The Queen of Judah

THE ELDEST SON of good King Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, was more like his mother-in-law, Jezebel, than his father. After Jehoshaphat’s death, Jehoram killed his brothers and turned his kingdom toward the gods of the Amorites (i.e., Phoenicians) worshiped by Jezebel. As a result, Jezebel was afflicted with a terrible and horribly painful disease that killed him seven years later. Jehoram’s son, Ahaziah, reigned only one year when he was killed by Jehu while visiting his uncle, Ahab’s son Joram. Upon his death, Jehoram’s wife, Ahab’s daughter Athaliah seized the throne, killed the royal family of Judah—the House of David—and reigned as queen for seven years. She appears to have been cut from the same cloth as her mother, Jezebel.  But after seven years, the high priest Jehoiada, who’d been secretly raising Ahaziah’s youngest son, Joash, declared the boy king, had Athaliah put to death, and tore down the temple of Baal in Jerusalem. At the end of the day, all of the political machinations involving the land of Israel down to the present day are reflections of the war in the unseen realm for control of God’s mount of assembly—Zion.