Ahaz

Ahaz (meaning possessor or one who grasps) is the name of two men in the Old Testament. The more significant was the son and successor of Jotham and the twelfth king of Judah, reigning c. 735–715 B.C. His reign was marked by profound religious apostasy: he sacrificed his son in the fire according to the abominations of the nations (2 Kings 16:3), closed the temple, and introduced Assyrian altar forms into Jerusalem's worship. When threatened by the Syro-Ephraimite coalition of Rezin and Pekah, Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria for help — stripping the temple treasury as payment — rather than trusting the word of God delivered through Isaiah.

It was to Ahaz that Isaiah addressed the Immanuel prophecy (Isaiah 7:14): Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Ahaz refused to ask for a sign of God's faithfulness and thus stands in the narrative as the faithless king against whom the promise of the divine sign is given. The New Testament cites the Immanuel text in Matthew 1:23 as fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. A lesser Ahaz was a descendant of Jonathan in the genealogy of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:35–36).