Ahaziah of Judah's reign and death

Ahaziah of Judah is twenty-two when he becomes king and reigns one year, and the assessment names the person responsible: his mother encouraged him to act wickedly. Athaliah is Ahab's daughter, and with her husband dead and her son on the throne at twenty-two she is running Judah.

The other members of the house of Ahab serve as his advisers after his father's death, to his undoing, and they advise him into a war. He joins Joram of Israel, who is his uncle, in a campaign against Hazael of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. Joram is wounded and withdraws to Jezreel to recover, and Ahaziah goes down to visit him there.

That visit kills him. Jehu's coup breaks out while both kings are at Jezreel, and the two of them ride out in their chariots to meet him, each in his own chariot, not knowing what is happening. Joram asks whether he comes in peace, and gets the answer that begins the massacre: how can there be peace as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound? Joram turns to flee, shouting treachery, and is shot through the heart between the shoulders with such force that the arrow comes out at the chest.

Ahaziah runs, is wounded on the way up to Gur near Ibleam, and dies at Megiddo. His servants take his body back to Jerusalem and bury him with his ancestors, and the reason given for that courtesy is that he was a grandson of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart.

The two histories of the period give different details of how and where he was caught, one having him wounded in his chariot and dying at Megiddo, the other having him hide in Samaria and be brought to Jehu and killed. Reconciliations have been proposed and none is compelling; what both agree on is that he died in the coup.

One year on the throne, and every decision in it was made by other people: his mother, and the surviving relatives of a dynasty that was about to be exterminated. He is the only king of Judah whose reign is explained entirely by who was advising him.

The consequence for Judah is immediate and nearly fatal to the dynasty. The king is dead at twenty-three, his brothers were carried off by raiders in his father's reign, and his own sons are small children. His mother, who has just watched her entire birth family exterminated in a single day in the north, moves to secure the southern throne for herself by killing every one of her grandchildren.

The house of David, which had been given a permanent promise, is reduced within a few hours to one infant hidden in a bedroom by his aunt.

One year is the shortest reign in Judah, and everything about it is determined by his mother's family.

Athaliah was Ahab's daughter, and the assessment given is unusually direct about influence: he too followed the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother encouraged him to act wickedly. He walked in their ways because his mother was his counsellor in doing wrong.

He dies in the north, visiting his wounded uncle Joram of Israel at Jezreel, and is caught up in Jehu's coup because he happened to be in the wrong palace on the wrong day.

The two accounts of his death differ in detail, one having him wounded near Ibleam and dying at Megiddo, the other having him captured hiding in Samaria and brought to Jehu. Reconciling them has occupied commentators for a long time and neither version changes the outcome.