they had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And [1]Azariah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick. 7Now the [2]destruction of Ahaziah was of God, in that he went unto Joram: 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. 8And it came to pass, when Jehu was executing judgement upon the house of Ahab, that he found the princes of Judah, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah, ministering to Ahaziah, and slew them. 9And he
Ramah] i.e. Ramoth-gilead (see xviii. 2, note).
Azariah] Read, as mg., Ahaziah.
7—9 (cp. 2 Kin. ix. 16—26, 27, 28, x. 11—14). The Death of Ahaziah.
7—9. These verses give a hasty summary of the passages in Kin. The Chronicler's version differs in some particulars from Kin. The divergences may largely be due to the extreme brevity of Chron., and they do not absolutely require a variant form of the tradition for their explanation (so Torrey, Ezra Studies, p. 74)· particularly if Samaria here in Chron. denotes not the city but simply the province. Ver. 7 is a brief but sufficient abridgment of 2 Kin. ix. 16—26 from the point of view of Ahaziah's concern in the affair. On the other hand there is great probability in the view that the Chronicler's account goes back to a version of the tradition independent of that in Kings; see the notes on vv. 8, 9; and cp. Cook in the Jewish Quarterly Review for 1908, p. 612.
7. destruction] Rather, ruin, or downfall, LXX., καταστροφή. Ahaziah's brethren fell with him (ver. 8).
had anointed] Cp. 2 Kin. ix. 1—10.
8. the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah] LXX. "the brethren (i.e. the kinsmen) of Ahaziah": so also 2 Kin. x. 13. The brethren (in the strict sense of the word) of Ahaziah had already been killed (ver. 1).
ministering] According to 2 Kin. they were going to "salute the children of the king and the children of the queen" (probably a courtly expression for "salute the king and the queen"). Their murder in Kin. is clearly regarded as subsequent to Ahaziah's death, whereas in Chron. the attack on Ahaziah (ver. 9) apparently is placed after the murder of the brethren as recorded in the present verse. It is possible, however, to suppose that vv. 8 and 9 are not meant to be related to each other in a time sequence, and that vv. 7, 8, 9 are all relatively independent statements.
