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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: December 11
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2Ki_11:1-2; 2Ch_22:10
Athaliah had been married to Jehoram, the eldest son of Jehoshaphat, the good king of Judah. We hear nothing more of her than the simple fact of this marriage, until the time to which we have come; but, considering the spirit she now evinces, and recollecting the nature of the influence which her mother had set her the example of exerting over first her own husband, and then her sons, we may not be far wrong in ascribing to this true daughter of Jezebel, much of the evil which characterized the reign of her husband Jehoram, and her son Ahaziah. The former no sooner mounted the throne than he destroyed all his brothers—a piece of eastern state policy, indeed, but alien to the spirit of Judaism; and which her own later conduct enables us to attribute to her influence over her weak husband.
To that also may be ascribed the extent to which this king went into “the ways of the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab.” Indeed, it is all but expressly said so; for, as a cause for this, it is immediately added—“for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife.” So Ahab-like, indeed, was Jehoram’s conduct, that it was only the Lord’s regard for his covenant with David which prevented the same doom upon his house as had been denounced upon Ahab’s. He was, however, not suffered to escape punishment. His realm was invaded by the Philistines and Arabians, he was bereft of all his treasures, and his wives and children were carried away captive. Athaliah only remained, and the youngest of his sons, Ahaziah. To crown all, his latter days were full of torture from a grievous disease, of which he prematurely died; and the people marked their sense of the ignominy of his reign by refusing his corpse a royal burial. No burnings of costly incense honored his funeral; and although his remains were not cast out from the city of David, he was denied a place in the sepulcher of the kings.
His son Ahaziah reigned but one year; and being as much under Athaliah’s influence as his father had been, he followed the same course. It is expressly stated that “his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly.” The end of this unhappy prince we have already seen.
When the corpse of her son was brought to Jerusalem—when she heard how horridly her mother, and how treacherously her brother, had been slain—that her son’s kindred had been cut off at “the pit of the shearing-house,” and that the worshippers of Baal had been immolated in Samaria—she caught the strong contagion of blood-thirstiness from the report of these doings. She saw herself a stranger in a strange land—an alien by birth and by religion—without common sympathies between herself and the people among whom she occupied so high a place, and without support from the remaining members of the family to which she had become allied. All the strong ones were gone. What hindered that she should herself seize the dropped reigns of the government, and guide the fierce steeds of ruin which threatened to whirl her to destruction? Her son had been slain because he was the grandson of Ahab and Jezebel—what had she, their daughter, to expect from the spirit which had gone abroad, and from the ulterior designs of Jehu, unless she entered upon a bold course of re-action, which might in sure both her safety and her greatness? There have been those who deemed themselves compelled to leap into a throne to save themselves from utter ruin; and we would fain believe that this was the case with Athaliah.
But what of the house of David—surely that was not extinct? No: there were many who had a right to the throne—all of them young, children of Ahaziah, her own grand children. These stood in her way; or, though in now, might live to become a terror to her. Such natures as hers are incapable of relentings or tenderness, or account the feelings of natural pity as weaknesses to be crushed down, when they stand in the way of selfish interests or daring hopes; so, though blood of her blood, the young princes perished. As mother of the king, she had great power, high influence, and many dependents, which rendered her, in the absence of the king and of a reigning heir, the most powerful person in the land. She was thus enabled to accomplish all her objects; and Judah beheld the strange sight of a woman seated on the throne of David. She lacked not ability for that place. The conception and the realization of this object by a woman, among a people to whom the ostensible rule of females was unknown, shows that her talents were great; but far greater was her wickedness, and had she been as eminent for virtues as she was for crimes, it would have been impossible for her long to maintain her footing in a station promised and covenanted to the house of David. With that house her connection had been extinguished by the very steps which she had took, to
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It does not appear that Athaliah attempted to avenge on the priests of Jehovah the massacre which Jehu had made of the priests of Baal, or that the worship of the Lord was forbidden by her, or his worshippers persecuted. Had that been the case, the temple itself would probably have been applied to idolatrous uses. From this she abstained, partly, as we have already explained, because idolatry was not adverse to the worship of other gods; and partly, because her sagacity must have shown her the danger of the attempt. The worship of Jehovah was therefore permitted to exist on sufferance. It was tolerated, while that of Baal was patronized and favored. A temple had been erected to the Phoenician god in the holy city; and for its furniture and decoration, the Lord’s house was stripped of its treasures and “dedicated things,”—a fact which transpires incidentally in 2Ch_24:7; and it is there ascribed, it is curious to observe, not to Athaliah herself, but to her sons. What sons? We thought they had all been destroyed. Certainly her sons by Jehoram had been lost in captivity; and her grandsons, the children of Ahaziah, had also perished. Some suggest that, after the death of her husband, she had married another man, and that these were her children by him, But this is untenable; because Ahaziah, who succeeded his father, had reigned but a year; and even supposing that she had married immediately on the death of Jehoram, and assuming that this sacrilege took place towards the close of her reign, the eldest of any children she might have had by a second marriage could not have been more than six years old. It is not even said that the Baalite temple was built by her. It merely transpires that it was in existence at the time of her death. Putting all these circumstances together, it would appear that the erection of this temple was among the enormities committed at her suggestion in the time of Jehoram, and in which, particularly, the sons of Jehoram, brought up under the influence of such a mother, actively exerted themselves. We thus arrive at the fact, that it was not less for their own sins, than for the sins of their father and their mother, that these princes were sold into captivity, and heard of no more.