(3) He also.--The pronoun is emphatic: he too, like his father. Kings: "And he walked."

Walked in the ways of the house of Ahab.--2Chronicles 21:6; 2Chronicles 21:13; Micah 6:16.

For his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly.--Not in Kings; an explanatory remark added by the chronicler. (Comp. 2Chronicles 20:35; 2Chronicles 21:6.) Her influence would be used in support of the Baal worship, which was the symbol of alliance with the northern kingdom.

Verse 3. - The mother and the house of Ahab had become a proverb and a by-word for their evil. In this and the following two verses stress is laid on the evil counsel and the sources of it that prejudiced Ahaziah to his ruin. Although the parallel wants these direct statements, perhaps it scarcely says less, when it says (ver. 27), "For he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab."

22:1-12 The reign of Ahaziah, Athaliah destroys the royal family. - The counsel of the ungodly ruins many young persons when they are setting out in the world. Ahaziah gave himself up to be led by evil men. Those who advise us to do wickedly, counsel us to our destruction; while they pretend to be friends, they are our worst enemies. See and dread the mischief of bad company. If not the infection, yet let the destruction be feared, Re 18:4. We have here, a wicked woman endeavouring to destroy the house of David, and a good woman preserving it. No word of God shall fall to the ground. The whole truth of the prophecies that the Messiah was to come from David, and thereby the salvation of the world, appeared to be now hung upon the brittle thread of the life of a single infant, to destroy whom was the interest of the reigning power. But God had purposed, and vain were the efforts of earth and hell.He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab,.... As his father Jehoram had, 2 Chronicles 21:6.

for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly; to commit idolatry, who was of that idolatrous house.