JEHORAM, the son and successor of Jehoshaphat King of Judah. He was born in the year of the World 3080. His father made him partner with him in the Kingdom, in the year 3112. He began to reign alone after the death of Jehoshaphat, which happened in 3116, and died, according to Usher, in 3119; that is to say, before Jesus Christ 881, before the Vulgar Æra 885. He married Athaliah, Omri’s daughter, who engaged him in Idolatry, and several other sins, and was the cause of all the misfortunes, which attended his reign. Jehoram being well settled in the kingdom, began his reign with the murder of all his brothers, whom Jehoshaphat had removed from all publick business, and placed in the fortified Cities of Judah, with good pensions in gold and silver. God, as a punishment of Jehoram’s impiety, permitted the In the year of the World 3115, before J. C. 885, before the Vulgar Æra 889. See 2 Kin. viii. 20,21. and 2 Chr. xxi. 8,9. In the year of the World 3116, before J. C. 884, before the Vulgar Æra 888.Edomites, who, ever since the reign of David, had been all along subject to the Kings of Judah, to revolt. Jehoram a marched against them, and defeated their Cavalry; but either through want of courage in his troops, or his own want of conduct, he did not make a good use of his victory. So much is certain, that the Edomites for that time continued free from the Hebrew yoke.
About the same time, Libnah a City of Judah, rebell’d likewise, and refused any longer to acknowledge Jehoram for its sovereign. Letters were brought him from the Prophet Elijah b, who had been translated out of the world about eight years before; whether the Prophet wrote these letters from the place where he is at present, waiting for the consummation of ages, or whether he wrote them before his translation, with the spirit of foresight, and a prospect of all the evils which Jehoram would be the cause of: however this may be, these Letters reproached him with his impiety and the murder of his brothers, and threatned to inflict some great misfortune upon him, his wives, his children, and his people, and to bring a dysentery upon him, which should make him evacuate his bowels with excessive pain. These threats were soon followed with their effect. The Philistins and Arabians, who lie to the south of Palestine, made an inroad upon the territories of Judah, ravaged them, plundered the King’s palace, carried away his wives and his children, so that he had none remaining with him except Jehoahaz the youngest. Besides all this, God afflicted him with a cruel Dysentery, which tormented him for two years, and brought him to the grave. The people refused to pay him the same honours which they had paid his predecessors, by burning a great quantity of spices over their bodies. He was buried in Jerusalem, but not in the Royal Sepulchre. He was succeeded by Ahaziah, otherwise Jehoahaz.