The Companion Bible: see notes at 1 Kings 14:20.

We can express the matter

therefore as follows:

1

20

2

21

1

3

22

2

1

Remembering that Israel's method of reckoning gives the same year to

the incoming king as well as to the outgoing king, it appears that somewhere

through Nadab's second year he died, and is succeeded by Baasha, both events

taking place in the third year of Asa.

The same problems meet us and are settled in the same way with a number

of kings in this first section.  Few chronologies have done more than cut the

next knot; Ussher, Beecher and The Companion Bible are among the few who have

unravelled it.  The problem has to do with the fact that in Israel we find

that there were Ahab, Ahaziah and Jehoram; while in Judah there were

Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah.

'There was first a family alliance (2 Chron. 18:1), Jehoshaphat's son

Jehoram of Judah married Ahab's daughter Athaliah.  Then there was a

commercial alliance.  Jehoshaphat joined himself with Ahab's son,

Ahaziah of Israel, to make ships to go to Tarshish (2 Chron. 20:36).

Finally, there was a military alliance.  Jehoshaphat joined his armed

forces with those of Ahab, and went up with him against Ramoth -gilead

(1 Kings 22:1 -40).

For the first time in the record of the kings of Judah we get one and

the same year counted twice over, and given to the outgoing king,

Jehoram of Judah, and also to the incoming king, Ahaziah of Judah.

This just shows what thorough -faced heathens these two kings of Judah

had become, the one the husband, and the other the son, of Athaliah,

the daughter of Jezebel'. (Anstey).

We must leave the reader to unravel the apparent discrepancies in the

dating of the kings of Judah and of Israel now that the key has been

supplied, and turn to the list of problems enumerated by Lightfoot as quoted

a little earlier in this article.

'Ahaziah two years older than his father'

(2 Chron. 22:2).

As Lightfoot said, there is always 'admissible wisdom' in these so -called

'slips of the Holy Ghost'.

Let us compare the two passages that produce this 'discord'.

'Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign' (2 Kings

'Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign' (2 Chron.

A literal translation of 2 Chronicles 22:2 reads:

'A son of forty -two years was Ahaziah when he began to reign'.