoahaz associated his son with him as co-regent two or three years before his death. There are no sufficient data to decide the question. Wordsworth remarks: “In the latter years of the kingdom of Israel the dates of the accession of the sovereigns are fluctuating. This was a natural consequence of the precarious tenure of their rule. It often happened, by reason of the confusion and dissolution of their polity, that it was a matter of doubt whether a king was really king or no at any given time. No wonder, therefore, that the dates are variously given.”