What Does 2 Chronicles 22:9 Mean?

(9) **And he sought Ahaziah.**—In 2Kings 9:27-28 we find a different tradition concerning the death of Ahaziah. That passage, literally rendered, runs as follows: “And Ahaziah king of Judah had seen it (i.e., the death of Jehoram, 2Kings 9:24), and he fled by the way of the garden palace, and Jehu pursued after him, and said, Him, too, smite (shoot) ye him in the chariot!—on the ascent of Gûr, beside Ibleam; and he fled to Megiddo, and died there.” (Perhaps *and they smote him* has fallen out before the words *on the ascent of Gûr.*) “And his servants brought him in the chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own grave, with his fathers, in the city of David.” Such divergences are valuable, because they help to establish the independence of the two accounts. **For he was hid.**—*Now he was hiding.* **And when they had slain him.**—*And they put him to death, and buried him; for they said,* &c. **He is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord.**—A didactic remark in the usual manner of the chronicler. **So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.**—Literally, *And the house of Ahaziah had none to retain strength for kingship* (= capable of assuming the sovereignty). Another sentence marked throughout by the chronicler’s own style. (Comp. 2Chronicles 13:20, “retained strength.”) It forms the transition to the account of Athaliah’s usurpation of the throne.