2 Kings 1:17 - Exposition

And Jehoram —or, Joram LXX ; "whom Jehovah exalts;" another evidence that Ahab did not regard himself as having abandoned altogether the worship of Jehovah (see the comment on 1 Kings 22:40 )—reigned in his stead ("his brother," אציו , has probably fallen out after "Jehoram," and requires to be inserted in order to give force to the last clause of the verse) in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat King of Judah. In 2 Kings 3:1 it is said that Jehoram, the son of Ahab and brother of Ahaziah, began to reign over Israel in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat himself. The apparent discrepancy is reconciled by supposing that Jehoshaphat associated his son Jehoram in the kingdom in his seventeenth year, when he was about to enter upon the Syrian war, so that the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat was also the second year of Jehoram. It is certain that association was largely practiced in Egypt at a date long anterior to Jehoshaphat, and David's proclamation of Solomon as king was an association, so that the explanation is not untenable. On the other hand, the difficulties of the chronology of 2 Kings are so numerous and so great as to defy complete reconciliation, and to lead to a suspicion that the numbers have either suffered extensive corruption, or have been manipulated by an unskillful reviser. Because he had no son ; i.e. because he, Ahaziah, had no son, he was succeeded by his younger brother, Jehoram.