If ever there was a man whose life mocked his own name, it was Ahaziah, meaning “Jehovah holds.”
It’s more than coincidence (and very confusing!) that kings Ahaziah and Jehoram ruled in Israel while kings Jehoram and Ahaziah ruled in Judah. It reveals the tangled web of baneful connections between the two kingdoms. You’ve heard about kudzu, “the vine that ate the South”? An extremely invasive plant, it was imported to the US from Southeast Asia in 1876, but used extensively by the government for soil erosion control in the 1950s. It can grow a foot a day, and covers everything in its path. Well, Ahab and Jezebel’s daughter, Athaliah, was moral kudzu imported from Israel to Judah, soon spreading her pernicious influence over everything, stifling spiritual life in Judah. She had watched her husband Jehoram self-destruct, and now turned her attention to his youngest son, Ahaziah (sometimes called Azariah, 2 Chron 22:6)—the only one not kidnapped by the marauders. He was 22 (2 Ki 8:26), not 42, when he took the throne. “He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother advised him to do wickedly. Therefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab; for they were his counselors…to his destruction” (2 Chron 22:3-4). Like his grandfather Jehoshaphat, he joined uncle Jehoram of Israel in fighting Syria at Ramoth. Jehoram was wounded like Ahab, but survived and “returned to Jezreel to recover” (v 6). When Ahaziah and his entourage made an ill-fated visit to see Jehoram, the two royal families were met by Jehu, “whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab” (v 7). Ahaziah made it as far as Samaria, where he attempted to hide, but Jehu’s sickle of death mowed down all of the princes infected by Ahab’s corrupt bloodline. The throne of Judah was now vacant.