Upon the accession of Ahaziah, the next king, the influence of Athaliah is soon recognised.  He was the youngest and the only son not carried into captivity.  It is said that “his mother’s name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri.  He also walked in the way of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly,”—­as wife and mother, alike unholy.  “Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab, for they were his counsellors, after the death of his father, to his destruction.”

The second son of Ahab had succeeded to the kingdom of Israel, and Jezebel was surrounded by all the splendours of royalty.  Peace and prosperity still attended her family.  The death of Naboth and his sons, and the denunciations of the prophet, were probably forgotten, or remembered only to be despised.  The royal houses, so closely allied, maintained a familiar intercourse, and the King of Judah was on a visit of sympathy to the King of Israel, who was sick and wounded, when the rebellion of Jehu broke out.  It came upon the house of Ahab like a hurricane:  in the midst of security and of apparently profound peace, the storm swept over and destroyed them.

While the kings were in the palace of Israel, the rapid approach of a messenger awoke the curiosity rather than the apprehension of the King of Israel.  With the rashness of a doomed man, he rushed upon his own destruction.  As the messengers, whom he had sent to meet the approaching foes, returned not, the two kings hastened to meet the advancing troop.  And they met Jehu by the vineyard of Naboth, and there the King of Israel was slain, while the King of Judah fled, mortally wounded, to Megiddo, where he died.  All that belonged to the house of Ahab in Israel perished in this hour of vengeance and righteous retribution.  Jehu murdered those of the descendants of Jehoram who fell in his way; and Athaliah hastened to complete the fulfilment of the prophetic doom of her house by herself instigating the murder of all who remained of the royal family of Judah, although they were her own descendants!  In her ruthless ambition she destroyed her grandchildren, that she might herself ascend the throne of Judah.  She seems to have exulted in the blood and carnage which opened her way to royal power.  Unmoved by the fate of her mother, with her sons and her brothers scarce cold in their untimely graves, by her cruel treachery she consummated the destruction of her family; and, stained with blood and polluted by crimes, she seated herself upon the throne of David, and usurped the inheritance of her children!

For eight years Athaliah held this usurped position.  No compunctious visitings of conscience seem to have haunted her.  She felt neither pity nor remorse.  She may have well sustained her ill-gotten power while she resided amidst the pomp and pageantry of royalty.  Her resolute despotism seems to have held her subjects in awe, and to have quelled them all into subjection.  She had herself wrought the fulfilment of the doom of her race.  As the last of Ahab’s children, the sword of divine vengeance was suspended over her head, and in the time appointed it fell.  She was to die the death of her house—­a death of blood.