by
Damien F. Mackey
Part One:
Introductory and explanatory section
King Amaziah of Judah is strangely missing from Matthew’s
Genealogy of Jesus Christ.
Could Amaziah, though, be a duplicate of another king of
Judah, such as Jotham?
Already I had, in my article:
suggested a possible revision of a part of Matthew’s
Genealogy, his 1:9-11, from this:
…. Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
and Josiah the father of Jeconiah …
six kings, now reduced to this:
…. Ahaz [= Amos] the father of Hezekiah [=
Josiah],
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh [=
Jehoiakim],
Manasseh the father of Amon [= Jehoiachin] …
four kings, recognising certain kings (names) as duplicates.
And I believe that the same procedure may perhaps need to
be applied as well to a part of what is known as the Divided Kingdom, with some
duplicates again needing to be recognised.
This would have the advantage, too, of taking the
pressure away from the biological age of:
Micaiah and Micah
For I have accepted the Jewish tradition that considers
Micaiah and Micah to be the one prophet – despite the seemingly vast time
separation (era of Ahab and era of Hezekiah).
See also, most relevant to this, my article:
Prophet Jonah's long
life of service
A clue to how a folding of the Divided Kingdom may be
achieved could be found in a slightly earlier part of Matthew’s Genealogy, in
1:8-9, in which we do not find the names of kings Joash and Amaziah of Judah,
which names we would expect to be interspersed between the names of Jehoram and
Uzziah. This is how the New Testament text currently reads (five kings):
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham
the father of Ahaz ….
whereas we would expect it to read (perhaps discounting
Jehoram’s son Ahaziah as the son of a usurper) with at least seven kings:
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Joash,
Joash the father of Amaziah,
Amaziah the father of Uzziah,
Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham
the father of Ahaz ….
Here I simply take a set of biblical comparisons.
Part Two:
Some comparisons
of Amaziah and Jotham Here I simply take a set of biblical comparisons.
From 2 Kings 14 and 15:
14:1 In the second year of
Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah
began to reign.
15:32 In the second year of Pekah son of Remaliah
king of Israel, Jotham son of Uzziah king of Judah began to reign.
14:2 He was twenty-five years old when he became
king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years.
15:33 He was twenty-five years old when he became
king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years.
14:2 His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from
Jerusalem.
15:33 His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok.
14:3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not as his father David had done. In everything he followed
the example of his father Joash.
15:34 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Uzziah had done.
14:4 The high places, however, were not removed; the people
continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
15:35 The high places, however, were not removed; the people
continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
….
14:20 He was … buried in Jerusalem with his ancestors, in the City
of David.
15:38 Jotham rested with his ancestors and was
buried with them in the City of David, the city of his father.
The maternal names differ, “Jehoaddan” as opposed to
“Jersusha”, as do the reign lengths, “twenty-nine years” and “sixteen years”.
But, as I have explained in the King Amon article (refer
back to Part One), a king’s “mother”
can sometimes be his actual aunt, and reign lengths accredited to kings can vary
due to co-regencies, which were certainly a major factor in the case of king
Jotham of Judah:
2
Chronicles 26:21: “King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he
died. He lived in a separate house—leprous, and banned from the Temple of the Lord. Jotham his son
had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land”.
And in 2
Kings 15:30, twenty years are
accredited to Jotham: “Then Hoshea son of Elah conspired against
Pekah son of Remaliah. He attacked and assassinated him, and then succeeded him
as king in the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah”.
This would make
Jotham’s reign contemporaneous also with that of Ahaz according to the
following estimate:
(P. 84): “In 2
Kings 15:30 and 2 Kings 17:1 there is established the fact that the last year
of Pekah, the first of Hoshea, the twelfth of Ahaz and the twentieth
of Jotham fall together”.
Part Three:
Amaziah
and Jotham and Ahaz
Surely we cannot add king Ahaz also to this mix? Or can
we?
Introduction
I am not completely sure – but I think that there may be some
possibility of adding Ahaz.
In my recent article on a revision of the later kings of
Judah:
'Taking aim
on' king Amon - such a wicked king of Judah
I had toyed with a rough sort of association of the name
“Ahaz” with “Amaziah” as follows:
This is
how (our current) Matthew 1 sets out the relevant series of kings of Judah (vv.
9-11):
…. Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
and Josiah the father of Jeconiah …
at the time of the exile to Babylon.
Obviously, this is totally different from our
proposed:
Hezekiah = Josiah;
Manasseh = Jehoiakim;
Amon = Jehoiachin ….
Our exit-clause suggestion: “Amon the father of Josiah” needs to be
amended to read, as according to the ESV Matthew 1:10: “Amos the father
of Josiah”.
“Amos” (Amoz) would then be meant to indicate - at least according to our
revision - not Amon (“Amos” being a name entirely different from “Amon”), but
Ahaz.
Amos (or Amoz) is a name associated with Amaziah (Abarim Publications), which name, in turn, at least resembles
Ahaziah (= Ahaz).
Allowing for our duplicate kings, Matthew 1:9-11 could now read as:
…. Ahaz [Amos] the father of Hezekiah [= Josiah],
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh [= Jehoiakim],
Manasseh the father of Amon [= Jehoiachin]
… at the time of the exile to Babylon.
With the
recognition of these several duplicate kings, then another problem might be
solved. Early kings Joash and Amaziah, omitted entirely from Matthew’s
Genealogy, and whose combined reigns amounted to some 7 decades, could now be
included in Matthew’s list.
Though, if Amaziah, for his part, were also Jotham, as
hinted at in PART TWO of this series:
https://www.academia.edu/37682718/Amaziah_and_Jotham_of_Judah._Part_Two_Some_comparisons_of_Amaziah_and_Jotham?email_work_card=view-paper
then Amaziah would already be there in Matthew’s
Genealogy, but under the name of Jotham.
We also found in the “king Amon” article (above) that all of the kings of Judah at the time
had more than the one name. Now, if
Ahaz were also to be identified with king Amaziah of Judah, then this would
beautifully account for (and re-inforce my view of) Ahaz also being named Amos:
…. Ahaz [Amos] the father of Hezekiah [= Josiah] ….
If so, then the king named Amaziah (“Made strong of the
Lord”) would have, in the course of his eventful career - and perhaps as he
began to fall from grace - come to bear also the name Ahaz (“to seize”, or
“grasp”), or Ahaziah.
Whilst Ahaz aligns well with Amaziah-Jotham in some
aspects,
in others he may seem to be a rather poor fit.
Returning back to our comparative structure from PART TWO of this series: https://www.academia.edu/37682718/Amaziah_and_Jotham_of_Judah._Part_Two_Some_comparisons_of_Amaziah_and_Jotham?email_work_card=view-paper
we can now test to see how well king Ahaz of Judah fits
into the mix.
From 2 Kings 14 and 15 (and now 16):
14:1 In the second year of
Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah
began to reign.
15:32 In the second year of Pekah son of Remaliah
king of Israel, Jotham son of Uzziah king of Judah began to reign.
16:1 In the seventeenth year of
Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign.
My
comment: “Pekah son of Remaliah” at least is a
common factor with Jotham, with Ahaz.
And
Pekah king of Israel would be Jehoash king of Israel if Amaziah be identified
with Jotham.
Whilst
in 15:37 we read about Pekah and his ally Rezin as simply a bracketted gloss: “(In
those days the Lord
began to send Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah against Judah.)”, in
the account of Ahaz this is much elaborated upon. For instance (16:5-6): “Then
Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight
against Jerusalem and besieged Ahaz, but they could not overpower him. At
that time, Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram by driving out the
people of Judah”.
14:2 He was twenty-five years old when he became
king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years.
15:33 He was twenty-five years old when he became
king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years.
16:2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned
in Jerusalem sixteen years.
My
comment: Obviously I am not scoring well here
with numbers: ages or reign lengths, except for the common “sixteen years” for
Jotham, for Ahaz.
But
with Jotham, at least, there was the peculiar situation of his being a virtual
substitute king during the long reign of his leprous father, Uzziah. That may
greatly affect the numbers.
14:2 His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from
Jerusalem.
15:33 His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok.
My
comment: No mother is actually named in the case
of Ahaz.
But
that would not matter if he had Amaziah, Jotham, as his alter ego.
14:3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not as his father David had done. In everything he followed
the example of his father Joash.
15:34 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Uzziah had done.
16:2-4 Unlike David his father, [Ahaz] did not do what was right in the
eyes of the Lord his God. He followed the ways of the kings
of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, engaging in the detestable
practices of the nations the Lord had driven
out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and
burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading
tree.
My
comment: Obviously another bad match here – at
least on the surface of things.
Whilst
Amaziah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord”, and Jotham “did
what was right in the eyes of the Lord”,
Ahaz “did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord”.
That,
however, needs to be balanced with the fact that Amaziah, whilst initially
being a worthy king of Judah, later earned the wrath of the Lord to the extent
that he was told by the Lord’s prophet (2 Chronicles 25:16): ‘I
know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and
have not listened to my counsel’.
So,
to give a complete picture, although it could have been said of Amaziah in the
first part of his reign, that he “did what was
right in the eyes of the Lord”,
the opposite could have been said of him at a later
phase, as said of Ahaz, that he “did not do what
was right in the eyes of the Lord”.
This was the case with various of the long-reigning kings
of Judah, who, although they made a good start, eventually fell away badly.
Solomon
is one classic case of this; Asa, too; and the goodly Uzziah, due to an act of
pride, ended up being leprous and even had a holy prophet murdered, Zechariah,
the son of the revered Jehoiada.
Amaziah
followed a similar pattern, having formerly obeyed a prophet to quite an heroic
degree (2 Chronicles 25:7-9), but later threatening to kill a prophet (v. 16):
“While
[the prophet] was still speaking, the king said to him, ‘Have we appointed you
an adviser to the king? Stop! Why be struck down?’
Jotham,
for his part, gets off more lightly, with about the only negative note being
that, during his reign (2 Chronicles 27:2): “The people,
however, continued their corrupt practices”.
But,
as we read regarding Amaziah, regarding Jotham:
14:4 The high places, however, were not removed; the people
continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
15:35 The high places, however, were not removed; the people
continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
My
comment: These descriptions fit better with Ahaz
than did the previous laudatory comments.
As
to burial:
14:20 He was … buried in Jerusalem with his ancestors, in the City
of David.
15:38 Jotham rested with his ancestors and was
buried with them in the City of David, the city of his father.
16:20 Ahaz rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the
City of David.
My
comment: We can also add these comparisons:
14:18 As for the other events of Amaziah’s reign, are they not
written in the book of the Annals of the kings of Judah?
15:36 As for the other events of Jotham’s reign, and what he did,
are they not written in the book of the Annals of the kings of Judah?
16:19 As for the other events of the reign of Ahaz, and what he did,
are they not written in the book of the Annals of the kings of Judah?
