Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah (Hebrew: אֲחַזְיָהוּ, ʼĂḥazyāhū; Greek: Ὀχοζίας Okhozias; Latin: Ahazia) or Jehoahaz I (2 Chronicles 21:17; 25:23), was the sixth king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter (or possibly sister) of king Ahab of Israel. He was also the first Judahite king to be descended from both the House of David and the House of Omri, through his mother and successor, Athaliah.
| Ahaziah | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ahaziah from Guillaume Rouillé's Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum, 1553 | |||||
| King of Judah | |||||
| Reign | c. 842 – 841 BCE | ||||
| Predecessor | Jehoram | ||||
| Successor | Athaliah | ||||
| Born | c. 883 BCE or c. 863 BCE Jerusalem, Kingdom of Judah | ||||
| Died | c. 841 BCE Megiddo, Kingdom of Israel | ||||
| Burial | c. 841 BCE | ||||
| Spouse | Zibiah | ||||
| Issue | Jehoash of Judah | ||||
| |||||
| Hebrew | אֲחַזְיָה | ||||
| House | House of David | ||||
| Father | Jehoram | ||||
| Mother | Athaliah | ||||
According to 2 Kings 8:26, Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign, and reigned for one year in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 22:2 gives his age as 42 years when his reign began in Jerusalem.
William F. Albright has dated his reign to 842 BC, while E. R. Thiele offers the date 841/840 BC. As explained in the Rehoboam article, Thiele's chronology for the first kings of Judah contained an internal inconsistency that placed Ahaziah's reign one year after his mother Athaliah usurped the throne. Later scholars corrected this by dating these kings one year earlier, so that Ahaziah's dates are taken as one year earlier than Thiele's in the present article.