Athaliah and Joash: We saw at the end of Ahaziah’s reign (22:1-9) that the house of David was seriously endangered. A power vacuum developed after the king’s death. All the king’s uncles (six of them) were killed by their brother, Jehoram, the previous king. And during Jehoram’s reign all male heirs (except Ahaziah) were killed in a battle against the Philistines and Arabs. Ahaziah, the sole survivor, therefore became king. When he died and left a power vacuum, his mother, Athaliah, stepped in.

We know that Athaliah was a daughter of King Ahab of Israel and his wife Jezebel. The previous two Judahite kings’ relationships with the northern kingdom, Israel, had proved to be fatal. This relationship now resulted in a situation where the house of David could potentially be replaced by a daughte…