Tool Alpha
The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Twenty-two or forty-two?
2 Kings 8:26 says Ahaziah was twenty-two when he became king. The Hebrew of 2 Chronicles 22:2 says forty-two. Most modern versions print twenty-two in both places.
2 Kings 8:26, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: is one of these ages wrong, and whose mistake is it? The newspaper says the mayor is 42, and the city website says 22. Did someone lie, or did someone hit the wrong key?
2 Kings 8:26 says Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign. 2 Chronicles 22:2, in the King James and the Hebrew, says forty-two. One king, two ages.
The ESV prints twenty-two at 2 Chronicles 22:2 and footnotes: see 2 Kings 8:26; Hebrew forty-two; Septuagint twenty. The CSB also prints twenty-two, and its textual note says some Septuagint manuscripts and the Syriac read it, while the Masoretic Text reads 42. MacArthur calls forty-two a copyist's error easily made because a small stroke distinguishes the two Hebrew letters involved. The Skeptic's Annotated Bible itself quotes the New Oxford Annotated Bible: forty-two is an error for twenty-two. On how Hebrew letters could stand for numbers, see the Baasha entry.
Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible asks "How old was Ahaziah when he began to reign?" and sets 22 at 2 Kings 8:26 against 42 at 2 Chronicles 22:2. At full strength: the Hebrew text that believers read as Scripture contains a plain numerical error, and calling it a copying error concedes the point for the text as it exists.
The sources agree on the diagnosis: the original said twenty-two and a copyist produced forty-two. MacArthur says the reading of 2 Kings 8:26 should be followed.
The copying explanation is shared here by skeptical and conservative sources alike. What it leaves is the claim's real target for many readers: whether an error in transmission tells against a doctrine of inspiration tied to the original manuscripts. That is a question about the doctrine, not about this verse. The ancient witnesses do not line up on one figure either: the ESV gives the Septuagint as twenty, the CSB cites some Septuagint manuscripts for twenty-two.
Not a claim that the Chronicler disagreed with Kings. The diagnosis is that the two books once agreed.
- ESV Study Bible, footnote on 2 Chronicles 22:2
- CSB Study Bible, textual note on 2 Chronicles 22:2
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on 2 Chronicles 22:2
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, How old was Ahaziah when he began to reign?, https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/ahaziah_age.html, quoting The New Oxford Annotated Bible on 2 Chronicles 22:2
- King James Version, 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2
