ATHALI 9.H (Heb.
yaw', afflicted by Jehovah, or Jab is strong).
1. A daughter of Ahab, king of Israel, doubt less by his idolatrous wife Jezebel. She is also called the daughter of Omri (2 Chron. xxii:2), who was the father of Ahab; but by a comparison of texts it would appear that she is so called only as being his granddaughter.
(1) Marriage. Athaliah became the wife of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat. king of Judah. This marriage may fairly be considered the act of the parents, and it is one of the few stains upon the character of the good Jehoshaphat that he was so ready, if not anxious, to connect himself with the idolatrous house of Ahab. Had he not mar ried the heir of his crown to Athaliah, many evils and much bloodshed might nave been spared to the royal family and to the kingdom.
When Jehoram came to the crown he, as might be expected, 'walked in the ways of the house of Ahab,' which the &acred writer obviously at tributes to this marriage, by adding, 'for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife' (2 Chron. xxi :6).
This king died B. C. 885, and was succeeded by his youngest son, Ahaziah, who reigned but one year, and whose death arose from his being, by blood and by circumstances. involved in the doom of Ahalis house. (See A ItAztvit.) Before this Athaliah had acquired much influence in public affairs, and had used that influence for evil, and when the tiding; of her son's untimely death reached Jerusalem, she resolved to seat herself upon the throne of David, at whatever cost.
(2) Causes Murder. To this end she caused
all the male branches of the royal faintly to he massacred (2 Kings xi:I), and by thus shedding the blood of her own grandchildren, she tinde signed!y became the instrument of giving comple tion to the doom on her father's house, which Jehu had partially accomplished ( B. C. g114). One infant on of Alianah, however, was saved by his aunt Jehosheba, wife of the high-priest Jchoiada, and was concealed within the nails of the temple, and there brought up so that his existence was unsuspected by Athahah.
(3) Death. But in the seventh year (B. C. 878) of her bloodstained and evil reign the sounds of unwonted cnmraaiOn and exulting shouts within the temple courts drew her thither, where she beheld the young Joash standing as a crowned king by the pillar of inauguration, and acknowl edged as sovereign by the acclamations of the assembled multitude. Her cries of 'Treason !' faded to excite any movement in her favor, and Jehoiada, the high-priest, who had organized this bold and successful attempt, without allowing time for pause, ordered the Leviocal guards to remove her from the sacred precincts to instant death (2 Kings xi; 2 Chron. xxi :6; xxn :10-12; xxiii).
2. A Benjamite, son of Jeroham, who dwelt at Jerusalem (t. Chiron. viii.461, 11. C. about 536.
3. One of the Bene-Elam, whose son Jeshaiah returned with Ezra in the second caravan from Babylon (Ezra viii:7), B.C. before 459.