Biblical Difficulty-2 Kings 8:16-29

Here is my continuing series looking at Biblical difficulties and attempting to solve them (so you don’t have to!)

Problem we hit here:

  1. In the above text, Jehoram is king is Judah, Joram is king in Israel. YET, vs. 24 says “Joram” and describes this Joram thusly
    1. He is in “the Books of Annals of the Kings of Judah” (normally Israel)
    2. He “slept with his ancestors”
    3. He is “buried with them in the city of David”
    4. His son is named Ahaziah

Implications:

  1. The names were goofed in either the copying or the originals

So what do we do? Well in trying to maintain the validity, accuracy, and consistency of Scripture, we attempt an explanation.

Text: 2 Kings 8:16-29 and its parallel account, 2 Chron. 21:1-20 NLT

  1. The footnote in 2 Kings says that the Hebrew version reads “Joram”, a variant on the name “Jehoram” also in 8:23,  24
  2. The fact that the names Jehoram and Joram are so similar in spelling, this is not that unusual
  3. Comparing this to its parallel Chronicle account, it mentions “Jehoram” when discussing the Edomite revolt
  4. Seeing as every section in Kings that describes each king primarily focuses on that particular king, we are left  to conclude that Jehoram and the Joram specifically mentioned in vs. 23, 24 must be one and the same king mentioned in 2 Kings 8:20-22 and different from King Joram of Israel who ruled around the same time.