ATHALIAH (rr9rw rr9rly, whom 7ehovah remembered; Sept. ro0oXia), daughter of Ahab, king of Israel, doubtless 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 grand-daughter. 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 married the heir of his crown to Athaliah, many evils and much blood. shed might have 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 sacred writer obviously attributes 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 Ahab's house. [AxAmmi.] Before this Athaliah had acquired much influence in public affairs, and had used that influence for evil ; and when the tidings of her son's untimely death reached Jerusalem, she resolved to seat her self upon the throne of David, at whatever cost.
To this end she caused all the male branches of the royal family to be massacred (2 Kings xi. ) ; and by thus shedding the blood of her own grand children, she undesignedly became the instrument of giving completion to the doom on her father's house, which Jehu had partially accomplished, B.C. 884. One infant son of Ahaziah, however, was saved by his aunt Jehosheba, wife of the high_ priest Jehoiada, and was concealed, within the walls of the temple, and there brought up so secretly that his existence was unsuspected by Athaliah. But in the seventh year (u.c. 87S) of her blood-stained and evil reign, the sounds of unwonted commotion 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 acknow ledged as sovereign by the acclamations of the assembled multitude. Her cries of 'Treason !' failed to excite any movement in her favour, and Jehoiada, the high-priest, who had organized this bold and successful attempt, without allowing time for pause, ordered the Levitical guards to remove her from the sacred precincts to instant death (2 Kings xi. ; 2 Chron. xxi. 6; xxii. to-1.2; xxiii.)—J. K.