2 Kings 8:26

Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign,.... In 2 Chronicles 22:2 he is said to be forty two years of age; for the solution of that difficulty [See comments on 2 Chronicles 22:2]:

How this agrees with , See Poole "" on that place. The daughter of Omri, i.e. his granddaughter. See above .

2 Kings 8:26 Two and twenty years old [was] Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother’ s name [was] Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of Israel.Ver. 26. Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah.] Two and forty, saith another prophet, though the Septuagint there also have two and twenty: so have the Syriac and Arabic versions. Here, therefore, some say, but erroneously, that the text in the Chronicles hath been erroneously copied out, and ought to be corrected by this in the Kings. Others answer better, that those forty-two years are to be understood of the continuance of Omri’ s pedigree, from whom Ahaziah descended by his mother Athaliah, as we here have it in this verse. Vide Sharpii Symphoniam, page 203.

(26) Ahaziah.—Called Jehoahaz (2 Chronicles 21:17). Ewald thinks he assumed the name of Ahaziah on his accession. The daughter of Omri—i.e., granddaughter. Omri is mentioned rather than Ahab as the founder of the dynasty, and the notorious example of its wickedness. (Comp. Micah 6:16 : “The statutes of Omri are kept.”)

Verse 26. Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign] In 2 Chronicles 22:2, it is said, forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; this is a heavy difficulty, to remove which several expedients have been used. It is most evident that, if we follow the reading in Chronicles, it makes the son two years older than his own father! for his father began to reign when he was thirty-two years old, and reigned eight years, and so died, being forty years old; see 2Kg 8:17. Dr. Lightfoot says, "The original meaneth thus: Ahaziah was the son of two and forty years; namely, of the house of Omri, of whose seed he was by the mother's side; and he walked in the ways of that house, and came to ruin at the same time with it. This the text directs us to look after, when it calleth his mother the daughter of Omri, who was indeed the daughter of Ahab. Now, these forty-two years are easily reckoned by any that will count back in the Chronicle to the second of Omri. Such another reckoning there is about Jechoniah, or Jehoiachin, 2Kg 24:8: Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign. But, 2 Chronicles 36:9, Jehoiachin was the son of the eight years; that is, the beginning of his reign fell in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar, and of Judah's first captivity." - Works, vol. i., p. 87. After all, here is a most manifest contradiction, that cannot be removed but by having recourse to violent modes of solution. I am satisfied the reading in 2 Chronicles 22:2, is a mistake; and that we should read there, as here, twenty-two instead of forty-two years; see the note there. And may we not say with Calmet, Which is most dangerous, to acknowledge that transcribers have made some mistakes in copying the sacred books, or to acknowledge that there are contradictions in them, and then to have recourse to solutions that can yield no satisfaction to any unprejudiced mind? I add, that no mode of solution yet found out has succeeded in removing the difficulty; and of all the MSS. which have been collated, and they amount to several hundred, not one confirms the reading of twenty-two years. And to it all the ancient versions are equally unfriendly.

26. Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah] In 2 Chronicles 22:2 his age is given as forty-two. This cannot be correct, but is due to a misreading of the Hebrew letters which were used as numerals. Jehoram, the father of Ahaziah, was thirty-two years old (see verse 17) when he began to reign and he reigned eight years. If Ahaziah was two and twenty at his father’s death, he was born when Jehoram was eighteen. This is not uncommon in the East. Indeed we find from 2 Chronicles 22:1 that Jehoram had other children older than Ahaziah, but they were slain by the Arabian invaders. Athaliah, the daughter of Omri] Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel and so the grand-daughter of Omri. For this manner of speech cf. verse 20 of the next chapter, where Jehu is called the son of Nimshi, though he has been twice spoken of in previous verses (2, 14) as the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi.

Such names as Athaliah, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, indicate that the Baal-worshipping kings of Israel did not openly renounce the service of Yahweh.

26. Two and twenty years old — Not forty and two, as 2 Chronicles 22:2, by some corruption, reads.