Pam Padgett - teacher
Last night I was reading in 1Kings 22 and saw that when
Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, died his son Jehoram became king of Judah ...
1 Kings 22:50 And Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was
buried with his fathers in the city of David his father: and Jehoram his
son reigned in his stead.
I continued reading in 2Kings 1 in which we're told how Ahaziah,
king of Israel, died just as God said would happen by Elijah.
Then I read who reigned after him and had to stop and consider what was being said here ...
2 Kings 1:17 So he died according to the word of the Lord which
Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second
year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he
had no son.
There were two kings named Jehoram ... one was the son of Jehoshaphat
and was king of Judah, while the other was king of Israel (we see in 2Kings 3 that Jehoram, king of Israel, was the son of Ahab)
Many of the names in the Old Testament are not names we commonly hear and it is sometimes hard to keep track of each person, especially when we see the same name as in 2Kings 1:17.
It helps to keep in mind that people in the Old Testament sometimes had
the same name, just as happens today. For example, we may know several people named "John" today.
Often in the Old Testament we are told who the father of the person is, which can help us distinguish one from the other.
An example is Caleb. Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, was one of the
men Moses sent to search the land of Canaan and he brought back a good
report of the land.
Numbers 13:1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them. 3 And Moses by the commandment of the Lord sent them
from the wilderness of Paran: all those men were heads of the children
of Israel. 4 And these were their names:of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua
the son of Zaccur. 5 Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori. 6
Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. ...
In 1 Chronicles we read of another man named Caleb, the son of Hezron ...
1 Chronicles 2:18 And Caleb the son of Hezron begat children of Azubah his wife, and of Jerioth: her sons are these; Jesher, and Shobab, and Ardon.