A Brighter Day Begins with His Word.

Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William) • SECTION 4

Amaziah Of Judah (B.C. 796-783[?]) 167

← The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings

Jehoram (B.C. 851-843)--Ahaziah (B.C. 843-842)--Jehoram ben-Jehoshaphat of Judah--Perplexing uncertainty of minute chronological details--The blight of the Jezebel-alliance--The husband of Athaliah--His apostasies--Revolt of Edom--Narrow escape of Jehoram--Revolt of Libnah--Jehoram's murder by his brethren--Philistine invasion--Incurable disease--Ahaziah ben-Jehoram--Joins his uncle (Jehoram ben-Ahab) in the campaign against Ramoth-Gilead--Visits him at Jezreel--Shot down by Jehu.

Misery of Jehoram's reign--Thwarted invasion of Moab--Aggression of Benhadad--At Ramoth-Gilead--The young prophet--The two kings absent from the camp--The dangerous commission--The assembled captains--Jehu secretly anointed--His accession enthusiastically welcomed by the army--His sudden enthronement--His swift resolution--The watchman at Jezreel--The two horsemen--The two kings--Their murder--Ferocity of Jehu--Elijah's prophecy--Jezebel--She is hurled down--Jehu drives over her body--The curse fulfilled.

His politic subtlety--The murder of the seventy princes--The ghastly heaps--Hypocritic ferocity.

Wading through blood to a throne--The ride to Samaria--The brethren of Ahaziah of Judah--The corpse-choked tank of the shepherds--The Bedawy ascetic--The scene of slaughter in the temple of Baal--Did Elisha approve of these atrocities?--Prophetic judgment on Jehu--Ravages of Hazael--Jehu's anguish--He pays tribute to Assyria.

The murderess-daughter of Jezebel--Fierce ambition--Jehosheba--The rescued child--Reared in the Temple--The high priest's plot--The coronation of the boy-king--Athaliah enters the Temple--Her murder--The fate of Baal's high priest--Proposed restoration of the Temple--Joash calls to task the defaulting priests--Death of Jehoiada--Defection of Joash--Murder of Zechariah--Bad record of the line of Jewish priests--Hazael attacks Judah--Defeat of Joash and plunder of Jerusalem--Murder of Joash--Names of the murderers.

The House of David--Amaziah brings to justice the murderers of his father, but spares their children--Grounds for this--Different views taken of him by the historian and the chronicler--Splendid victory of Amaziah in the Valley of Salt--Expansion of the story in the Chronicles--His defiance of Joash--His defeat and murder.

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