(1) _JEHORAM BEN-JEHOSHAPHAT OF JUDAH_
B.C. 851-843
(2) _AHAZIAH BEN-JEHORAM OF JUDAH_
B.C. 843-842
2 KINGS viii. 16-24, 25-29
"Bear like the Turk, no brother near the throne."--POPE.
The narrative now reverts to the kingdom of Judah, of which the
historian, mainly occupied with the great deeds of the prophet in
Israel, takes at this period but little notice.
He tells us that in the fifth year of Jehoram of Israel, son of Ahab,
his namesake and brother-in-law, Jehoram of Judah, began to reign in
Judah, though his father, Jehoshaphat, was then king.[141]
The statement is full of difficulties, especially as we have been
already told (i. 17) that Jehoram ben-Ahab of Israel began to reign in
the _second_ year of Jehoram ben-Jehoshaphat of Judah, and (iii. 1)
in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat. It is hardly worth while to
pause here to disentangle these complexities in a writer who, like
most Eastern historians, is content with loose chronological
references. By the current mode of reckoning, the twenty-five years of
Jehoshaphat's reign may merely mean twenty-three and a month or two of
two other years; and some suppose that, when Jehoram of Judah was
about sixteen, his father went on the expedition against Moab, and
associated his son with him in the throne. This is only conjecture.
Jehoshaphat, of all kings, least needed a coadjutor, particularly so
weak and worthless a one as his son; and though the association of
colleagues with themselves has been common in some realms, there is
not a single instance of it in the history of Israel and Judah--the
case of Uzziah, who was a leper, not being to the point.[142]
The kings both of Israel and of Judah at this period, with the single
exception of the brave and good Jehoshaphat, were unworthy and
miserable. The blight of the Jezebel-marriage and the curse of
Baal-worship lay upon both kingdoms. It is scarcely possible to find
such wretched monarchs as the two sons of Jezebel--Ahaziah and Jehoram
in Israel, and the son-in-law and grandson of Jezebel, Jehoram and
Ahaziah, in Judah. Their respective reigns are annals of shameful
apostasy, and almost unbroken disaster.
Jehoram ben-Jehoshaphat of Judah was thirty-two years old when he
began his independent reign, and reigned for eight deplorable years.
The fact that his mother's name is (exceptionally) omitted seems to
imply that his father Jehoshaphat set the good example of
monogamy.[143] Jehoram was wholly under the influence of Athaliah, his
wife, and of Jezebel, his mother-in-law, and he introduced into Judah
their alien abominations. He "walked in their way, and did evil in the
sight of the Lord." The Chronicler fills up the general remark by
saying that he did his utmost to foster idolatry by erecting _bamoth_
in the mountains of Judah, and compelled his people to worship there,
in order to decentralise the religious services of the kingdom, and so
to diminish the glory of the Temple. He introduced Baal-worship into
Judah, and either he or his son was the guilty builder of a temple to
Baalim, not only on the "opprobrious mount" on which stood the
idolatrous chapels of Solomon, but on the Hill of the House itself.
This temple had its own high priest, and was actually adorned with
treasures torn from the Temple of Jehovah.[144] So bad was Jehoram's
conduct that the historian can only attribute his non-destruction to
the "covenant of salt" which God had made with David, "to give him a
lamp for his children always."
But if actual destruction did not come upon him and his race, he came
very near such a fate, and he certainly experienced that "the path of
transgressors is hard." There is nothing to record about him but crime
and catastrophe. First Edom revolted. Jehoshaphat had subdued the
Edomites, and only allowed them to be governed by a vassal; now they
threw off the yoke. The Jewish King advanced against them to "Zair"--by
which must be meant apparently either Zoar (through which the road to
Edom lay), or their capital, Mount Seir.[145] There he was surrounded by
the Edomite hosts; and though by a desperate act of valour he cut his
way through them at night in spite of their reserve of chariots, yet his
army left him in the lurch.[146] Edom succeeded in establishing its
final independence, to which we see an allusion in the one hope held out
to Esau by Isaac in that "blessing" which was practically a curse.
The loss of so powerful a subject-territory, which now constituted a
source of danger on the eastern frontier of Judah, was succeeded by
another disaster on the south-west, in the Shephelah or lowland plain.
Here Libnah revolted,[147] and by gaining its autonomy contracted yet
farther the narrow limits of the southern kingdom.
The Book of Kings tells us no more about the Jewish Jehoram, only
adding that he died and was buried with his fathers, and was succeeded
by his son Ahaziah. But the Book of Chronicles, which adds far darker
touches to his character, also heightens to an extraordinary degree
the intensity of his punishment. It tells us that he began his reign
by the atrocious murder of his six younger brothers, for whom,
following the old precedent of Rehoboam, Jehoshaphat had provided by
establishing them as governors of various cities. As his throne was
secure, we cannot imagine any motive for this brutal massacre except
the greed of gain, and we can only suppose that, as Jehoram
ben-Jehoshaphat became little more than a friendly vassal of his
kinsmen in Israel, so he fell under the deadly influence of his wife
Athaliah, as completely as his father-in-law had done under the spell
of her mother Jezebel. With his brothers he also swept away a number
of the chief nobles, who perhaps embraced the cause of his murdered
kinsmen. Such conduct breathes the known spirit of Jezebel and of
Athaliah. To rebuke him for this wickedness, he received the menace of
a tremendous judgment upon his home and people in a writing from
_Elijah_, whom we should certainly have assumed to be dead long before
that time. The judgment itself followed. The Philistines and Arabians
invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem, and murdered all Jehoram's own
children, except Ahaziah, who was the youngest. Then Jehoram, at the
age of thirty-eight, was smitten with an incurable disease of the
bowels, of which he died two years later, and not only died
unlamented, but was refused burial in the sepulchres of the kings. In
any case his reign and that of his son and successor were the most
miserable in the annals of Judah, as the reigns of their namesakes and
kinsmen, Ahaziah ben-Ahab and Jehoram ben-Ahab, were also the most
miserable in the annals of Israel.
Jehoram was succeeded on the throne of Judah by his son Ahaziah. If
the chronology and the facts be correct, Ahaziah ben-Jehoram of Judah
must have been born when his father was only eighteen, though he was
the youngest of the king's sons, and so escaped from being massacred
in the Philistine invasion. He succeeded at the age of twenty-two,
and only reigned a single year. During this year his mother, the
Gebîrah Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and granddaughter
of the Tyrian Ethbaal, was all-supreme. She bent the weak nature of
her son to still further apostasies. She was "his counsellor to do
wickedly," and her Baal-priest Mattan was more important than the
Aaronic high priest of the despised and desecrated Temple. Never did
Judah sink to so low a level, and it was well that the days of Ahaziah
of Judah were cut short.
The only event in his reign was the share he took with his uncle
Jehoram of Israel in his campaign to protect Ramoth-Gilead from
Hazael. The expedition seems to have been successful in its main
purpose. Ramoth-Gilead, the key to the districts of Argob and Bashan,
was of immense importance for commanding the country beyond Jordan. It
seems to be the same as Ramath-Mizpeh (Josh. xiii. 26); and if so, it
was the spot where Jacob made his covenant with Laban. Ahab, or his
successors, in spite of the disastrous end of the expedition to Ahab
personally, had evidently recovered the frontier fortress from the
Syrian king.[148] Its position upon a hill made its possession vital
to the interests of Gilead; for the master of Ramah was the master of
that Trans-Jordanic district. But Hazael had succeeded his murdered
master, and was already beginning to fulfil the ruthless mission which
Elisha had foreseen with tears. Jehoram ben-Ahab seems to have held
his own against Hazael for a time; but in the course of the campaign
at Ramoth he was so severely wounded that he was compelled to leave
his army under the command of Jehu, and to return to Jezreel, to be
healed of his wounds. Thither his nephew Ahaziah of Judah went to
visit him; and there, as we shall hear, he too met his doom. That
fate, the Chronicler tells us, was the penalty of his iniquities. "The
destruction of Ahaziah was of God by coming to Joram."
We have no ground for accusing either king of any want of courage; yet
it was obviously impolitic of Jehoram to linger unnecessarily in his
luxurious capital, while the army of Israel was engaged in service on
a dangerous frontier. The wounds inflicted by the Syrian archers may
have been originally severe. Their arrows at this time played as
momentous a part in history as the cloth-yard shafts of our English
bowmen which "sewed the French ranks together" at Poictiers, Creçy,
and Azincour. But Jehoram had at any rate so far recovered that he
could ride in his chariot; and if he had been wise and bravely
vigorous, he would not have left his army under a subordinate at so
perilous an epoch, and menaced by so resolute a foe. Or if he were
indeed compelled to consult the better physicians at Jezreel, he
should have persuaded his nephew Ahaziah of Judah--who seems to have
been more or less of a vassal as well as a kinsman--to keep an eye on
the beleaguered fort. Both kings, however, deserted their
post,--Jehoram to recover perfect health; and Ahaziah, who had been
his comrade--as their father and grandfather had gone together to the
same war--to pay a state visit of condolence to the royal invalid. The
army was left under a popular, resolute, and wholly unscrupulous
commander, and the results powerfully affected the immediate and the
ultimate destiny of both kingdoms.
FOOTNOTES:
[141] The following genealogy may help to elucidate the troublesome
identity of names:--
OMRI
____|____
| | JEHOSHAPHAT
Ahab = Jezebel |
_______|__________________ |
| | | |
Ahaziah Jehoram Athaliah = Jehoram
(of Israel). (of Israel). | (of Judah).
|
Ahaziah
(of Judah).
[142] Jotham ben-Uzziah was not the colleague of his father, but his
public representative.
[143] The only other king of Judah whose mother's name is not mentioned
(perhaps because his father Jotham had but one wife) is Ahaz.
[144] 2 Kings xi. 18; 2 Chron. xxi. 11, xxiv. 7.
[145] Vulg., _Seira_; Arab., _Sa'ir_ (but the historian never uses the
name Mount Seir); LXX., Σιώρ. There is perhaps some corruption in the
text, and the reading of the Chronicler "with his princes" shows that
it may have once been צַמ־שָׂרָיו.
[146] 2 Kings viii. 21. "The people" (_i.e._, the army of Judah) "fled
to their tents." Apparently this means that they slunk away home. The
word "tents" is a reminiscence of their nomad days, like the
treasonable cry, "To your tents, O Israel."
[147] Josh. x. 29-39.
[148] Jos., _Antt._, IX. vi. 1.