The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings

"Ye know not of what spirit are ye."—Luke ix. 55. "He is the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises."—Heb. viii. 6. Ahaziah, the eldest son and successor of Ahab, has been called "the most shadowy of the Israelitish kings." He seems to have been in all respects one of the most weak, faithless, and deplorably miserable. He did but reign two years—perhaps in reality little more than one; but this brief space was crowded with intolerable disasters. Everything that he touched seemed to be marked out for ruin or failure, and in character he showed himself a true son of Jezebel and Ahab.