Lesson 11 – Children of Ahab and Jehoshaphat

¹When Ahab died in battle with Syria, his son Ahaziah took the throne. He reigned a relatively short time – only two years. Ahaziah followed in the footsteps of his father, who was evil. He did what was evil in God’s sight, worshipped idols and continued the wickedness of both of his parents. He was also compared to Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, who also turned against God.

²Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his roof and was badly injured. As he lay on his bed, he wanted to know if he would live or die. So he sent one of his men to ask his fortune from Baal-zebub of Ekron in the Philistine territory. The messenger quickly ran into Elijah the prophet who told him to return to the king and say that he would die of his wounds. Ahaziah was shocked and angered at the negative news so three times he sent troops of soldiers to apprehend Elijah. The first two Elijah killed with fire from God. The third begged for his life and Elijah, prompted by God, agreed to come to the king. Elijah repeated his message and as promised, the king soon died of his injuries.

After Ahaziah’s death, his son did not ascend the throne of Israel. 2 Kings 3 says that Jehoram (or Joram), a son of Ahab took the throne. This means that he was Ahaziah’s brother – or half-brother most likely. He was a wicked king, but his rule is listed as not as wicked as his father Ahab. At least he put away Ahab’s Baal idol. But he still sinned in the way of Jeroboam, and caused Israel to sin with him.

⁴Twelve years later, the prophet Elisha told one of the young prophets to pack for a journey and take a flask of oil. Find Jehu, the commander of the army of Israel, go to a private room and anoint him as king. When he had completed this task, he was to run away as fast as he could.

The prophet did as instructed. He found Jehu with the rest of the leaders of the army and asked him to come into a private room. There he anointed Jehu and instructed him to wipe out the line of Ahab – every male descendant. This was to avenge God of Jezebel, for the prophets and followers of God that she had killed. When he finished, he left and ran for his life.

⁵Jehu told the commanders of the army what had happened and ordered them to mount up and follow him. He rode to Jezreel where Jehoram was recovering from wounds received in battle. Jehu planned to kill Jehoram immediately.

Jehoram saw Jehu coming, and even recognized him by his chariot driving style. The king sent out two messengers to ask Jehu if all was well and if he was coming in peace. Jehu didn’t answer them, and told them to follow him lest they return and alert Jehoram of his plans.

⁶Ahaziah of Judah had come out to visit with Jehoram (who we will later learn was his uncle) as he recovered. He was a young king. He had only begun to reign the year prior.

⁷Finally Jehoram rode out to meet Jehu and find out what was going on. Recognizing treachery, he tried to flee but Jehu shot him in the back and killed him. Jehoram died and the soldiers dumped his body on Naboth’s property in Jezreel. This was the same spot where Jezebel had killed Naboth to give his vineyard to Ahab. Ahaziah tried to flee from this murder, but Jehu told his men to kill the King of Judah as well. He was wounded and escaped the pursuit, but died of his wounds nearby.

9Jehu had a very clear picture of the kind of punishment he was to deliver on behalf of God. He next went to the place where Jezebel, Jehoram’s mother, was staying. Word had come to her of what had happened to her son. So she put on her finest raiment and asked Jehu what he wanted. She called him a “Zimri”, referring to Zimri the commander of the army of Israel who killed Elah and his entire family several generations prior. She knew what was in store for her, and was hoping to curse him to as short a rule as Zimri had (seven days).

Jehu ignored her taunt and called for any who would be loyal to him to throw Jezebel out of the upper window. Three eunuchs heard him and pushed the Queen Mother out of the window. She fell to her death on the stone courtyard below. Jehu, showing signs of callousness ignored her body and went in to eat a meal. When he came back out, the dogs had eaten all of her but her hands and skull.

¹⁰Besides Ahaziah and Jehoram, Ahab had 70 more sons. They lived in the royal city at Samaria, fostered out to the great families of Israel. Jehu wrote to the families and told them to pick the next best son to be king and come fight him for control of the kingdom. But the leaders in Samaria were afraid of Jehu. They probably expected him to win the conflict and didn’t want to be on his bad side. So they wrote back to say that they would not oppose him and would do whatever he wanted. Jehu demanded the heads of all the sons of Ahab to be delivered to him in Jezreel. The leaders of Samaria did as he asked, killed all the children of Ahab and brought them to him.

¹¹In addition to the sons of Ahab, Jehu killed everyone who was associated with Ahab. All the powerful people who were Ahab’s allies, his friends and even the priests who served him in idol worship. Scripture says that Ahab wiped out every trace of Ahab in Israel.

¹²When he spoke about what he was doing, Jehu portrayed himself as the vengeful hand of God. He was carrying out God’s prophecy through Elijah that Ahab would be punished by eradication. He went so far as to say that none of God’s words concerning Ahab would fail to reach their purpose and fall to the ground as a scrap or waste. All would be fulfilled.

¹³Initially Jehu declared himself an ardent follower of Baal and called for a great celebration. He commanded that every priest and worshipper of Baal should come and participate. To miss the event was to court death. However, Jehu had no intention of worshipping Baal. He wanted to gather all of the Baal worshippers together so he could kill them. When everyone arrived for the celebration, he ushered them into the temple, then surrounded it with soldiers and commanded that no one should escape or live. In this way he wiped out the worshippers of Baal in Israel. And when he was done with that, he knocked down the pillar of Baal and destroyed the idol.

Even though he had destroyed Baal (Ahab’s god), Jehu was himself an idol worshipper. Only this time he opted for a different set of idols. Not idols from the Canaanites, but ones crafted by Jeroboam himself. 1 Kings 12:26-30 relays how Jeroboam crafted golden calves and placed them around his kingdom so that his people would not go to Jerusalem and worship God. Jehu chose to worship these idols.

¹⁴Jehu clearly did what God commanded. He thoroughly wiped out the line of Ahab and even destroyed the idols that Ahab had created and served. This faithfulness to God’s commands pleased God. In reward, God promised Jehu that his dynasty would last for four generations.

Despite pleasing God with respect to Ahab, Jehu did not walk according to the law of God with all his heart. While he may have followed God in some areas, there were other areas where he continued to rebel against God. During his reign, God began to punish the kingdom of Israel by carving off pieces of their territory and giving it to foreign kings, most notably the kingdom of Syria.

¹⁶Back in Judah, King Jehoshaphat ended his reign with a disease of the feet. Scripture says that while Jehoshaphat was still alive, Jehoram his son began to rule. This appears to be a period of co-regency. It’s possible that he used this as a mechanism to prepare his son to rule. Scholars believe that Jehoshaphat himself had a time of co-regency with his father Asa. So he might have preferred this same kind of transition to his son. It’s also possible that with the disease of his feet, Jehoshaphat was not able to effectively rule. So he brought on his son to co-rule with him and do the royal tasks he could not.

¹⁷Jehoram was a wicked king. He was married to Athaliah, the daughter of wicked King Ahab. He preferred to follow the path of his father-in-law rather than his natural father. During his reign, Edom rebelled against the overlordship of Judah and set up their own independent kingdom. God was not with Jehoram and did not allow him to reconquer the upstart kingdom.

¹⁹In the twelfth and final year of king Joram of Israel, Ahaziah began to reign in Judah. He reigned only one year, and was ultimately killed at the same time that Joram died. His mother, Athaliah, was a granddaughter Omri of Israel, a daughter of king Ahab of Israel and a half-sister to king Joram.

²⁰Ahaziah foolishly aligned himself with Jehoram of Israel in the fight against Syria. In that battle Jehoram was wounded, and while he recovered Jehu killed him. Because Ahaziah was with Jehoram, Jehu killed him as well. So the decision to go to battle with Israel was ultimately fatal.

²¹When Athaliah heard that her son was dead, she killed all of the royal family. Any living male descendant of Jehoram her husband was put to death. This is a very striking move on her part. After Jehu killed her son Ahaziah, he went on to kill all her siblings, the seventy children of Ahab. This made her the last living person in the Omrian dynasty. Perhaps she thought she could claim Judah for her family name. Perhaps she thought she could reunite the two kingdoms under her rule. She had a strong claim to both. Either way, she ruthlessly eliminated all other claimants to the throne.

²²But God had promised David that he would always have someone of his dynasty on the throne. If Athaliah killed all of the descendants, then it would not have been possible for God to keep that promise. So God preserved one son, Joash, through the quick thinking of his nurse and Jehosheba, the daughter of Jehoram and sister of Ahaziah. The hid young Joash from the murder and then snuck him from the royal house to the temple where Jehosheba’s husband was a priest.

²³Six years later, Jehoiada arranged a coup. He organized the guards who were loyal to the line of David to guard the seven year old royal heir and at the same time, stand guard at the Queen’s house. They brought out young Joash, proclaimed him king and gave him a copy of the law. Athaliah heard the commotion and came to the temple to see the end of the coronation of young king Joash. She was taken into custody, removed from the temple, and killed.

In all the long years of the kingdom of Judah, Athaliah holds two distinctives.

1. She is the only queen to sit on the throne. She ruled Judah for six years.
2. She is the only person who was not a descendant of David to rule over Judah. All the other kings we will study will claim lineage back to David.

The story of Athaliah and Joash is a testament to God’s faithfulness. Even when the people of Judah were rebelling against His law, He still arranged to keep His word and preserve the Davidic dynasty. When circumstances seemed dark, God showed that His power was greater than that of any king of queen.