Tiny Little Things

I usually avoid any content or conversation about Christian belief or the Bible when it comes to conversation with other religions and the Christian side snips back in their defense to strike another belief. I mean, that just doesn’t sound nice. But this time it was interesting for me because I also didn’t know about that topic and what the Bible says about it. I wasn’t agree with the preacher’s respond to that, so I did my quick study and gave my comment in that content. Here how it was:

There was a question came from a non believer with the Bible in hand, asking if we believe that the word of God is without error.
“Yes, we believe.”
Then the questioner mentioned two different verses, telling story about a same person, but different notation.

And here is my quick study:

It was about king Ahaziah of Judah that some Bible translations note different age of him in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. While the intention of that person was most probably to convert us into thinking that the Holy Bible has mistakes and that the Christian faith is not true, I was converted to find it out.

I won’t tell you what the preacher that tells that story responds, but I want to share to you my story of my quick study on this. Ha!

So, in NKJV (not in some other translations), 2 Kings 8:26 says, “Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king…” But 2 Chronicles 22:2 mentions a different note, “Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he became king…” It’s a twenty-year difference, and if his father, Jehoram, became a king when he was 32 yo and he reigned for 8 years (2Ch 21:5), there is no way his son was older than him. Lol. I believe the Bible translators were not that drunk to put this by mistake.

“What did I not know here?” was my first thought. I searched high and low and found that some theologians agree about this translation error. This is a typical case where there are some different manuscripts and or have some defects. Some other theologians believe Ahaziah was co-reigning with his father before he became the king on his own, and some sources give a good counting from the reign of his great grandfather that fall exactly in that number. So I began to count.

The kingdom of Israel was torn into two after the reign of King Solomon. The Northern part was the Kingdom of Israel, and the southern part was the Kingdom of Judah. Now we are counting on the side of the Kingdom of Israel. Omri was the king of Israel for 12 years, taking his kingdom after Zimri (1Ki 16). Then his son, Ahab, reigned for 22 years. After Ahab died, Ahaziah his son, reigned in Israel for two years. Now let’s stop here. This is a different Ahaziah. There are two Ahaziahs, one is a king of Israel (Ahab’s son), another one is a king of Judah (Jehoram’s son). So the total year of Omri and Ahab’s reign was 34 years.

Now, let’s go over to the Kingdom of Judah. King Jehosaphat of Judah was a good friend with King Ahab of Israel. This friendship was too close that they became in laws. Jehoram, King Jehosaphat’s son, married Athalia, the daughter of King Ahab. That sounds like a usual love story right? But do you see something dangerous here? King Jehosaphat was a believer of the LORD, but King Ahab was a worshipper of Baal.

After King Jehosaphat died, Jehoram took his place to become the king of Judah. His wife, Athalia, did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and so did Jehoram (2Ch 21:6). King Jehoram reigned for 8 years, and his son, Ahaziah, became a king. Now, this is the Ahaziah we are talking about.

The Hebrew word “Years old” that is used in 2 Chronicles 22:2 can also be translated “Son (of),” and it makes the literal translation of that verse:

Ahaziah [is] a son of twenty-two years in his reigning, and he has reigned one year in Jerusalem, and the name of his mother [is] Athaliah daughter of Omri (LSV).

Okay, it’s probably really a mistranslation. But is it just a coincidence that Ahaziah reigned in the 42nd year after his great grandfather, Omri? There is an exact number!

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

The Bible is without error, the translation might be. We (or possibly just I?) don’t know if the number in 2 Chronicles 22:2 was a mistranslation or it was what it is. But if the later is true, then this could apply: the Bible does not play favoritism.

Ahaziah of Judah was a descendant of David, the man of God. But his deeds were far from it. He was evil in God’s eyes, and he was counted not as the son of the king that feared the Lord, but to a king that was evil in God’s eyes. Faith is each person’s responsibility to God and we decide our forebear.

There are still many other lessons I got from this quick study, but that will be too long for me to write. Have you learned about this too? Share me your thoughts!