2 Chronicles 22:1-9

2 Chronicles 22:1–9 (NIV)✞: Ahaziah King of Judah

Passage

This passage is a much shorter summary of Ahaziah’s reign, which is spread across chapters 8–10 of 2 Kings✞. There’s not much to say about it; I guess when a king only reigns for a year he doesn’t leave much of a record for us to read about. So I won’t bother to put a summary here; you can read the passage pretty quickly – it’s only nine verses✞.

Thoughts

It almost feels like the author(s) of Chronicles simply can’t be bothered to even write about Ahaziah. “Just go read Kings,” they seem to be saying, “if you really feel you have to read about him!” (Though if you read 2 Kings 8–10✞ he isn’t much part of the story there either. He seems to be a minor character who turns up in other people’s stories.)

The main summary of his reign is simply that he was another king of Judah who followed in the footsteps of King Ahab in Israel. (Once again, his mother was from Ahab’s family, so Ahaziah’s father Jehoram was yet another of the kings of Judah who married into Ahab’s family.)

The difference between Ahaziah and others who followed in Ahab’s ways is that that’s almost all we know about Ahaziah’s reign! He was related to Ahab, followed in his ways, had an alliance with a king of Israel, and ended up getting killed for it.