View source for Ahaziah of Israel

Ahaziah (Hebrew: אֲחַזְיָה, romanized: ʾĂḥazyā, "Yahweh has grasped"; Greek: Ὀχοζίας, Ochozias in the Septuagint and the Douay–Rheims Bible, from Second Temple Hebrew ʾAḫazyā) was the eighth king of the northern Kingdom of Israel and the son of Ahab and Jezebel. Like his father, he reigned from Samaria. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 850–849 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele offers the dates 853–852 BC.

The author of the Books of Kings criticized him for following the ways of his father Ahab and his mother Jezebel, and for making Israel sin "in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat". Biblical commentator Albert Barnes notes that the phrase "in the way of his mother" does not occur anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible, and demonstrates the strong feeling of the writer of the Books of Kings as to the influence of Jezebel.