The kings of Israel and Judah

King Ahaziah of Israel

The kingdom of Israel (the north) · Reigned two years (1 Kings 22:51) · Evil before God · 1 Kings 22:51 to 2 Kings 1:18

Ahaziah, the son of Ahab and Jezebel, reigned about two years and did evil, serving Baal as his parents had. After a fall through the lattice of his upper chamber left him injured, he sent messengers to enquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, whether he would recover, rather than the God of Israel. The prophet Elijah intercepted them with a word of doom, and Ahaziah died as God had said. He is not the same man as Ahaziah king of Judah.

And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease.2 Kings 1:2 (KJV)

A son who served his parents' idol

Ahaziah reigned over Israel and reigned two years, and he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin. He served Baal and worshipped him, and provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger, according to all that his father had done.

He inherited not only Ahab's throne but Ahab's religion, and in his short reign he added nothing but more of the same idolatry.

Enquiring of Baalzebub

Ahaziah fell through a lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria and was badly hurt. Instead of seeking the God of Israel, he sent messengers to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether he would recover from his injury. It was a direct insult to the LORD, as if there were no God in Israel to ask.

Elijah met the messengers with the word of the LORD: Is it not because there is no God in Israel that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub? Therefore the king shall not come down off that bed, but shall surely die. When the king sent soldiers to seize Elijah, fire came down from heaven twice at the prophet's word; the third captain came humbly, and Elijah went with him and spoke the same doom to the king's face.

The biblical verdict and where it points

Ahaziah died according to the word of the LORD which Elijah had spoken, and because he had no son, his brother Joram reigned in his place. He is judged evil, a king who in sickness turned to a lifeless idol instead of the living God, and paid for it with his life.

His story sharpens a question that runs through the whole Bible: where do we turn in our extremity? Ahaziah, hurt and afraid, sent to Ekron; the good kings of Judah, in their distress, spread their trouble before the LORD. It points forward to the King who invites the weary and the dying to come to him, for there is a God in Israel, and in Christ he has drawn near to save.

A note on the record: everything here is drawn from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Kings and Chronicles sometimes tell a reign differently, Chronicles often adding a king's repentance or building works, and where they differ this is said plainly rather than smoothed over. The exact lengths and overlaps of the reigns are genuinely complex, because kings often shared the throne with a son for a time, so the totals in Scripture do not always add up in a simple line. The verdict good or evil is the Bible's own assessment, whether a king did right or evil in the sight of the LORD.

Related: Ahab · Joram of Israel · All the kings of Israel and Judah