22:2 Forty and two. The parallel passage (II Kings 8:26) says that Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king. Since his father Jehoram was only forty years old at his death (II Chronicles 21:5), it is probable that the forty-two years given in this verse represents a copyist error in later transmission. Several writers have proposed ad hoc solutions to this discrepancy (e.g., the 42 years refers to his mother’s age at Ahaziah’s birth), but these all are less reasonable ways of dealing with Scripture than to allow a very understandable scribal error in copying.

22:2 Ahaziah. Ahaziah is evidently the same as Jehoahaz (II Chronicles 21:17), all of whose older brothers had been slain by the invading Philistines and Arabians, before their father Jehoram died “of sore diseases” (II Chronicles 21:19).

22:2 daughter of Omri. Athaliah was actually the immediate daughter of Ahab (II Chronicles 21:6), who was the son of Omri.