Westboro Baptist,
2 Chronicles 22:2 says King Ahaziah of Judah was 42 when he began to reign. However, 2 Kings 8:26 says he was 22 when he began to reign. Since you are the only people who believe the bible is infallible left on earth, I’d appreciate an interview where we would talk only
about this topic and how he was both 22 & 42 when he became king. Thank you for your consideration, my number is ###.###.####, I go to the University of NC @ Chapel Hill
-Chris
Dear Chris –
I love that you have read the words and found what you think is a problem. That means that you are not going to be able to stand before God and feign ignorance of his commandments!
Let me show you what you are instructed about the secret things of the Bible, you might like it, to wit:
Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
So paraphrasing – if you understand the commandments (for example, “thou shalt not commit adultery” – that’s easy to understand – no rocket science and no explanation needed) OBEY THAT! If you think there is something that needs more words, and it is a mystery to you, OBEY WHAT YOU UNDERSTAND, it is what is revealed!
God reveals his secrets to WHOM HE CHOSES! The rebels don’t get to choose who God will reveal his secrets to. OBEY YOUR GOD and he might show you some mysteries! Otherwise, you walk in gross darkness all your days. It sucks to be you!
Nevertheless, here is what John Gill, an old Bible expositor, says about your mystery:
2 Chronicles 22 Ver. 2. Forty two and years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, &c.] In #2Ki 8:26, he is said to be but twenty two years old at his accession to the throne, which is undoubtedly most correct; for this makes him to be two years older than his father when he died, who was thirty two when he began to reign, and reigned eight years, #2Ch 21:20, different ways are taken to solve this difficulty; some refer this to Jehoram, that he was forty two when Ahaziah began to reign, but he was but forty when he died; others to the age of Athaliah his mother, as if he was the son of one that was forty two, when he himself was but twenty two; but no instance is given of any such way of writing, nor any just reason for it; others make these forty two years reach to the twentieth of his son Joash, his age twenty two, his reign one, Athaliah six, and Joash thirteen; but the two principal solutions which seem most to satisfy learned men are, the one, that he was twenty two when he began to reign in his father’s lifetime, and forty two when he began to reign in his own right; but then he must reign twenty years with his father, whereas his father reigned but eight years: to make this clear they observe {b}, as Kimchi and Abarbinel, from whom this solution is taken, that he reigned eight years very happily when his son was twenty two, and taken on the throne with him, after which he reigned twenty more ingloriously, and died, when his son was forty two; this has been greedily received by many, but without any proof: the other is, that these forty two years are not the date of the age of Ahaziah, but of the reign of the family of Omri king of Israel; so the Jewish chronology {c}; but how impertinent must the use of such a date be in the account of the reign of a king of Judah? all that can be said is, his mother was of that family, which is a trifling reason for such an unusual method of reckoning: it seems best to acknowledge a mistake of the copier, which might easily be made through a similarity of the numeral letters, ??, forty two, for ??, twenty two {d}; and the rather since some copies of the Septuagint, and the Syriac and Arabic versions, read twenty two, as in Kings; particularly the Syriac version, used in the church of Antioch from the most early times; a copy of which Bishop Ussher obtained at a very great price, and in which the number is twenty two, as he assures us; and that the difficulty here is owing to the carelessness of the transcribers is owned by Glassius {e}, a warm advocate for the integrity of the Hebrew text, and so by Vitringa {f}: and indeed it is more to the honour of the sacred Scriptures to acknowledge here and there a mistake in the copiers, especially in the historical books, where there is sometimes a strange difference of names and numbers, than to give in to wild and distorted interpretations of them, in order to reconcile them, where there is no danger with respect to any article of faith or manners; and, as a learned man {g} has observed of the New Testament,
“it is an invincible reason for the Scripture’s part, that other escapes should be so purposely and infinitely let pass, and yet no saving and substantial part at all scarce moved out of its place; to say the truth, these varieties of readings, in a few by-places, do the same office to the main Scriptures, as the variation of the compass to the whole magnet of the earth, the mariner knows so much the better for these how to steer his course;”
and, with respect to some various readings in the Old Testament, Dr. Owen {h} observes, God has suffered this lesser variety to fall out, in or among the copies we have, for the quickening and exercising of our diligence in our search of his word:
At the end of all these words, I say this to you – if you think for one second that you are going to get off the hook because of this, you have bats in your belfry!
I don’t feel compelled to try and fix this for you or anyone else! The time is very, very short, the Lord is coming, this nation is going down in a huge way, and that destruction is IMMINENT! I RUN to meet my King!
Your duty remains the same – fear God, OBEY HIS COMMANDMNETS. Do you have a conflict in the commandments that you need to clear up? Give the glory of it ALL to God! In a short while, I will get to understand it all!
Thanks for asking!
Anathema Maranatha