Ahaziah of Judah

Ahaziah
King of Judah
Reignc. 842 – 841 BCE
PredecessorJehoram
SuccessorAthaliah
Bornc. 883 BCE or c. 863 BCE
Jerusalem, Kingdom of Judah
Diedc. 841 BCE
Megiddo, Kingdom of Israel
Burialc. 841 BCE
SpouseZibiah
IssueJehoash of Judah
Names
Ahaziah ben Jehoram
Hebrewאֲחַזְיָה
HouseHouse of David
FatherJehoram
MotherAthaliah

Ahaziah of Judah (Hebrew: אֲחַזְיָהוּ, ʼĂḥazyāhū; Greek: Ὀχοζίας Okhozias; Latin: Ahazia)[1] or Jehoahaz I (2 Chronicles 21:17; 25:23), was the sixth king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter (or possibly sister) of king Ahab of Israel. He was also the first Judahite king to be descended from both the House of David and the House of Omri, through his mother and successor, Athaliah.

According to 2 Kings 8:26, Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign, and reigned for one year in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 22:2 gives his age as 42 years when his reign began in Jerusalem.

William F. Albright has dated his reign to 842 BC, while E. R. Thiele offers the date 841/840 BC.[2] As explained in the Rehoboam article, Thiele's chronology for the first kings of Judah contained an internal inconsistency that placed Ahaziah's reign one year after his mother Athaliah usurped the throne. Later scholars corrected this by dating these kings one year earlier,[3][4] so that Ahaziah's dates are taken as one year earlier than Thiele's in the present article.

  1. ^ "2 Kings 9:29 Multilingual: In the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab, Ahaziah began to reign over Judah". biblehub.com.
  2. ^ Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (3rd ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Kregel, 1983) 101, 217.
  3. ^ Young, Rodger C. (December 2003). "When Did Solomon Die?". Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 46 (4): 589–603. Archived from the original on 2010-07-26.
  4. ^ Leslie McFall, "The Chronology of the Hebrew Kings Revised," 2008, available on his Web site.