2 Kings 8:28

25-29 Names do not make natures, but it was bad for Jehoshaphat's family to borrow names from Ahab's. Ahaziah's relation to Ahab's family was the occasion of his wickedness and of his fall. When men choose wives for themselves, let them remember they are choosing mothers for their children. Providence so ordered it, that Ahaziah might be cut off with the house of Ahab, when the measure of their iniquity was full. Those who partake with sinners in their sin, must expect to partake with them in their plagues. May all the changes, troubles, and wickedness of the world, make us more earnest to obtain an interest in the salvation of Christ....

Verse 2 Kings 8:28. _THE SYRIANS WOUNDED JORAM_] Ahaziah went with Joram to endeavour to wrest Ramoth-gilead out of the hands of the Syrians, which belonged to Israel and Judah. Ahab had endeavoured to do this before, and was slain there; see 1 Kings 22:3, c., and the notes there....

This war of the two kings against Hazael seems to have had for its object the recovery of Ramoth-gilead, which Ahab and Jehoshaphat had vainly attempted fourteen years earlier 1 Kings 22:3. Joram probably thought that the accession of a new and usurping monarch presented a favorable opportunity for a renewal of the war. It may also have happened that Hazael was engaged at the time upon his northern frontier with repelling one of those Assyrian attacks which seem by the inscriptions to have fallen upon him in quick succession during his earlier years. At any rate, the war appears to have been successful. Ramoth-gilead was recovered 2 Kings 9:14, and remained probably thenceforth in the hands of the Israelites. THE SYRIANS WOUNDED JORAM - Acc

EXPOSITION 2 KINGS 8:1 THE SEQUEL OF THE STORY OF THE SHUNAMMITE. THE KILLING OF BENHADAD BY HAZAEL; AND THE WICKED REIGNS OF JEHORAM AND AHAZIAH IN JUDAH. 2 KINGS 8:1 Elisha is still the _protagonistes_ of the historical drama. The writer brings together in the present section two more occasions of a public character in which he was c

AND HE WENT WITH JORAM THE SON OF AHAB,.... His mother's brother, and so his uncle: TO THE WAR AGAINST HAZAEL KING OF SYRIA IN RAMOTHGILEAD; which he went to recover out of the hands of the king of Syria, as his father Ahab had attempted in his time; in which he was assisted by Jehoshaphat, as now Joram was by a grandson of his: AND THE SYRIANS WOUNDED JORAM; as they did his father Ahab at the same place, though his wound was not mortal, as his father's was....

ELISHA AND THE SHUNAMMITE. HAZAEL, KING OF SYRIA. This chapter is somewhat varied as to composition. It opens with a short story about Elisha (2 Kings 8:1), of which we may presuppose (_a_) that it is earlier than 5, because Gehazi (2 Kings 8:4) is not a leper; (b) that the king of Israel is an admirer of the prophet, By Elisha's advice the Shunammite lady, whose husband is apparently dead, leaves her home to avoid a famine (_cf_. Ruth 1:1), and her lands were restored when the king ascertained who she was. 2 Kings 8:6 is a second narrative of the prophet. Jehoram must have been king of Israel at the time, as Hazael was contemporary with Jehu. Th

HE WENT WITH JORAM. His uncle. RAMOTH-GILEAD. It was then in the hands of Israel, but threatened by Syria. Compare 2 Kings 9:14....

_to the war against Hazael_ Hazael was already beginning to fulfil the forecast of Elisha. Ramoth-gilead belonged to Israel (1 Kings 22:3) but now, as in Ahab's reign, it was being seized by the Syrians. Joram, Ahab's son, had ill-fortune like that of his father in the Syrian war, though as is evident from the next chapter he kept possession of Ramoth and left his officers there....

B. THE REIGN OF AHAZIAH OF JUDAH 8:25-29 TRANSLATION (25) In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign. (26) Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem; and the name of his mother was Athaliah the daughter of Omri the king of Israel. (27) And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the eyes of the LORD like the house of Ahab, for he was related by marriage to the house of Ahab. (28) And he went with Joram the son of Ahab to war with Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth-gilead; and the Arameans smote Joram. (29) And Joram the king returned to convalesce in Jezreel from the wounds which the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramah when he fought against Hazael king of Aram; and Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezre...

ELISHA AND THE SHUNAMMITE. ELISHA AND HAZAEL. REIGNS OF JEHORAM AND AHAZIAH OF JUDAH 1. Then spake Elisha] The occasion is not indicated, all the stories related of Elisha in this and the three preceding Chapter s being disconnected. A FAMINE] Perhaps the same as that referred to in 2 Kings 4:38....