2 Chronicles 22:9

And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him, (for he was hid in Samaria,) and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they buried him: Because, said they, he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart. So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) And he sought Ahaziah.—In 2Kings 9:27-28 we find a different tradition concerning the death of Ahaziah. That passage, literally rendered, runs as follows: “And Ahaziah king of Judah had seen it (i.e., the death of Jehoram, 2Kings 9:24), and he fled by the way of the garden palace, and Jehu pursued after him, and said, Him, too, smite (shoot) ye him in the chariot!—on the ascent of Gûr, beside Ibleam; and he fled to Megiddo, and died there.” (Perhaps and they smote him has fallen out before the words on the ascent of Gûr.) “And his servants brought him in the chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own grave, with his fathers, in the city of David.” Such divergences are valuable, because they help to establish the independence of the two accounts.

For he was hid.—Now he was hiding.

And when they had slain him.—And they put him to death, and buried him; for they said, &c.

He is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord.—A didactic remark in the usual manner of the chronicler.

So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.—Literally, And the house of Ahaziah had none to retain strength for kingship (= capable of assuming the sovereignty). Another sentence marked throughout by the chronicler’s own style. (Comp. 2Chronicles 13:20, “retained strength.”) It forms the transition to the account of Athaliah’s usurpation of the throne.

Benson Commentary

2 Chronicles 22:9. They sought Ahaziah — Who, though wounded, had made his escape. They caught him, for he was hid in Samaria — He fled first to Megiddo, but not thinking himself safe there, he fled to Samaria, where he was taken, and sent thence, by Jehu’s order, to Megiddo, where he received the sentence of death. See note on 2 Kings 9:27.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:1-12 The reign of Ahaziah, Athaliah destroys the royal family. - The counsel of the ungodly ruins many young persons when they are setting out in the world. Ahaziah gave himself up to be led by evil men. Those who advise us to do wickedly, counsel us to our destruction; while they pretend to be friends, they are our worst enemies. See and dread the mischief of bad company. If not the infection, yet let the destruction be feared, Re 18:4. We have here, a wicked woman endeavouring to destroy the house of David, and a good woman preserving it. No word of God shall fall to the ground. The whole truth of the prophecies that the Messiah was to come from David, and thereby the salvation of the world, appeared to be now hung upon the brittle thread of the life of a single infant, to destroy whom was the interest of the reigning power. But God had purposed, and vain were the efforts of earth and hell.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare the marginal reference. Ahaziah after remaining a while at Megiddo, removed to Samaria, where his wounds could be better cared for and concealment might be easier; Jehu's emissaries discovered him there; they took him to Jehu, who happened at the time to be at Megiddo; and then and there Jehu put him to death. The narrative here is therefore supplementary to that of 2 Kings, and finds its proper place between the clause," He fled to Megiddo," and the words "and died there."

And when they had slain him, they buried him - Jehu's emissaries killed him but allowed his servants to bury him (see 2 Kings 9:28).

No power ... - As Ahaziah was but twenty-three at his death (2 Chronicles 22:2 note), he had no grown-up son to take the crown.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. he sought Ahaziah, and they caught him (for he was hid in Samaria)—(compare 2Ki 9:27-29). The two accounts are easily reconciled. "Ahaziah fled first to the garden house and escaped to Samaria; but was here, where he had hid himself, taken by Jehu's men who pursued him, brought to Jehu, who was still near or in Jezreel, and at his command slain at the hill Gur, beside Ibleam, in his chariot; that is, mortally wounded with an arrow, so that he, again fleeing, expired at Megiddo" [Keil]. Jehu left the corpse at the disposal of the king of Judah's attendants, who conveyed it to Jerusalem, and out of respect to his grandfather Jehoshaphat's memory, gave him an honorable interment in the tombs of the kings.

So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom—His children were too young to assume the reins of government, and all the other royal princes had been massacred by Jehu (2Ch 22:8).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He sought Ahaziah; who, though wounded, had made an escape, 2 Kings 9:27.

He was hid in Samaria; either,

1. In the kingdom of Samaria, to wit, in Megiddo; or,

2. In the city of Samaria: and so he fled first to Megiddo; and not thinking himself safe there, he fled to Samaria; where he was taken, and sent thence by Jehu’s order to Megiddo, where he received the sentence of death. See more of this matter upon 2 Kings 9:27.

They buried him; they gave his servants leave to carry him away to Jerusalem, and bury him there, 2 Kings 9:28. Both God and men are ofttimes said to do what they and others do by their permission, when they could hinder them.

The house of Ahaziah, i.e. his posterity, because they were young and feeble, being ground between two millstones, the great and growing power of Jehu, and the craft and tyranny of Athaliah.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he sought Ahaziah,.... Who fled on Joram's being wounded by Jehu:

and they caught him; the soldiers of Jehu, who were sent after him, and bid to smite him:

for he was hid in Samaria; either in some part of the kingdom of Samaria, or in the city itself, whither he fled:

and brought him to Jehu: who was at Jezreel; see Gill on 2 Kings 9:27,

and when they had slain him they buried him; not at Jezreel, but delivered him to his servants to carry him to Jerusalem, and there bury him in the sepulchres of his fathers, 2 Kings 9:28,

because, said they, he is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart; a grandson of his, and therefore out of respect to the memory of his name, these being religious men, ordered his burial there:

so the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom; his brethren and their sons being slain, and his own children being young fell into the hands of Athaliah, who murdered them all, but one, hid by his aunt, and so got the government into her own hands, as may be observed in the following verses, 2 Chronicles 22:10.

Geneva Study Bible

And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him, (for he was hid in Samaria,) and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they buried him: Because, said they, he is the son of {g} Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart. So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.

(g) This was the just plague of God because he joined himself with God's enemies: yet God to declare the worthiness of Jehoshaphat his grandfather moved them to give him the honour of burial.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. for he was hid in Samaria] R.V. now he was hiding in Samaria. Thus according to Chron. Ahaziah fled southward from Jezreel; while according to 2 Kin. his flight was westward to Megiddo (perhaps to be identified with Khan el-Lejjun, Bädeker, p. 227). The statement in Kings is more probably correct.

and brought him to Jehu: and when they had slain him, they buried him: Because, said they] R.V. and they brought him to Jehu, and slew him; and they buried him, for they said. Again the account given in Kings is to be preferred, viz. that Ahaziah fled wounded to Megiddo (which had not yet transferred its allegiance to Jehu) and died there (of his wounds). His body may have been brought to Jehu.

had no power to keep still] R.V. had no power to hold.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - And he sought Ahaziah: and they caught him... brought him... buried him. This verse, which at the first sight seems at variance with 2 Kings 9:27, 28, is perhaps a simply surprising instance of undesigned corroboration of history by the treatment of different historians. The verse, e.g., corrects the italics of 2 Kings 9:27; expunging them throws their proper force into the words, "at the going up to Gur," showing that Jehu reckoned on that steep kill to enable his pursuing warriors to overtake Ahaziah; makes a sufficiently possible harmony, to say the least, in respect of the remaining incidents narrated of his life - that he made for the time a successful flight to Megiddo, afterwards sought to hide in deeper retirement in Samaria, was thence brought to Jehu at Megiddo, there eventually slain before his eyes, and by his own servants, who must be supposed to have had some attachment to him, but probably with the sanction of Jehu himself, conveyed "in a chariot to Jerusalem" for sepulture "in the sepulchre of his fathers in the city of David" (2 Kings 9:28). The fact that he received decent burial being due to the God-fearing character of his grandfather, and that this should find its record on the page of the book that will last while the world lasts, that very page already two thousand five hundred years old, is a most touching consideration. Megiddo was on the Esdraelon or Jezreel plain, that stretched between the hills of Galilee and those of Mount Ephraim or Samaria. Had no power to keep still the kingdom. The undoubted meaning of this clause is that there was no one of the house of Ahaziah who could succeed him. The Hebrew text does not say, "no one left," etc. But the allusion can scarcely be to anything but the fact that transpires in our ver. 11 (where only Joash is mentioned as a son, and with him a nurse), viz. that his only surviving son was an infant, The king's sons (presumably sons of Ahaziah and grandsons of her own) were among the "seed royal," whom the wicked Athaliah had "destroyed." Gesenius says that the words that wrap in them the slight ambiguity, עָצַר כֹחַ, are a phrase peculiar to the later Hebrew, and he instances nine examples, all of which come from Daniel or Chronicles, the virtue of the phrase amounting to the ports ease of the Latin. Translate, And there was no one of the house of Ahaziah able for the kingdom, the exacter conditions of the case not being recorded. 2 Chronicles 22:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

And he (Jehu) sought Ahaziah, and they (Jehu's body-guard or his warriors) caught him while he was hiding in Samaria, and brought him to Jehu, and slew him. Then they (his servants, 2 Kings 9:27) buried him, for they said: He is a son of Jehoshaphat, who sought Jahve with all his heart. We find more exact information as to Ahaziah's death in 2 Kings 9:27., according to which Ahaziah, overtaken by Jehu near Jibleam in his flight before him, and smitten, i.e., wounded, fled to Megiddo, and there died, and was brought by his servants to Jerusalem, and buried with his fathers in the city of David. For the reconciliation of these statements, see on 2 Kings 9:27. The circumstance that in our account first the slaughter of the brothers' sons, then that of Ahaziah is mentioned, while according to 2 Kings 9 and 10 the slaughter of Ahaziah would seem to have preceded, does not make any essential difference; for the short account in the Chronicle is not arranged chronologically, but according to the subject, and the death of Ahaziah is mentioned last only in order that it might be connected with the further events which occurred in Judah. The last clause of 2 Chronicles 22:9, "and there was not to the house of Ahab one who would have possessed power for the kingdom," i.e., there was no successor on the throne to whom the government might straightway be transferred, forms a transition to the succeeding account of Athaliah's usurpation.