Errancy.com

Both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles record that Ahaziah reigned as king of Judah for a single year. They disagree, however, as to how old he was when he acceded to the throne.

According to 2 Kings, Ahaziah was aged 22 at his accession:

In the twelfth year of King Joram son of Ahab of Israel, Ahaziah son of King Jehoram of Judah began to reign. Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned for one year in Jerusalem. [2 Kings 8:25-26a (NRSV)]

According to 2 Chronicles, Ahaziah was aged 42 at his accession:

The inhabitants of Jerusalem made his youngest son Ahaziah king as his successor; for the troops who came with the Arabs to the camp had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram reigned as king of Judah. Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned for one year in Jerusalem. [2 Chronicles 22:1-2a (NRSV)]

Some translations remove the contradiction by replacing “forty-two” in this verse with “twenty-two”. The Hebrew manuscripts, however, do say “forty-two”, so if your Bible says 22 then you need to be aware that you can’t always rely on it to accurately reflect the extant biblical manuscripts.

2 Chronicles 22’s claim that Ahaziah was aged 42 at his accession looks even stranger when it is compared with 2 Chronicles 21, which says of Ahaziah’s father:

He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned for eight years in Jerusalem. [2 Chronicles 21:20a (NRSV)]

Ahaziah acceded to the throne when his father died, and his father acceded to the throne aged 32 and died 8 years later, aged 40. If Ahaziah were 42 when he took to the throne, then he would have been 2 years older than his father, which can’t be right.

So how old was Ahaziah when he became king of Judah, 22 or 42? If he was 22, then 2 Chronicles 22:2 contains an error. If he was 42, then 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 21:20 contain errors.

N.B. All posts are written in a style sympathetic to the claim of Biblical error, even in cases where the author ("Errancy") disagrees with the claim. See the About page for the site's philosophy.