3085.-The Age of Ahaziah

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 11, 1913

3085.—The Age of Ahaziah

Please explain, or harmonize, 2 Kings 8:25, 26, with 2 Chron. 22:2. Is the Ahaziah mentioned in each verse the same man, or not? There seems to be a contradiction. W. E. W.

The Ahaziah is the same. He was evidently twenty-two years old when he began to reign, as given in 2 Kings 8:26. The "Companion Bible" understands 2 Chron. 22:2, that forty and two years old has reference to the house of Omri with which he was connected. Literally, the text would read, "a son of forty-two years." The note says: "That is, of the house of Omri, on account of his connection with it through his mother; 832 to 790 equals 42. In 2 Kings 8:26, Ahaziah's actual age (twenty-two years) is given when he began to reign (790) during the two years of his father's disease. His father, Jehoram, was thirty-two when he began to reign with Jehoshaphat, two years before the latter's death. 2 Kings 8:16. That was in 796. Jehoram therefore was born in 828. Ahaziah, his son, being twenty-two when he began his coregency, was therefore born in 812; his father being sixteen years old." That is, the house of Omri had reigned forty-two years when Ahaziah came to the throne. He was the son of the forty-two years, but his own age was twenty-two.