King Ahaziah: a man almost twice as old as himself
Jan 14, 2014 3:13:43 GMT
Post by Colossians on Jan 14, 2014 3:13:43 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
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KING AHAZIA: A MAN ALMOST TWICE AS OLD AS HIMSELF
The contention
In the King James Bible (KJV) at 2 Kings 8:26 we are told that Ahaziah ascended the throne of Judah at age 22.
However at 2 Chronicles 22:2 we are told that Ahaziah ascended the throne of Judah at age 42.
Fast-food theologians immediately pipe up with: “Contradiction!”.
Below we show just what their diet has caused them to miss.
The account at 2 Kings 8
Here we are told that:
1. Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram, walked in the wicked ways of the kings of Israel; however no detail of said wickedness is given.
2. Ahaziah’s mother, Athaliah, was the daughter of King Omri of Israel.
The account at 2 Chronicles 21 & 22
Here we are given considerable additional information:
The wickedness of Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram
We are told that Jehoram:
1. murdered all of his brothers in order to sure up his throne
2. erected “high places” for worship
3. led Israel into sexual promiscuity (similar to Balaam of Pethor - see Revelation 2:14)
The demise of Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram
We are told that Jehoram:
1. was smitten by God with a bowel disease for the last two years of his life, resulting in a premature death.
2. departed this life “without being desired”.
Here is the relevant section:
“And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired ...” 2 Chr 21:19,20.
At this point we can safely say that Jehoram wasn’t given the customary pair of socks on his last Father’s Day, but was rather a man everyone wanted to forget about, a man no-one wanted to acknowledge. (Although certain kings before Jehoram were wayward, namely Rehoboam and Abijah, they couldn’t hold a candle to this guy: Jehoram was the first of the really bad kings of Judah.)
Athaliah’s real dad
Athaliah was not really the daughter of King Omri, but his granddaughter: she was in fact the daughter of Omri’s son, King Ahab (2 Chr 21:6).
But let’s not forget grandpa!
However despite the fact that, unlike 2nd Kings, the author of 2nd Chronicles reveals that Athaliah was in fact the daughter of Ahab, he nevertheless re-orientates things back to grandpa in the very next chapter (22):
“[Ahaziah’s] mother's name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri” 2 Chr 22:2.
What is more, the author seems downright intent on remembering grandpas in general, for not only does he insist on referring to Athaliah as the daughter of her grandfather, but only 5 verses later he refers to Ahaziah’s eventual killer, Jehu of Israel, not as the son of his father Jehoshaphat (not to be confused with king Jehoshaphat), but as the son of his grandfather Nimshi:
“And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God…..for when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab.” 2 Chr 22:7.
So we see a pattern forming.
A very special grandpa
The above two linkages wherein grandchild is declared the child not of its father but its grandfather, serve as contextual highlighters of a yet far more notable instance of the same: a mere two verses later we are told that after killing Ahaziah, Jehu refers to Ahaziah not as the son of his father king Jehoram, but as the son of his grandfather king Jehoshaphat:
“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 ...” 2 Chr 22:9.
The significance of this cannot be overstated, for nowhere else in 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, or 2 Chronicles is any king, whether of Judah or Israel, ever referred to as the son of his grandfather: this is the only instance.
Grandpa gets the Father’s Day socks, posthumously
So:
1. At 22:2 we are told that Athaliah is the daughter of her grandfather.
2. At 22:7 we are told that Jehu is the son of his grandfather.
3. At 22:9 we are told that King Ahaziah is the son of his grandfather.
The 3 main protagonists of the story – the mother of the king, the killer of the king, and the king himself – are each referred to as the son/daughter not of their father, but their grandfather.1
1 The phenomena presented at (1) and (2) are not unique to Chronicles: they occur in Kings as well. They are, however, nonetheless highlighters of item (3) which is found only in Chronicles, where also the apparently-errant age of 42 is ascribed to Ahaziah upon his ascent to the throne.
Joining the dots
We now come to the business end of things.
And we shall start by declaring that the complete and utter disdain by all (including God) for King Jehoram, his having departed “without being desired” indicating that not even his wife and kids wanted him around, is coextensive with his son Ahaziah’s being referred to not as his (Jehoram’s) own son, but as the son of his (Jehoram’s) own father, king Jehoshaphat.
That is, Jehoram is erased in the mind of the Jew both politically2 and genealogically, with ramification that the whole of his life, right from the beginning of it, is supplanted by the life of his son, who is, so to speak, given a chance to retrospectively amend the character of his family line.
2 By the same token, the years of David’s reign after he was restored to the throne when once Absalom his son and persecutor was dead, are not counted by the Jew: David is said to have reigned 40 years in total (2 Sam 5:4), yet Absalom hadn’t even begun to oust his father by the time he (David) had ruled 40 years (see 2 Sam 15:7). This then, among other things, confirms David as a type for Christ: only that which correlates with Christ’s necessarily-uninterrupted reign is counted by the Jew toward the years of David’s reign.
Ahaziah will therefore be considered to be born directly from Jehoshaphat, in the place of his father. But what is more to the point of this work, he will be conceptually considered to be born when his father was born.
Given then that he ascended the throne upon his father’s death, Ahaziah is at such point necessarily ascribed an age equivalent to his father’s age at death.
What was his father Jehoram’s age at death?
42.
Establishing Jehoram’s age at death
At 2 Kings 8:17 we are told of Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram:
“Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem”.
At 2 Chronicles 21:20 we are told the same thing:
“Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years”.
Both accounts therefore relate, at least on the surface of things, that Jehoram lived to 40. In order then to find the additional 2 years, we will need to dig a little deeper.
First up we shall admit that it is tempting to make something out of the fact that the last 2 years of Jehoram’s life were beset with bowel disease. But we shall leave the creative accounting to such as gave us the recent Global Financial Crisis, and instead look for something with a little more substance.
And so we shall look at the chronologies of the kings, directly.
But it will be best for us to first establish some typeface conventions, for the kings of Judah and Israel tended to have the same names around the same time, which makes the whole thing rather confusing.
We shall therefore refer to the kings of Judah in bold blue, and the kings of Israel in bold red.
And so we begin:
1) At 1 Kings 22:42 we learn that Jehoshaphat reigned 25 years in Jerusalem.
2) At 1 Kings 22:51 we learn that in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat’s 25-year reign, Ahab’s son Ahaziah, began to reign over Israel, and that he did so for 2 years.
3) At 2 Kings chapter 1 we are told that this same Ahaziah only reigned 2 years because he died prematurely from a fall.
4) At 2 Kings 3:1 we are told that another of Ahab’s sons, Jehoram, took over from where Ahaziah left off, reigning from the 18th year of Jehoshaphat. Given then that we have been told that Ahaziah reigned for 2 years, we may reasonably conclude that Ahaziah’s reign began in the 1st half of Jehoshaphat’s 17th year, and that Jehoram’s reign began in the 2nd half of Jehoshaphat’s 18th year.
5) At 2 Kings 8:16 we are told that Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram (whose age at death we are in the process of establishing), began to reign in the 5th year of Jehoram. And we have noted at (4) that Jehoram began to reign in the latter half of the 18th year of Jehoshaphat’s reign - let’s say it began at year-end. In order then to establish when Jehoram began to reign, it will be necessary to count up to the 5th year of Jehoram’s reign, using Jehoshaphat’s reign as a base. So:
6) Year end 18 to year-end 19 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 1st year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 19 to year-end 20 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 2nd year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 20 to year-end 21 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 3rd year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 21 to year-end 22 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 4th year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 22 to year-end 23 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 5th year of Jehoram’s reign
Thus Jehoram, having begun to reign in the 5th year of Jehoram’s reign, began to reign sometime in the 23rd year of his father Jehoshaphat’s 25-year reign. That is, he began to reign under the watchful eye of his father Jehoshaphat, 2 years before his father’s reign ended.
Thus we have located the 2 years we were looking for, and we therefore see why the following (underlined) is recorded at 2 Ki 8:16:
“And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.”
That is, the KJV states quite clearly that Jehoshaphat was still on the throne when his son Jehoram began to reign.3
3 We note that Israel had similar situation: given that Jehoshaphat began to reign in Judah during the 4th year of Ahab’s reign in Israel (1 Ki 22:41), the 2-year reign of Ahab’s son Ahaziah during the 17th and 18th years of Jehoshaphat’s reign was necessarily during the 21st and 22nd years of his father Ahab’s 22-year reign.
Similarly, Diocletian, Emperor of Rome (284-305AD), instituted a “Caesar” under him (Galerius), who would eventually succeed him as Emperor supreme.
___
And so when we read (underlined) in the next verse (2 Ki 8:17):
“Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem”
we understand the reason why the verse is presented in two parts: the first half tells us when he began to reign, the second half when he began to reign without limitation, this “in Jerusalem” using Jerusalem as synecdochic metaphor for “in totality”.4
4 This is not to say that all references to kings’ reigning in Jerusalem were preceded by joint reigns with their fathers, but simply that this applied to Jehoram's reign.
And so we have established that Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, lived for 42 years: he was 32 when he began to reign under the auspices of his father for 2 years, after which he then reigned for 8 years “in Jerusalem”, which is to say, as ‘king pin’.
32 + [2 + 8] = 42.
Complementary affirmation of the Jewish paradigm we have outlined
We have pointed out that Jehoram was, from the perspective of 2 Chr 22, essentially erased: of a truth his life had to be recorded, but no doubt with indication that it were better he had not existed.
And we have shown such indication to consist of 2 things:
1. Ahaziah was declared by Jehu to be not Jehoram’s son, but the son of grandfather Jehoshaphat.
2. Ahaziah, upon his ascent to the throne, is declared at 2 Chr 22:2 to be the age at which his father Jehoram passed away.
We now point out that there is a very similar phenomenon in the New Testament, and significantly, that which concerns almost the exact same people. In Matthew’s genealogy of Christ, 3 successive kings are completely missing: Ahaziah (the subject of this work), his son Joash, and his son Amaziah.
The reason for this is that all 3 were killed by their own people: Ahaziah, we have earlier noted, by Jehu of Israel, Joash via a conspiracy by his own servants, and Amaziah via a conspiracy by those at Jerusalem. For such being the case, none of the 3 kings could stand as type for the New Testament church leader who, it is declared by Paul, must first of all know how to rule his own household before he can take care of the church of God: kings who are killed by their own people can hardly be said in hindsight to have ruled their people effectively.
Paul:
“For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” 1 Timothy 3:5.
Jehoram’s life had to, for the sake of history, be recorded, but history having become history for the sake of the pre-eminence of Christ Jesus, Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah were to be left out of the genealogy of Christ for the abovestated reason.
Although then the erasure of Jehoram is cryptically implicit and the erasure of the 3 kings literal, they are all nonetheless erased for essentially the same reason: we of the NT are to be taught by their absence rather than their presence.
In concluding ...
The age of 22 given at 2 Kings 8:26 was Ahaziah’s actual genetic age upon his ascent to the throne.
The age of 42 given at 2 Chronicles 22:2 was the figurative age imputed to Ahaziah by virtue of the lack of desire on the part of anyone to recognise his father Jehoram, and therefore an age which spoke to his being born not of his father, but in the place of his father: it was an age equal to the lifespan of his father.
Additionally, such imputation stands in and of itself as type for the fact that the administration of the Body of Christ is a very serious matter - that those who do not carry out their charge with due diligence may be 'erased' as was Jehoram, one way or another.
And thus we are reminded of Paul's dilgence in this regard:
"But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" 1Cor 9:27.
Amen.
___________________________________________________
KING AHAZIA: A MAN ALMOST TWICE AS OLD AS HIMSELF
The contention
In the King James Bible (KJV) at 2 Kings 8:26 we are told that Ahaziah ascended the throne of Judah at age 22.
However at 2 Chronicles 22:2 we are told that Ahaziah ascended the throne of Judah at age 42.
Fast-food theologians immediately pipe up with: “Contradiction!”.
Below we show just what their diet has caused them to miss.
The account at 2 Kings 8
Here we are told that:
1. Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram, walked in the wicked ways of the kings of Israel; however no detail of said wickedness is given.
2. Ahaziah’s mother, Athaliah, was the daughter of King Omri of Israel.
The account at 2 Chronicles 21 & 22
Here we are given considerable additional information:
The wickedness of Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram
We are told that Jehoram:
1. murdered all of his brothers in order to sure up his throne
2. erected “high places” for worship
3. led Israel into sexual promiscuity (similar to Balaam of Pethor - see Revelation 2:14)
The demise of Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram
We are told that Jehoram:
1. was smitten by God with a bowel disease for the last two years of his life, resulting in a premature death.
2. departed this life “without being desired”.
Here is the relevant section:
“And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired ...” 2 Chr 21:19,20.
At this point we can safely say that Jehoram wasn’t given the customary pair of socks on his last Father’s Day, but was rather a man everyone wanted to forget about, a man no-one wanted to acknowledge. (Although certain kings before Jehoram were wayward, namely Rehoboam and Abijah, they couldn’t hold a candle to this guy: Jehoram was the first of the really bad kings of Judah.)
Athaliah’s real dad
Athaliah was not really the daughter of King Omri, but his granddaughter: she was in fact the daughter of Omri’s son, King Ahab (2 Chr 21:6).
But let’s not forget grandpa!
However despite the fact that, unlike 2nd Kings, the author of 2nd Chronicles reveals that Athaliah was in fact the daughter of Ahab, he nevertheless re-orientates things back to grandpa in the very next chapter (22):
“[Ahaziah’s] mother's name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri” 2 Chr 22:2.
What is more, the author seems downright intent on remembering grandpas in general, for not only does he insist on referring to Athaliah as the daughter of her grandfather, but only 5 verses later he refers to Ahaziah’s eventual killer, Jehu of Israel, not as the son of his father Jehoshaphat (not to be confused with king Jehoshaphat), but as the son of his grandfather Nimshi:
“And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God…..for when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab.” 2 Chr 22:7.
So we see a pattern forming.
A very special grandpa
The above two linkages wherein grandchild is declared the child not of its father but its grandfather, serve as contextual highlighters of a yet far more notable instance of the same: a mere two verses later we are told that after killing Ahaziah, Jehu refers to Ahaziah not as the son of his father king Jehoram, but as the son of his grandfather king Jehoshaphat:
“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 ...” 2 Chr 22:9.
The significance of this cannot be overstated, for nowhere else in 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, or 2 Chronicles is any king, whether of Judah or Israel, ever referred to as the son of his grandfather: this is the only instance.
Grandpa gets the Father’s Day socks, posthumously
So:
1. At 22:2 we are told that Athaliah is the daughter of her grandfather.
2. At 22:7 we are told that Jehu is the son of his grandfather.
3. At 22:9 we are told that King Ahaziah is the son of his grandfather.
The 3 main protagonists of the story – the mother of the king, the killer of the king, and the king himself – are each referred to as the son/daughter not of their father, but their grandfather.1
1 The phenomena presented at (1) and (2) are not unique to Chronicles: they occur in Kings as well. They are, however, nonetheless highlighters of item (3) which is found only in Chronicles, where also the apparently-errant age of 42 is ascribed to Ahaziah upon his ascent to the throne.
Joining the dots
We now come to the business end of things.
And we shall start by declaring that the complete and utter disdain by all (including God) for King Jehoram, his having departed “without being desired” indicating that not even his wife and kids wanted him around, is coextensive with his son Ahaziah’s being referred to not as his (Jehoram’s) own son, but as the son of his (Jehoram’s) own father, king Jehoshaphat.
That is, Jehoram is erased in the mind of the Jew both politically2 and genealogically, with ramification that the whole of his life, right from the beginning of it, is supplanted by the life of his son, who is, so to speak, given a chance to retrospectively amend the character of his family line.
2 By the same token, the years of David’s reign after he was restored to the throne when once Absalom his son and persecutor was dead, are not counted by the Jew: David is said to have reigned 40 years in total (2 Sam 5:4), yet Absalom hadn’t even begun to oust his father by the time he (David) had ruled 40 years (see 2 Sam 15:7). This then, among other things, confirms David as a type for Christ: only that which correlates with Christ’s necessarily-uninterrupted reign is counted by the Jew toward the years of David’s reign.
Ahaziah will therefore be considered to be born directly from Jehoshaphat, in the place of his father. But what is more to the point of this work, he will be conceptually considered to be born when his father was born.
Given then that he ascended the throne upon his father’s death, Ahaziah is at such point necessarily ascribed an age equivalent to his father’s age at death.
What was his father Jehoram’s age at death?
42.
Establishing Jehoram’s age at death
At 2 Kings 8:17 we are told of Ahaziah’s father, King Jehoram:
“Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem”.
At 2 Chronicles 21:20 we are told the same thing:
“Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years”.
Both accounts therefore relate, at least on the surface of things, that Jehoram lived to 40. In order then to find the additional 2 years, we will need to dig a little deeper.
First up we shall admit that it is tempting to make something out of the fact that the last 2 years of Jehoram’s life were beset with bowel disease. But we shall leave the creative accounting to such as gave us the recent Global Financial Crisis, and instead look for something with a little more substance.
And so we shall look at the chronologies of the kings, directly.
But it will be best for us to first establish some typeface conventions, for the kings of Judah and Israel tended to have the same names around the same time, which makes the whole thing rather confusing.
We shall therefore refer to the kings of Judah in bold blue, and the kings of Israel in bold red.
And so we begin:
1) At 1 Kings 22:42 we learn that Jehoshaphat reigned 25 years in Jerusalem.
2) At 1 Kings 22:51 we learn that in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat’s 25-year reign, Ahab’s son Ahaziah, began to reign over Israel, and that he did so for 2 years.
3) At 2 Kings chapter 1 we are told that this same Ahaziah only reigned 2 years because he died prematurely from a fall.
4) At 2 Kings 3:1 we are told that another of Ahab’s sons, Jehoram, took over from where Ahaziah left off, reigning from the 18th year of Jehoshaphat. Given then that we have been told that Ahaziah reigned for 2 years, we may reasonably conclude that Ahaziah’s reign began in the 1st half of Jehoshaphat’s 17th year, and that Jehoram’s reign began in the 2nd half of Jehoshaphat’s 18th year.
5) At 2 Kings 8:16 we are told that Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram (whose age at death we are in the process of establishing), began to reign in the 5th year of Jehoram. And we have noted at (4) that Jehoram began to reign in the latter half of the 18th year of Jehoshaphat’s reign - let’s say it began at year-end. In order then to establish when Jehoram began to reign, it will be necessary to count up to the 5th year of Jehoram’s reign, using Jehoshaphat’s reign as a base. So:
6) Year end 18 to year-end 19 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 1st year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 19 to year-end 20 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 2nd year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 20 to year-end 21 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 3rd year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 21 to year-end 22 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 4th year of Jehoram’s reign
Year-end 22 to year-end 23 of Jehoshaphat’s reign = 5th year of Jehoram’s reign
Thus Jehoram, having begun to reign in the 5th year of Jehoram’s reign, began to reign sometime in the 23rd year of his father Jehoshaphat’s 25-year reign. That is, he began to reign under the watchful eye of his father Jehoshaphat, 2 years before his father’s reign ended.
Thus we have located the 2 years we were looking for, and we therefore see why the following (underlined) is recorded at 2 Ki 8:16:
“And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.”
That is, the KJV states quite clearly that Jehoshaphat was still on the throne when his son Jehoram began to reign.3
3 We note that Israel had similar situation: given that Jehoshaphat began to reign in Judah during the 4th year of Ahab’s reign in Israel (1 Ki 22:41), the 2-year reign of Ahab’s son Ahaziah during the 17th and 18th years of Jehoshaphat’s reign was necessarily during the 21st and 22nd years of his father Ahab’s 22-year reign.
Similarly, Diocletian, Emperor of Rome (284-305AD), instituted a “Caesar” under him (Galerius), who would eventually succeed him as Emperor supreme.
___
And so when we read (underlined) in the next verse (2 Ki 8:17):
“Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem”
we understand the reason why the verse is presented in two parts: the first half tells us when he began to reign, the second half when he began to reign without limitation, this “in Jerusalem” using Jerusalem as synecdochic metaphor for “in totality”.4
4 This is not to say that all references to kings’ reigning in Jerusalem were preceded by joint reigns with their fathers, but simply that this applied to Jehoram's reign.
And so we have established that Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, lived for 42 years: he was 32 when he began to reign under the auspices of his father for 2 years, after which he then reigned for 8 years “in Jerusalem”, which is to say, as ‘king pin’.
32 + [2 + 8] = 42.
Complementary affirmation of the Jewish paradigm we have outlined
We have pointed out that Jehoram was, from the perspective of 2 Chr 22, essentially erased: of a truth his life had to be recorded, but no doubt with indication that it were better he had not existed.
And we have shown such indication to consist of 2 things:
1. Ahaziah was declared by Jehu to be not Jehoram’s son, but the son of grandfather Jehoshaphat.
2. Ahaziah, upon his ascent to the throne, is declared at 2 Chr 22:2 to be the age at which his father Jehoram passed away.
We now point out that there is a very similar phenomenon in the New Testament, and significantly, that which concerns almost the exact same people. In Matthew’s genealogy of Christ, 3 successive kings are completely missing: Ahaziah (the subject of this work), his son Joash, and his son Amaziah.
The reason for this is that all 3 were killed by their own people: Ahaziah, we have earlier noted, by Jehu of Israel, Joash via a conspiracy by his own servants, and Amaziah via a conspiracy by those at Jerusalem. For such being the case, none of the 3 kings could stand as type for the New Testament church leader who, it is declared by Paul, must first of all know how to rule his own household before he can take care of the church of God: kings who are killed by their own people can hardly be said in hindsight to have ruled their people effectively.
Paul:
“For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” 1 Timothy 3:5.
Jehoram’s life had to, for the sake of history, be recorded, but history having become history for the sake of the pre-eminence of Christ Jesus, Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah were to be left out of the genealogy of Christ for the abovestated reason.
Although then the erasure of Jehoram is cryptically implicit and the erasure of the 3 kings literal, they are all nonetheless erased for essentially the same reason: we of the NT are to be taught by their absence rather than their presence.
In concluding ...
The age of 22 given at 2 Kings 8:26 was Ahaziah’s actual genetic age upon his ascent to the throne.
The age of 42 given at 2 Chronicles 22:2 was the figurative age imputed to Ahaziah by virtue of the lack of desire on the part of anyone to recognise his father Jehoram, and therefore an age which spoke to his being born not of his father, but in the place of his father: it was an age equal to the lifespan of his father.
Additionally, such imputation stands in and of itself as type for the fact that the administration of the Body of Christ is a very serious matter - that those who do not carry out their charge with due diligence may be 'erased' as was Jehoram, one way or another.
And thus we are reminded of Paul's dilgence in this regard:
"But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" 1Cor 9:27.
Amen.