Bible Synapse
Did Ahaziah begin to reign in Joram’s eleventh year or his twelfth?
Hard question · Israel’s history: Joshua to Esther · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate
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Ahaziah began to reign “In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel”.
In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel did Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah begin to reign.
“in the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab began Ahaziah to reign over Judah”.
And in the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab began Ahaziah to reign over Judah.
The objection
Within two chapters the same book dates the accession of Ahaziah of Judah twice: to the twelfth year of Joram king of Israel (2 Kings 8:25) and to his eleventh year (2 Kings 9:29).
The answer
The two notes count Joram’s years from different starting points. A king’s years could be reckoned in two ways in the ancient Near East. In one, the part-year in which he came to the throne counted as his first year; in the other, it was only his ‘accession year’, and his first year began at the next new year. The same calendar year can therefore be Joram’s eleventh by one reckoning and his twelfth by the other. Scholars generally hold that Israel and Judah did not always use the same method, and 2 Kings 9:29 is a separate note added at the close of the story of Ahaziah’s death, quite possibly from a source that counted differently from 8:25. Keil and Delitzsch call this the simplest explanation.
Other answers Christians give
Ahaziah began beside his father
Gill also suggests that Ahaziah began to reign with his father in Joram’s eleventh year and alone in the twelfth, when his father died. Ussher’s chronology, as Answers in Genesis sets it out, places the start of this shared rule in Jehoram’s two-year incurable illness (2 Chronicles 21:18–19).
Still open
Which method each kingdom used at this period is still debated, so the exact reckoning behind each note cannot be fixed with certainty.
From the classic commentators
The discrepancy between "the eleventh year" here and "the twelfth year" in 2 Kings 8:25 may be most simply explained, on the supposition that there was a difference in the way of reckoning the commencement of the years of Joram's reign.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 2 Kings 9
it was at the close of the eleventh, and the beginning of the twelfth; or he began to reign with his father in the eleventh as here, and in the twelfth as there, when his father was dead.John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: 2 Kings 9 (1746–1763)
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 2 Kings 9, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: 2 Kings 9, at Bible Hub