JORAM AND JEHU, (TENTH AND ELEVENTH) KINGS OF ISRAEL. AHAZIAH, (SIXTH) KING OF JUDAH. -

Accession of Ahaziah - Character of his Reign - Expedition of Joram and Ahaziah against Hazael and taking o f

Ramoth-Gilead - Joram returns Wounded to Jezreel - Visit of Ahaziah ­ Jehu anointed King - Rapid March on Jezreel -

Joram killed ­ Pursuit and Death of Ahaziah - Jezebel killed - Fulfillment of the Divine sentence by Elijah.

(2 Kings 8:25 -9:37; 2 Chronicles 22:1 -9.)

THE brief reign of Ahaziah, or Jehoahaz (2 Chronicles 21:17) - for the names are precisely the same, the two words of

which they are compounded being only reversed262) - may be regarded as marking the crisis in the history alike of the

northern and the southern kingdom. The young prince was twenty-two years old  263 when he ascended the throne (2

Kings 8:26).264

To say that he followed the evil example set by his father, would not express the whole truth. Holy Scripture designates

his course as a walking "in the ways of the house of Ahab," explaining that his mother Athaliah a was his counselor,

and that he was also influenced by the other members of that family. It was by their advice that he united with his uncle

Joram in that expedition which ended in the death of the two kings, although there is no evidence that a Judaean army

was actually joined to the forces of Israel.  265

We remember that fourteen years before, Jehoshaphat, the grandfather of Ahaziah, had joined Ahab in a similar

undertaking, wh ich had proved unsuccessful, and in which Ahab lost his life. We might wonder at the renewal of an

attempt upon Ramoth-Gilead, when a man like Hazael occupied the throne of Syria; but the Assyrian monuments

explain alike the expedition and its opening success. From these we learn that there was repeated war between Assyria

and Hazael, in which, to judge from the number of Syrian war chariots captured (1121), the whole force of the country

must have been engaged and exhausted. On another occasion we read of a war in which after a great victory  266 an

Assyrian monarch pursued his enemy from city to city, and even into the mountains, burning and destroying everything

before him.  267

We may therefore conjecture that if Joram was not actually in league with Assyria - as Jehu afterwards was - the

Israelitish king availed himself of the opportunity for an attack upon Ramoth-Gilead. In this he seems to have been

successful (2 Kings 9:14), although he was wounded by the Syrians - as Josephus has it, by an arrow during the siege

(Ant. 9:6, 1). Leaving Ramoth-Gilead, which he had taken, in the keeping of Jehu, his chief captain, Joram went back

to the summer palace of Jezreel, to be healed of his wounds, both as nearer to the field of action, and because the court

was there at the time.

It was to Jezreel that Ahaziah went to see his uncle, and during this fatal visit the "destruction" overtook him, which, as

the writer of the Book of Chronicles notes, "was of God." It came together with that of Joram and the whole house of

Ahab. The judgment which more than fourteen years before had been pronounced upon Ahab (1 Kings 21:21-24) had

only been deferred till the measure of the guilt of his house was filled. And now the hour had come. In that awful vision

on Mount Horeb, Elijah had received the commission to "anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi... to be king over Israel" (1

Kings 19:16), with special view to the work of punishment which he was to execute. The commission, which Elijah

himself could not discharge, had devolved on Elisha; and, the proper time for its execution having arrived, the prophet

now sent one of the "sons of the prophets" - a young man (9:4), possibly his personal attendant. As no doubt he literally

obeyed the injunctions of his master, we shall best learn what these were by following the detailed account of what he

actually said and did.

As directed by Elisha, he went to Ramoth-Gilead, carrying with him a vial, probably of holy oil, which the prophet had

given him. Even this is significant. On his arrival he found, as so often in this history, all apparently arranged so as to

carry out the special purpose of God. He had been told to "look out" Jehu, and here were all the captains of the host

sitting together, probably in deliberation. Remembering that the chief command devolved on Jehu, it would not be

difficult to single out the object of the young man's mission. He had only to say, "I have a word to thee, O captain," and

Jehu as president would naturally answer. It was so; and on Jehu's inquiry to which of them the message was, the young

prophet replied: "To thee, O captain."