Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/330

266 sought Ahaziah, and they caught him, (now he was hiding in Samaria,) and they brought him to Jehu, and slew him; and they buried him, for they said, He is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the with all his heart. And the house of Ahaziah had no power to hold the kingdom. Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah. But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king's sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse in the bedchamber. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the

9. now he was hiding in Samaria] If Samaria means the city, then according to Chron. Ahaziah fled southward from Jezreel; while according to 2 Kin. his flight was westward to Megiddo (to be identified with Khan el-Lejjun, Bädeker, Pal.$5$, p. 228). Perhaps however Samaria means the province (as in xxv. 13; Ezr. iv. 10). Even so this account of Ahaziah's wounding and death differs markedly from that in Kin., where nothing is said of his hiding, but simply that he went out with Joram when Jehu encountered Joram (so here ver. 7), was wounded, fled to Megiddo, and died there, but was carried back by his servants to Jerusalem and there buried. Here it is stated that he was captured, brought to Jehu, and slain (?before him). The place of his burial is unnamed, but it would readily be supposed that he was buried by Jehu's servants and not at Jerusalem. These divergences in vv. 8, 9 are curious and are most naturally explained as originating in a variant form of the tradition.

10—12 (= 2 Kin. xi. 1—3).&emsp;

10. destroyed] This is the reading of Kings and of the LXX. of Chron. The Heb. reads spake with, which is perhaps a euphemism; cp. the English "deal with."

11. Jehoshabeath] In Kings "Jehosheba." The two are forms of the same name; cp. "Elisabeth" (Luke i. 7) and "Elisheba" (Ex. vi. 23), a similar pair.

in the bedchamber] mg., in the chamber for the beds, i.e. perhaps in a store room in which bed furniture was kept: a convenient but an uncertain interpretation.

the wife of Jehoiada the priest] Cp. xxiii. 1. This relationship is not given in Kings.