Ahaziah
Ahazi'ah (Hebrew Achazyah', אֲחזיָה, held by Jehovah, 2Ki 1:2; 2Ki 9:16,23,27,29; 2Ki 11:2; 2Ch 20:35; elsewhere in the prolonged form, Achazya'hu, אֲחזיָהוּ; Sept. Ο᾿χοζίας, but v. r. Ο᾿ζίας in 1Ch 3:11), the name of two Jewish kings.
1. The son and successor of Ahab, and ninth king of Israel, who reigned two years (current, B.C. 895-4). Under the influence of his mother, Jezebel, Ahaziah pursued the evil courses of his father. The most signal public event of his reign was the revolt of the vassal king of the Moabites, who took the opportunity of the defeat and death of Ahab to discontinue the tribute which he had paid to the Israelites, consisting of 100,000 lambs and as many rams, with, their wool (comp. Isa 16:1). The difficulty of enforcing this tribute was enhanced by the fact that after the battle of Ramoth in Gilead, SEE AHAB, the Syrians had the command of the country along the east of Jordan, and they cut off all communication between the Israelites and Moabites. Ahaziah became a party in the attempt of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to revive the maritime traffic by the Red Sea, in consequence of which the enterprise was blasted, and came to nothing (2Ch 20:35-37). Soon after, Ahaziah, having been much injured by a fall from the roof-gallery of his palace, had the infatuation to send to consult the oracle of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, respecting his recovery. But the messengers were met and sent back by Elijah, who announced to the king that he should rise no more from the bed on which he lay (1Ki 22:51, to 2Ki 1:18). SEE ISRAEL, KINGDOM OF.
2. The son of Jehoram by Athaliah (daughter of Ahab and Jezebel), and sixth king of the separate kingdom of Judah; otherwise called JEHOAHAZ SEE JEHOAHAZ (2Ch 21:17; 2Ch 25:23), and AZARIAH SEE AZARIAH (2Ch 22:6). In 2Ki 8:26, we read that he was 22 years old at his succession, but in 2Ch 22:2, that his age at that time was 42. The former number is certainly right (comp. ver. 1), as in 2Ch 21:5,20, we see that his father Jehoram was 40 when he died, which would make him younger than his own son, so that a transcriber must have confounded כב (22) and מב (42). (See the treatises on this difficulty in Latin by Lilienthal [Regiom. 1750], and in German by Mtihlenfeld [Nordhaus. 1753].) He reigned but one year (B.C. 884-883), and that ill, being guided by his idolatrous mother (2Ki 8:24-29). He joined his uncle Jehoram of Israel in an expedition against Hazael, king of Damascene-Syria, for the recovery of Ramloth-Gilead, and afterward paid him a visit while he lay wounded in his summer palace of Jezreel. The two kings rode out in their several chariots to meet Jehu (q.v.); and when Jehoram was shot through the heart Ahaziah attempted to escape, but was pursued as far as the pass of Gur, and being there mortally wounded, had only strength to reach Megiddo, where he died (Guranmiller, Harmonia vitoe A chasiep, Jen. 1717). His body was conveyed by his servants in a chariot to Jerusalem for interment (2Ki 9:22-28). The variation in 2Ch 22:7-9, is not substantial (see Poole's Synopsis, in loc.). It appears from the latter passage that Jehu was right in considering Ahaziah as included in his commission to root out the house of Ahab, his presence in Jezreel at the time of Jehu's operations being an arrangement of Providence for accomplishing his doom. SEE JUDAH, KINGDOM OF.
