2 Chronicles 22:1 - Meaning and Application

This chapter gives us the story of Ahaziah’s reign, and it was a very short one, only one year. It was long enough, though, unless it had been better. He was also called Jehoahaz (2 Chronicles 21:17). Here he is called Ahaziah, which is the same name with the word parts reversed.

The text says he was forty-two years old when he began to reign (2 Chronicles 22:2), but that cannot be right. His father, who ruled before him, was only forty when he died, and another account says Ahaziah was twenty-two when he began to reign (2 Kings 8:26). Many think the number here refers to his mother Athaliah’s age, since the Hebrew can be read that way, and it is said in a way that shames him because she controlled him. In effect, she ruled, while he had little more than the title of king. Others think a copyist simply wrote forty-two instead of twenty-two, and that the mistake was passed down. Many ancient translations read twenty-two here, and the sense of the passage makes that reading easy to accept.

Ahaziah’s reign is summed up in just a few lines. His mother and her family advised him to do evil, and that led to his ruin. He did wickedly. God had kept him alive when all his brothers were killed, and he was the youngest, so he had every reason to be thankful. The people of Jerusalem also made him king after burying his father in shame, hoping he would learn from that loss and rule better. But he did not respond to either God’s mercy or man’s kindness. Instead, he followed the ways of Ahab’s family and did evil in the Lord’s sight like they did (2 Chronicles 22:3-4).

He worshiped Baal and Ashtoreth, the false gods of the surrounding nations. Some think they treated these idols as lesser beings who could bring them closer to the highest God, or as spiritual helpers who were easier to approach in daily life. That was bad enough, but there may have been something worse. It seems likely that they began to think of the Lord, the God of their fathers, as just another god like these Baals, and maybe even less attractive because his worship forbade the immoral pleasures that the idol worship encouraged.

Ahaziah was also steered into this sin by his mother and her relatives. His mother was his counselor (2 Chronicles 22:3), and after his father died, the rest of Ahab’s house kept pushing him in the same direction (2 Chronicles 22:4). While his father was alive, they worked to keep him tied to idolatry. After his father died, they feared that his shameful end might warn him away from it, so they pressed him even harder. Young people are often ruined by the counsel of the ungodly when they are just beginning their lives. Ahaziah could have had better advice from the princes, judges, priests, and Levites who had once taught the knowledge of God in his grandfather’s days. But he preferred the flattery of Ahab’s house, gave himself over to their lead, and did whatever they wanted.

That counsel led him to destruction. Anyone who urges us toward evil is also urging us toward ruin. Such people may flatter us and act like friends, but they are really our worst enemies. Those who corrupt young people destroy them. It was bad enough that Ahaziah was led into danger by joining Joram, king of Israel, in the campaign to Ramoth Gilead, where Joram was wounded. Bad advice in religion can also lead people to act foolishly in their own ordinary affairs, if they keep following it.

But there was more. By becoming closely linked with Joram, Ahaziah shared in the downfall of Ahab’s house. He came to visit Joram (2 Chronicles 22:6) just when Jehu was carrying out God’s judgment on that idolatrous family, and so Ahaziah was cut off with them (2 Chronicles 22:7-9). This warns us to fear the harm of bad company and joining ourselves to sinners. Even if we do not catch their corruption, we may still share their destruction. Come out from Babylon, that falling house (Revelation 18:4).

We also see God’s justice in this. His providence brought Ahaziah to Joram at exactly the wrong time, so that he would fall with him, as if caught in a trap. This was already told in another place (2 Kings 9:27-28). Here we are also told that Ahaziah was given a proper burial, unlike Joram, whose body was thrown into Naboth’s field (2 Kings 9:26). The reason was that Ahaziah was the son, really the grandson, of good Jehoshaphat, who had sought the Lord with all his heart. So even after his death, Jehoshaphat’s memory was honored, and some respect was shown to his unworthy descendants because of him. The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot.