Jehoahaz


 * This article is about the king of the Kingdom of Israel. For the three other kings known by this name, see Jehoahaz (disambiguation)

Jehoahaz ("Name means::YHWH has held") (r. 857-840 BC according to Ussher, or r. 814-797 BC according to Thiele ) was the eleventh king of the Kingdom of Israel and the first of four generations of the House of Jehu to follow its founder, Jehu.

Accession and synchrony
Jehoahaz was the son of Jehu, but the Bible does not state the year of his birth. He did not serve as viceroy in his father's reign for any appreciable length of time, but he seems to have come to power on or near the religious new year's day.

He came to his throne in the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash of the Kingdom of Judah and died one year earlier than did Joash. He did, however, have a son and successor, also named Joash, to whom he granted the executive viceroyship for the last three years of his reign.

Military Disaster
Jehoahaz never once made any effort to turn his kingdom away from the false religion that Jeroboam I had set up&mdash;or from the worship of Asherah, in that the people of Samaria still kept an Asherah pole in a high place in or near that city. 

The result was the most severe military disaster that God had yet visited upon the Kingdom of Israel. The Syrians, under the command of King Hazael and his son (and probably viceroy) Benhadad II, conducted a series of devastating raids on that kingdom. In those raids they captured many Israelite cities, and left Jehoahaz with a tiny remnant of an army consisting of 50 cavalrymen, 10 chariots, and 10,000 infantrymen. 

In desperation, Jehoahaz actually prayed to God, and God did send help. The Bible says only that God sent "a savior" and does not specify what sort of savior that was. 

Death and Succession
Jehoahaz made his son viceroy two years before the last year of his reign (in the 37th year of Joash, ). He died quietly, and his son immediately consulted the prophet Elisha for advice on how to cope with the Syrians.