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When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, learned that her son was dead, she rose and put to death all of Ahaziah's children except Joash, whom his aunt, Jehosheba, secretly took and placed with his nurse in the bedchamber. In this way she hid him from Athaliah, so that he was not put to death. He was with her, hid in the temple of Jehovah, six years, while Athaliah ruled over the land.
It is her training that shapes the men. How could it be otherwise indeed? What time had those kings to spend on home matters, what with their fighting, judging, governing, and attending to all the affairs of empire? How could they do a father's work and watch the training of the future kings? It was left to the mothers, and unhappy they who had mothers like Ahaziah's.
I shall not stand on the matter, only I may say, if they were Ahaziah's own children, it was a most unnatural and cruel act for Athaliah to cut off her own posterity. For the usurpation, there might have been two motives.
Jehu the son of Nimshi is not swifter of answer to Ahaziah's messenger than the fiery Christian king, in his 'What hast thou to do with peace? Charles answers the messengers with his own lips: "Tell the Sultan of Nocera, this day I will put him in hell, or he shall put me in paradise." Do not think it the speech of a hypocrite.
We must keep away altogether from the men who delight in evil paths, and from the things, the very touch of which defiles. Go not in their way, pass not by it. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not." Learn the lesson of Ahaziah's life, and how his fall came because he consorted with wickeder men than himself, and was anxious to see their doings.
Now when Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab, heard of the death of her brother Joram, and of her son Ahaziah, and of the royal family, she endeavored that none of the house of David might be left alive, but that the whole family might be exterminated, that no king might arise out of it afterward; and, as she thought, she had actually done it; but one of Ahaziah's sons was preserved, who escaped death after the manner following: Ahaziah had a sister by the same father, whose name was Jehosheba, and she was married to the high priest Jehoiada.
They were as humble as Ahaziah's third captain before Elijah. They were obliged to do it, but, poor lambs, they would not hurt so much as a swan's feather. And would the bishop, by all that was invokeable, kindly defer his anathema? or else the king would be royally angry, and they would get more than they deserved. The bishop answered the clergy, "It is not their parts to keep our things whole.
And he brought out Ahaziah's son and put the crown and the royal ornaments upon him; and they made him ruler over Judah and poured oil upon his head and clapped their hands, crying, "Long live the ruler!" But when Athaliah heard the people shouting, she came to them in the temple of Jehovah.
But in the seventh year Jehoiada the priest called together the officers of the royal guard and brought them into the temple of Jehovah. After he had made them make a solemn promise, he showed them Ahaziah's son, and gave them these orders, "This is what you shall do: a third part of you who go in on the Sabbath to guard the palace shall keep watch over it.
Ahaziah's descent was right on one side, but it was very mean on the other. He had David's blood in his veins, and Jehoshaphat's, and mingled with that, the venom of heathenism. His mother was Athaliah, and Athaliah was the daughter of Jezebel, and Jezebel was a licentious heathen princess whom Ahab on an evil day had made his wife.
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