2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2
Ahaziah's age: 22, 42 or 20?
2 Kings 8:26 says Ahaziah was 22 when he became king. The Hebrew of 2 Chronicles 22:2 says 42, which would make him two years older than his father (2 Chronicles 21:20). The library's Greek of Chronicles has 20.
Read 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 in every edition
Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording
The family tree
Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.
✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Every witness, in order
Unknown (debated)
Original Kings
No original survives.
Chronicles composed c. 4th century BC
2 Chronicles 22:2 (parallel account, Masoretic Text)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
בֶּן־אַרְבָּעִים וּשְׁתַּיִם שָׁנָה אֲחַזְיָהוּ בְמָלְכוֹ
forty-two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign
Impossible with 21:20 (Jehoram died at 40).
Translated c. 2nd century BC
Septuagint, 2 Chronicles 22:2 (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
Il avait alors vingt ans
He was then twenty years old
Some Greek and Syriac witnesses are reported to read 22. One Greek text (Vaticanus type, kaige revision) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.
Translated c. 2nd century BC; kaige revision 1st c. BC–1st c. AD
Septuagint, 4 Kingdoms (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
Il avait vingt-deux ans
2 Kings 8:26. One Greek text (Vaticanus type, kaige revision) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
Viginti duorum annorum erat Ochozias
2 Kings 8:26.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
בֶּן־עֶשְׂרִים וּשְׁתַּיִם שָׁנָה אֲחַזְיָהוּ
twenty-two years old was Ahaziah
2 Kings 8:26.
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah (2 Kings); Forty and two years old was Ahaziah (2 Chronicles)
The KJV translates both as written.
What changed, and why
Most scholars think 42 in Chronicles is a copying error (Hebrew numerals or number-words confused). Proposed harmonizations (counting from Omri's dynasty) exist. The site shows each text as written.
What the evidence shows
- The Hebrew of Chronicles reads 42; Kings reads 22.
- 42 is a scribal error.
Sources
- E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (2012)
Related lessons
- The Shunammite, Hazael and Judah's Kings →The Shunammite woman returns after a seven-year famine and asks the king for her house and land; as Gehazi is telling the king about her son, she arrives, and her property is restored. In Damascus, the sick Ben-hadad sends Hazael to ask Elisha whether he will recover. Elisha weeps, foreseeing what Hazael will do to Israel. Hazael smothers Ben-hadad and becomes king. In Judah, Jehoram (married to Ahab's daughter) and then Ahaziah reign; Edom revolts.
- How 2 Kings Came to Us →2 Kings is the second half of the Hebrew book of Kings. It ends with an event of about 561 BC, so its final form is no earlier than that. It names lost royal chronicles as sources, shares long passages with Isaiah and Jeremiah, and is retold in Chronicles. Qumran preserves only small papyrus fragments; the main Greek manuscripts carry a revision toward the Hebrew (kaige) throughout 2 Kings.