Ahaz in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

a'-haz ('achaz, "he has grasped," 2 Ki 16; 2 Ch 28; Isa 7:10 ff; Achaz). 1. Name: The name is the same as Jehoahaz; hence appears on Tiglath- pileser's Assyrian inscription of 732 BC as Ia-u-ha-zi. The sacred historians may have dropped the first part of the name in consequence of the character of the king. 2. The Accession: Ahaz was the son of Jotham, king of Judah. He succeeded to the throne at the age of 20 years (according to another reading 25). The chronology of his reign is difficult, as his son Hezekiah is stated to have been 25 years of age when he began to reign 16 years after (2 Ki 18:2). If the accession of Ahaz be placed as early as 743 BC, his grandfather Uzziah, long unable to perform the functions of his office on account of his leprosy (2 Ch 26:21), must still have been alive. (Others date Ahaz later, when Uzziah, for whom Jotham had acted as regent, was already dead.) 3. Early Idolatries: Although so young, Ahaz seems at once to have struck out an independent course wholly opposed to the religious traditions of his nation. His first steps in this direction were the causing to be made and circulated of molten images of the Baalim, and the revival in the valley of Hinnom, south of the city, of the abominations of the worship of Moloch (2 Ch 28:2,3). He is declared to have made his own son "pass through the fire" (2 Ki 16:3); the chronicler puts it even more strongly: he "burnt his children in the fire" (2 Ch 28:3). Other acts of idolatry were to follow...