2 Chronicles 22:1-12 And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead… I. THE SLAUGHTER OF JEHORAM'S SONS. (Ver. 1.) An illustration of three things. 1. The perils attending high station. Jehoram's sons were among the captives taken by the Philistines and Arabians (2 Chronicles 21:17). Had they been common soldiers, their lives might have been spared; being princes of the blood, they were put to death. A man's social elevation attracts towards him the arrows of hate, envy, malice, and other secret foes; an obscure position tends to protect him. Therefore let none murmur that the Arbiter of destinies has not made them kings or great ones; neither let any rejoice that their places on earth are not low. 2. The mischances accompanying war. It was probably their duty to take the field against the combined hordes of the Philistines and Arabians; nevertheless, they who go to war even for defence, and much more for aggression, must not be surprised if they are killed. In the case of Jehoram's sons, the camp of Judah had been surprised by a reconnoitring party who had come with the Arabians (Keil), or by "a hand of wild men who served in the army of the Arabians, possibly against the will of the leaders" (Bertheau); and Jehoram's sons, having first been carried off as prisoners, were afterwards put to death. In ancient timed, when prisoners became troublesome or proved dangerous, this was the customary way in which they were disposed of. 3. The retributions wrought by Providence. Even if Jehoram's sons were not as wicked as himself, it was a signal illustration of the lex talionis, a conspicuous demonstration of the truth that with what measure one metes it shall be measured to him again (Matthew 7:2). Jehoram had assassinated all his brothers on ascending the throne; before he descended from it, Jehovah suffered him to see all his sons (except the youngest) cut off by invading marauders. "Are not my ways equal? saith the Lord" (Ezekiel 18:29). II. THE EXTERMINATION OF AHAB'S HOUSE. (Ver. 7.) Incidentally referred to by the Chronicler, it is more fully detailed in 2 Kings 9. and 10., and may here be briefly narrated. 1. The thing determined by God. (1) When? As far back as the time of Elijah, in the days of Ahab himself (1 Kings 19:16, 17). Divine foreordination interferes not with the freedom of human action. If the destruction of Ahab's house was carried out in fulfilment of a previously formed Divine decree, it was, nevertheless, effected by a political revolution. (2) Why? On account of the incurable apostasy, outrageous irreligion, and flagrant blood-guiltiness of Ahab and his successors on the throne of Israel. Besides being an idolater of the most debasing type, Ahab had been a murderer of extreme ferocity, and his successors had walked in his ways. There was, therefore, no remedy remaining but one - complete extirpation. Under the Divine government, redemption or destruction are the two alternatives that stand before all evil-doers (Isaiah 1:19, 20). Souls that cannot be recovered must be cut off (Psalm 37:9). When the prediluvian world had sunk below the line of possible restoration, it was submerged beneath the waters of a flood (Genesis 6:7). When Sodom and Gomorrah had become too filthy to be renovated, they were burnt up from off the face of the earth (Genesis 18:21; Genesis 19:24, 25; 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 1:7). 2. The instrument selected by God. (1) His name. Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. This first revealed to Elijah at Horeb (1 Kings 19:16). In the Assyrian inscriptions Jehu is twice mentioned, and each time as "Jehu the son of Omri," the foreign scribe being unacquainted with his history as recorded in Scripture, and regarding him as a prince of the dynasty of Omri. An obelisk of black marble, five feet in height, found at Nimroud, and now in the British Museum, represents the tribute brought to Shal-maneser II. by vassal princes, among whom appear "Yahua, son. of Khumri," giving "silver, gold, bowls of gold, vessels of gold, goblets of gold, pitchers of gold, lead, sceptres for the king's hand, and staves" ('Records,' etc., 5:41); while a fragment from the annals of Shalmaneser III. contains a similar statement, that in the eighteenth year of his reign, after conquering Hazael of Damascus, he received the tribute of the Tyrian, the Sidonian, and of "Yahua the son of Khumri" (Schrader, ' Keilinschriften,' p. 210). (2) His station. Originally an officer, probably the ablest general, and therefore field-marshal of Jehoram's army (2 Kings 9:5). God culls his instruments from all ranks and occupations. Those who have served him most efficiently in the Christian Church have not unfrequently been drawn from the army. The profession of a soldier need not hinder one from being a servant of God. (3) His character. Energetic, active, decisive, ambitious, unscrupulous, bloodthirsty, cruel, and fanatical, "the worst type of a son of Jacob, the 'supplanter,' as he is called, without the noble and princely qualities of Israel, the most unlovely and the most coldly commended of all the heroes of his country" (Stanley, 'Jewish Church,' p. 338). God's selection of a man to be his instrument does not imply a commendation of his character - witness Pharaoh, Saul, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod. (4) His designation. To be king over Israel This first communicated at Horeh to Elijah, who received at the same time a commission to see Jehu's anointing to the throne carried out - a commission afterwards executed by Elisha (2 Kings 8:29; 2 Kings 9:6). (5) His usurpation. In this he was assisted by his brother-officers (2 Kings 9:13). Though designated and anointed by Elisha to the throne of Israel, more than likely, as in the case of Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:31), the project of dethroning Jehoram had already floated before his mind. (6) His commission. To execute Divine vengeance on the house of Ahab by extirpating it, root and branch, from the land. Rough work, it needed a rough instrument. 3. The work carried through by God. By means of his instrument. The Chronicler recognizes (vers. 7, 8) that Jehu was God's sword. How far Jehu himself was under the dominion of this thought may be hazardous to affirm. But, in any case, he lost no time in discharging the bloody business entrusted to his hand. With a swiftness and relentless severity that suggested leonine ferocity as much as religious zeal, he posted to Jezreel and began the work of butchery. First he drove an arrow through the heart of Jehoram (2 Kings 9:24); next procured the death of Jezebel by commanding two of her servants, his minions, to throw her from the palace window (2 Kings 9:33); and finally caused the seventy sons of Ahab in Samaria to be beheaded (2 Kings 10:7). III. THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES OF JUDAH. (Ver. 8.) 1. Who these were. (1) Sons of the brethren of Ahaziah. Not the brethren of Ahaziah (2 Kings 10:13), since these had all been slain by the Arabian marauders (2 Chronicles 21:17), but the children of these brothers, and therefore Ahaziah's nephews. That they were forty-two in number cannot be pronounced impossible, since it is not known how many elder brothers Ahaziah had. (2) Princes of Judah, who were doubtless remoter branches of the royal house, and held important offices in the court. Possibly these should be included in the number forty-two mentioned above. 2. When they were killed. (1) When Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab (ver. 8). Though not responsible for being connected with the house of Ahab, that they were so proved the cause of their destruction. Their sad fate was an illustration of two truths - that the innocent often suffer with and for the guilty (Job 9:23), and that no one can predict how far the disastrous consequences of one false step may reach. Had Jehoram not married Athaliah, these princes had not fallen victims to Jehu's sword. (2) When Jehu was on the way from Jezreel, where he had perpetrated three murders, to Samaria, where he had committed one massacre by deputy, and whither he was going to add another (2 Kings 10:25). Having fallen in with the princes of Judah, Jehu ordered his attendants to take them alive. Their resistance, it is supposed, led to their immediate slaughter. One massacre more was nothing to Jehu. Besides, the destruction of forty-two princes, mostly boys, was a trifle to that he was contemplating - the wholesale sacrifice of Baal's worshippers in the house of Baal. (3) When Ahaziah's nephews were on the way to Jezreel to pay a visit to the court at Jezreel, "to salute the children of the queen and the children of the king" (2 Kings 10:13). One never knows where he may be overtaken by death; hence the necessity of being always ready. 3. Where they were killed. At the pit or cistern of the shearing-house, or "house of gathering" (2 Kings 10:13); at "the shepherds' house of meeting" (Chaldee Version, Thenius, Bahr) - a house which served the shepherds of the region round about for assembling; or at the house where the shepherds tied up their sheep for shearing (Keil). "In a well close by, as at Cawnpore, they were all slaughtered' (Stanley). 4. By whom they were killed. Jehu, whose motive may have been either (1) because he regarded their death as embraced within the scope of his commission, or (2) because he feared the exaction by some of them of bleed-vengeance, or (3) because he wished to render impossible any future attempt at the subversion of his authority. IV. THE ASSASSINATION OF AHAZIAH. (Ver. 9.) 1. After a brief reign. Ahaziah succeeded to his father's throne in his forty-second year, or in his twenty-second (2 Kings 8:26) - a discrepancy removed, by supposing the forty-two to. indicate the age of the kingdom of his mother's family (Lightfoot), but best explained by conceding that an error has crept into the text (Keil, Bertheau, Bahr). After enjoying regal power for one year, he fell a victim to the sword of Jehu - a startling reminder cf the uncertainty of life and the vanity of human greatness. 2. By the hand of Providence. "The destruction of Ahaziah was of God" (ver. 7); not merely as all things are under the Divine control, but in the special sense that the incidents which led to Ahaziah's destruction were of God's permitting, if not ordering. (1) God allowed Jehoram to go to war, as his father had done, with the Syrian king, now not Benhadad II., but Hazael the usurper (ver. 6), who is mentioned along with Jehu in the Assyrian inscriptions, and with whom Shalmaneser II., in the eighteenth year of his reign, fought at Damascus, capturing his camp with 1221 chariots and 470 war-carriages (Schrader, ' Keilinschriften,' p. 210; 'Records,' etc., 5:34; Sayce, 'Fresh Light,' etc., p. 123). (2) Ahaziah of Judah he permitted to go to Ramoth-Gilead with his uncle. (3) In the war Jehovah ordered it that Jehoram should be wounded and return to Jezreel to be healed, and that Ahaziah should afterwards also leave Ramoth and go to the Israslitish capital to inquire for his mother's brother. (4) Hence it came to pass that he was found in Jehoram's company when Jehu came to Jezreel on his murderous errand (2 Kings 9:21). (5) Had this train of circumstances not preceded, Ahaziah's death might not have followed, at least at the time when and the place where it did. 3. As a just retribution for his wickedness. For Ahaziah a tremendous misfortune, for which he was in no way responsible, that he had Jehoram and Athalish for his parents. If any man might be said to have "a double dose of original sin," or inherited corruption, he had. If he may be pronounced happy who has the piety of generations at his back and within his veins, propelling him forward in the ways of virtue and religion, on the other hand he should be deemed an object of pity who is not only held back from the paths of godliness, but urged into the broad roads of sin and vice by secret forces of heredity that have been gathering momentum through a long succession of wicked ancestors. Disadvantageously placed as Ahaziah was, he was under no compulsion to yield to the evil influences by which he was surrounded. That he did not resist them, but abandoned himself to them without let or hindrance, was his sin. (1) He "walked in the ways of the house of Ahab," and "did evil in the sight of the Lord like the house of Ahab." He copied their idolatries and their immoralities. (2) He took as his example the house of Ahab, and especially his mother, Athaliah, whom the Chronicler, with reference to her wicked propensities, fitly designates "the daughter of Omri." 4. In spite of strenuous efforts to escape. The accounts given of these efforts to escape are considerably divergent. According to the Chronicler, when Ahaziah saw Jehorem sink down in his chariot after being struck with Jehu's arrow, he fled by the way of the garden house, but was followed by Jehu, and, like his uncle, wounded with an arrow at the going up to Gur, which is by Ibleam, whence he fled to Megiddo, and died there (2 Kings 9:27). According to 2 Kings, Ahaziah had hid himself in Samaria, and, being found there, was slain by Jehu's servants. The accounts are pronounced irreconcilable, that of Kings being the older and more authentic (Bahr, Bertheau); but the explanations ordinarily proffered (Lightfoot, Keil) are deserving of consideration - that Ahaziah, on first escaping, fled to Samaria, and was afterwards found there by Jehu's servants, who brought him to Jehu, at whose command he was shot while in his chariot at Gur, beside Ibleam, and that, once more escaping, though this time mortally wounded, he reached Megiddo, and perished them. On the sites here mentioned, consult the Exposition. V. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEED ROYAL OF THE HOUSE OF JUDAH. (Ver. 10.) 1. victims of this massacre. All the seed royal, i.e. all the direct descendants of the kingly house, all who might in any measure or degree aspire to the throne. As Ahaziah's elder brothers had been captured and slain by the Arabs (2 Chronicles 21:17), and as their sons, Ahaziah's nephews, had been (in part at least) put to death by Jehu (2 Chronicles 22:8), it is possible that the actual victims were not numerous. 2. The perpetrator of this massacre. Athaliah, the queen-mother, who thereby proved herself a true daughter of Jezebel. Instead of grieving at the tidings of her son's death, and taking measures to shield his young children, her grandsons, from the sword of Jehu, she herself compassed their destruction. Thereby she showed herself a most unnatural mother, an inhuman monster - a woman, like Lady Macbeth, "from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty" ('Macbeth,' act 1. sc. 5). 3. The motive of this massacre. Probably mingled fear and ambition. Apprehensive of her own safety when she saw that Jehu had slain her son, she may have judged that the speediest and surest way to establish her security was to cut off every possible rival from her side, and seize the throne of Judah for herself. It was the usual mode of procedure amongst Oriental sovereigns, on ascending the throne, to put to death all possible claimants of the crown. It is not difficult to see who was Jehoram's teacher (2 Chronicles 21:4). 4. The extent of this massacre. All the seed royal, with one exception, Joash, Ahaziah's son, who was rescued by his aunt, Jehoshabeath, his father's daughter but not his mother's - she was obviously the daughter of one of Jehoram's secondary wives - and the wife of Jehoiada the priest (see next homily). LESSONS. 1. The vicissitudes of human life (ver. 1). 2. The vanity of earthly glory (ver. 2). 3. The danger of evil counsel (ver. 3). 4. The self-destructive character of sin (ver. 4). 5. The madness of walking with wicked men (ver. 5). 6. The propriety of sympathizing with the ungodly in their afflictions (ver. 6). 7. The tiger-like ferocity of some monsters in sin (vers. 7-10). 8. The mystery of Providence in suffering such monsters to live. - W. Parallel Verses KJV: And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned. |
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