- 146-
- Joram: died in 884; reigned twelve years (2 Kings 3:1); acceded between 895 and
896 B.C.
III CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE YEARS OF REIGNS OF THE KINGS
OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL.
- Ahaziah of Judah acceded in the twelfth year of Joram of Israel (2 Kings 8:26);
and as the two were killed in 884, the one year of Ahaziah's reign cannot have been a
full one. - Jehoram of Judah acceded in the fifth year of Joram of Israel (2 Kings 8:16). Since
Joram acceded in 895 or 896 B.C., the fifth year of his reign must have coincided
with that of the accession of Jehoram in 891 or 892, as indicated under I. - Ahaziah of Israel, and his successor Joram, acceded respectively in the seventeenth
(1 Kings 22:51) and the eighteenth (2 Kings 3:1) years of Jehoshaphat, whence it
follows that (as indicated under II.) the two years of Ahaziah of Israel were not full
years. As Jehoshaphat acceded in 916, the seventeenth year of his reign would have
been 899 B.C., and the eighteenth year 898; while according to the computation
under II., Ahaziah acceded between 897 and 898, and Joram between 895 and 896.
But these slight discrepancies are, no doubt, due to the Jewish mode of calculating
the years of a reign, to which reference has been made above. - If we add the sum of the three reigns in Judah (Jehoshaphat twenty-five, Jehoram
eight, and Ahaziah one), we obtain the number thirty-four, or, making allowance for
the Jewish mode of computation, thirty-two years. Again, the sum of the three reigns
in Israel (Ahab twenty-two, Ahaziah two, and Joram twelve), gives thirty-six, not
full, years.
The whole period from the reign of Ahab to that of Jehu comprised between thirty-
five and thirty-six years, and as Jehoshaphat acceded in the fourth year of Ahab, the
figures will be seen to agree.
The only exception to this general agreement in the numbers is 2 Kings 1:17, where
we read that Joram acceded to the throne of Israel in the second year of Jehoram,
king of Judah. But in that case Jehoshaphat could only have reigned seventeen, not
twenty-five years; nor could Joram have become king of Israel in the eighteenth year
of Jehoshaphat, as we read in 2 Kings 3:1; while Jehoram of Judah would have
reigned not eight years (2 Kings 8:17), but fourteen; nor would he have acceded in
the fifth year of Joram (2 Kings 8:16), but a year earlier than he. Accordingly, most
writers have supposed a co-regency of Jehoram with his father Jehoshaphat. But as
the text gives no hint of any such co-regency,^297 and there are many and strong
(^)