Athaliah
Bad Bible Babe
When Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother, saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to annihilate all the royal heirs of the house of Judah. 2 Chronicles 22:10 CSB
Today’s lady of the Bible is not a faithful one, but one that we can learn from nonetheless. There is so much more to know about Athaliah than initially meets the eye, so let’s dig in.
Background
So, there is a decent amount of background for you to keep in mind, especially if you’re not familiar with the Old Testament time of kings.
After Moses brings the Israelites to the promised land, there is a time where the Israelites relied on leadership from some chosen people amongst them that they called judges. The people kept begging God for a king to rule over them like the other nations had. God granted their request and we see the rule of Saul, David, and Solomon. After King Solomon, the kingdom of Israel split into two nations.
During the time this text took place, the kingdom was divided. This means the Israelite people either lived in the northern kingdom of Israel or the southern kingdom of Judah. Both kingdoms had a variety of kings, some who made great moves to bring the people closer to God. And of course there were other kings who led the people astray by encouraging them to not follow God and His ways.
One king was King Ahab. King Ahab was king over the northern kingdom of Israel, and he was known as one of the most wicked kings they had. King Ahab and his wife Jezebel (YES, THAT JEZEBEL) had a daughter, Athaliah. In the southern kingdom of Judah, King Jehosaphat was ruling. King Jehosaphat was a good king who tried to bring the people closer to God. He wanted to bring the two kingdoms back together to be reunited, and he did so by marrying his son, King Jehoram of Judah to King Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah. Are you still with me? This family tree image may help. (Yes, I had to make a family tree graphic so I could understand who is who in this family! To make matters more confusing, there was a King Joram of Israel, too. Actually both he and the one we are talking about would have had the exact same name, but thankfully most translators try to differentiate the two kings by spelling them differently.)
Athaliah and King Jehoram have a son together, Ahaziah. We don’t have clear understanding about if Jehoram had other wives or concubines, but we do know he had at least one other child, Jehoshabeath, who had a different mother than her half brother Ahaziah. Jehoshabeath comes to play a huge role in this story later on.
So, now that we have an understanding of the family members in this story, let’s move on. So we see this story written in both 2 Chronicles and in 2 Kings.
King Jehoram is king over the southern kingdom of Judah. We know that Athaliah didn’t persuade her husband to bring the people back to God, but the opposite.
But Jehoram followed the example of the kings of Israel and was as wicked as King Ahab, for he had married one of Ahab’s daughters. So Jehoram did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. 2 Kings 8:18 NLT
King Jehoram dies from an illness and the only son he had left to take over his throne was King Ahaziah. (Remember this is Athaliah’s son.) Typically the oldest son would take the throne, but King Jehoram’s other sons had been killed by Philistines and Arabians.
King Ahaziah decides to repeat a similar choice his grandfather, King Jehoshaphat, made by aligning himself to the northern kingdom of Israel to fight against Syria. King Joram (the Israel king NOT Ahaziah’s dad) is injured during battle. King Ahaziah goes to visit him. While on this visit, Jehu comes into the story.
Jehu was anointed to be the next king by Elisha and the family of Ahab was cursed by Elisha. So Jehu goes to where King Joram and King Ahaziah are and kills King Joram to take over his throne. He also kills Ahaziah and all of his brothers and officials. Remember, Ahaziah is the grandson of King Ahab because of Athaliah, so the curse against the family of Ahab would rightly continue to him.
But none of the surviving members of Ahaziah’s family was capable of ruling the kingdom. 2 Chronicles 22:9B NLT
So now Athaliah’s beloved son is dead, as well as Ahaziah’s relatives.
What happens now??
Now we see Athaliah in full force.
When Athaliah, the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah, learned that her son was dead, she began to destroy the rest of Judah’s royal family. But Ahaziah’s sister Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram, took Ahaziah’s infant son, Joash, and stole him away from among the rest of the king’s children, who were about to be killed. She put Joash and his nurse in a bedroom. In this way, Jehosheba, wife of Jehoiada the priest and sister of Ahaziah, hid the child so that Athaliah could not murder him. Joash remained hidden in the Temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled over the land. 2 Chronicles 22:10-12 NLT
Athaliah couldn’t handle the thought that a different family may take over the throne of Judah. So she starts killing people herself! Even so far as to kill her grandchildren. That’s some serious revenge.
BUT GOD. God always has a plan. God used Ahaziah’s half sister to rescue his infant son, Joash. She protected Joash for 6 years. In the meantime Athaliah is ruler over Judah. Unfortunately we don’t have much record of what kinds of things she did during her rule, but we can safely assume there was no good being done. During Athaliah’s 7th year of being Queen, the husband of Jehosheba (remember, she is the one who rescued Joash), the priest Jehoiada develops a plan to overthrow Athaliah’s rule. Jehoiada gets people on his side, crowns Joash as king, and ends his plot by having Queen Athaliah killed.
Woah, do you feel like you just watched a Lifetime movie in double speed? I do.
What do we know about her?
While we don’t know a huge amount about Athaliah, we do know that she encouraged both her husband and her son to do what was wrong. She was a poor example for them both as she did not lead or help them lead people back to God, but away from Him.
Strengths
You can’t say she was weak. Athaliah was very determined and brave. In all the wrong ways, yet she persevered in doing wrong and encouraging those around her to do wrong also. She achieved her notoriety.
Weaknesses
Obviously, her main weakness is not standing up for truth. She did not encourage her kingly husband, or kingly son to seek God. She then sought revenge by trying to kill all of her grandchildren so she could gain the throne. She was full of greed and power hungry, so much that she was willing to hurt others for her sake.
How can I be more like her?
Easy answer: We do not want to be like Athaliah! But we do want to learn from her. We can easily learn that seeking God’s path is the only way that leads to goodness.
We should seek to be more like Jesus. Not seeking power for ourselves or willing to hurt others for our own gain. We can easily get our priorities just as mixed up as Athaliah did. We may not try to kill our grandchildren, but we may not treat our loved ones with the time and respect they deserve. Or even worse, we choose not to give God our time and attention.
Consider what you can learn from Athaliah’s story and why the authors of the Bible felt it imperative to include her horrendous tale.
