XXVI. JEHORAM AND HIS WIFE

But this marriage of Ahab and Jezebel, so ruinous to Israel, was scarcely less so to Judah; for in Judah the same miserable alliance was to be acted over again in the next generation, and with the very same consequences.

Ahab, king of Israel, had taken to himself Jezebel, a heathen, for his wife, and Israel, through her, became a half-heathen nation. Jehoram, king of Judah, had taken to himself Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, worthy in all respects of the mother who bore her, to be his wife; and now Judah, in like manner, and for the like cause, fell away. Of Ahab it is said, “But there was none like unto Ahab, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.” [1 Kings 21:25.] Such were the bitter fruits of his marriage. Of Jehoram, it is said, “And he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.” [2 Kings 8:18.] Such in turn was this ill-omened union to him and his. Either of these women, therefore, was the curse of the kingdom over which her husband ruled; and as we have already seen some of the mischief brought into Israel (faulty enough before) by Jezebel, so shall we now see still more brought into Judah (hitherto a righteous and prosperous people) by Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel. I, however, shall not enter into the subject further than to draw from it what I can of evidence.

And here, before I proceed further, let me notice a circumstance, trivial in itself, which tends, however, to establish this reputed alliance of the houses of Jehoshaphat and Ahab as a matter of fact. There is no more cause, indeed, for calling this in question, than any other historical incident of an indifferent nature; but still, I am unwilling to let any opportunity pass of drawing out these tokens of truth, whether significant or not: be the gifts great or small, which are cast into the treasury of evidence, they contribute to swell the amount; they contribute to justify the general conclusion, that truth is still the pervading principle of the sacred writings, in minute as well as in momentous matters, in things which are, or which are not, of a kind to provoke investigation.

I am told, then, that a son of the King of Judah marries a daughter of the King of Israel. Now, agreeably to this, for some time afterwards, I discover a marked identity of names in the two families; so much so, as to render, whilst it lasts, the contemporary history of the two kingdoms extremely complicated and embarrassing. Thus, Ahab is succeeded by a son Ahaziah [1 Kings 22:49.] , on the throne of Israel; and Jehoram is also succeeded by a son Ahaziah (the nephew of the other), on the throne of Judah [2 Chron. 22:1.] . Again, Ahaziah, king of Israel, dies, and he is succeeded by a Jehoram [2 Kings 1:17; 3:1.] ; but a Jehoram, the brother-in-law of the former, is at the same moment on the throne of Judah, as his father’s colleague [2 Kings 1:17.] . How much longer this mutual interchange of family names might have continued, it is impossible to tell, for Ahab’s house was cut off in the next generation by Jehu, and a new dynasty was set up; but the thing itself is curious; and however our patience may be put to the proof, in disengaging the thread of Israel and Judah at this point of their annals, we have the satisfaction of feeling that the intricacy of the history at such a moment is a very strong argument of the truth of the history. For, although no remark is made upon this identity of names, nor the least hint given as to the cause of it, we at once perceive that it may very naturally be referred to the union which is said to have taken place between the houses, and which many circumstances tend to show, however extraordinary it may seem, was a cordial union.