JEHOSHAPHAT, (FOURTH) KING OF JUDAH, AHAZIAH AND JEHORAM) JORAM, (NINTH AND TENTH)

KINGS OF ISRAEL. - The Joint Maritime Expedition to Ophir - Ahaziah's Reign and Illness - The proposed Inquiry of

Baal-zebub - The Divine Message by Elijah - Attempts to Capture the Prophet, and their Result - Elijah appears before

the King - Death of Ahaziah - Accession of Joram - The Ascent of Elijah - Elisha takes up his Mantle.

(1 Kings 22:48-2 Kings 2:14; 2 Chronicles 20:35-27).

JEHOSHAPHAT saw two sons of Ahab ascend the throne of Israel. Of t hese Ahaziah immediately succeeded Ahab. Of

his brief reign, which lasted two years, only two events are known: the first connected probably with the beginning, the

second with the close of it. We judge that the attempted maritime expedition in conjunction with Jehoshaphat took

place at the beginning of Ahaziah's reign - first, because the fitting out and the destruction of that fleet, and then the

proposal for another expedition must have occupied two summers, during which alone such undertakings could be

attempted; secondly, because it seems unlikely that Jehoshaphat would have entered into any alliance with an Ahaziah,

except at the beginning of his reign. There was that connected with the death of Ahab which might readily influence a

weak character like Jehoshaphat to think with hopefulness of the son of his old ally, since his accession had been

marked by such striking judgments. Even the circumstance that Jezebel no longer reigned might seem promising of

good. And, in this respect, it is significant that, with the death of Ahab, the ministry of Elijah passed into a more public

stage, and was followed by the even more prominent activity of Elisha.

We remember the notice (1 Kings 22:47) that "there was then no king in Edom." However we may account for this

state of matters, it was favorable for the resumption of that maritime trade which had brought such wealth to Israel in

the reign of King Solomon (1 Kings 9:26-28). And there were not a few things in the time of Jehoshaphat that might

recall to a Judaean the early part of Solomon's reign. Perhaps such thoughts also contributed to the idea of a joint

expedition on the part of Judah and Israel. But it was a mode of re -union as crude and ill-conceived as that which had

led to the alliance by marriage between the two dynasties, the state visit of Jehoshaphat to Ahab, and its political

outcome in the expedition against Ramoth-Gilead. The story is briefly told in the book of Kings (1 Kings 22:48, 49),

and one part of it more circumstantially in the Second Book of Chronicles (20:35-37). In the Book of Kings two

expeditions are spoken of - the one actually undertaken, the other only proposed. Accordingly, only the first of these is

recorded in Chronicles. It consisted of so-called Tarshish ships,105 which were to fetch gold from Ophir, setting sail

from the harbor of Ezion-Geber, on the Red Sea, a port probably on the coast of South-eastern Arabia, although the

exact locality is in dispute.106

The ill-success of such an alliance with the wicked son of Ahab as announced (2 Chronicles 20:37) by Eliezer, the son

of odavah - a prophet not otherwise mentioned. His prediction was erified when the allied fleet either suffered

shipwreck or was estroyed in a storm. Jehoshaphat took the warning. When Ahaziah nvited him to undertake a second

expedition, in which (as seems mplied in 1 Kings 22:49) Israelitish mariners were to take a eading part - perhaps

because the former failure was ascribed n the north to the unskillfulness of the Judaeans ­ the roposal was declined.107

The brie f and inglorious reign of Ahaziah, the son and successor f Ahab, is said to have begun in the seventeenth year

of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and to have lasted two years (1 Kings 22:51). There is apparently here a slight

chronological difficulty (comp. 2 Kings 3:1), which is, however, explained by the circumstance that, according to a

well-known Jewish principle, the years of reign were reckoned from the month Nisan - the Passover-month, with which

the ecclesiastical year began - so that a reign which extended beyond that month, for however brief a period, would be

computed as one of two years. Thus we conclude that the reign of Ahaziah in reality lasted little more than one year.

The one great political event of that period is very briefly indicated, although fraught with grave consequences. From

the opening words of 2 Kings - which, as a book, should not have been separated from 1 Kings108 - we learn that the

Moabites, who, since the time of David, had been tributary (2 Samuel 8:2), rebelled against Israel after the death of

It was probably due to the ill -health of Ahaziah that an attempt was not made to reduce them to obedience. For the king

of Israel had fallen through "the lattice," or between the grating, probably that which protected the opening of the

window, in the upper chamber.  109