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consisted of so-called Tarshish ships,^105 which were to fetch gold from Ophir, setting
sail from the harbor of Ezion-Geber, on the Red Sea, a port probably on the coast of
South-eastern Arabia, although the exact locality is in dispute.^106
The ill-success of such an alliance with the wicked son of Ahab as announced (2
Chronicles 20:37) by Eliezer, the son of odavah - a prophet not otherwise mentioned.
His prediction was erified when the allied fleet either suffered shipwreck or was
estroyed in a storm. Jehoshaphat took the warning. When Ahaziah nvited him to
undertake a second expedition, in which (as seems mplied in 1 Kings 22:49)
Israelitish mariners were to take a eading part - perhaps because the former failure
was ascribed n the north to the unskillfulness of the Judaeans – the roposal was
declined.^107
The brief and inglorious reign of Ahaziah, the son and successor f Ahab, is said to
have begun in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and to have lasted
two years (1 Kings 22:51). There is apparently here a slight chronological difficulty
(comp. 2 Kings 3:1), which is, however, explained by the circumstance that,
according to a well-known Jewish principle, the years of reign were reckoned from
the month Nisan - the Passover-month, with which the ecclesiastical year began - so
that a reign which extended beyond that month, for however brief a period, would be
computed as one of two years. Thus we conclude that the reign of Ahaziah in reality
lasted little more than one year. The one great political event of that period is very
briefly indicated, although fraught with grave consequences. From the opening words
of 2 Kings - which, as a book, should not have been separated from 1 Kings^108 - we
learn that the Moabites, who, since the time of David, had been tributary (2 Samuel
8:2), rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.
It was probably due to the ill-health of Ahaziah that an attempt was not made to
reduce them to obedience. For the king of Israel had fallen through "the lattice," or
between the grating, probably that which protected the opening of the window, in the
upper chamber.^109
In any case it seems unlikely that the fall was into the court beneath, but probably on
to the covered gallery which ran round the court, like our modern verandahs. The
consequences of the fall were most serious, although not immediately fatal. We
cannot fail to recognize the paramount influence of the queen-mother Jezebel, when
we find Ahaziah applying to the oracle of Baal-zebub in Ekron to know whether he
would recover of his disease. Baal, "lord," was the common name given by the
Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the Syrians (Aramaeans), and Assyrians to their
supreme deity. Markedly it is never applied to God in the Old Testament, or by
believing Israelites. Among the Canaanites (in Palestine) and the Phoenicians the
(^)