JEHORAM Sylvester Hassell The two prosperous reigns of Asa and Jehoshaphat were soon shorn of their excellency by the wicked reign of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat. He married the daughter of Ahab, and engaged in the wickedness and idolatries of that abominable house. He murdered in cold blood his brothers who were better than he, restored the idolatrous high places on the mountains of Judah, and endeavored to compel all the people to forsake the worship of the true God and go with him in all his impurities of idolatrous worship.
In the full tide of his apostasy he received a letter, written to him by the prophet Elijah, who died in the reign of his father, but who saw what the future course of this young prince would be when he came to the throne, and therefore wrote this letter, to be handed to him in proper time. He had fulfilled the prophecy to the letter.
He had not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat, his father, nor in the ways of Asa, king of Judah: but had walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab; and had slain his brethren of his father’s house which were better than he.
All this he had done! And what was to follow? Heavy and miserable judgments, unless he should repent, and Judah with him. “Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast so done, behold with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods; and thou shalt have great sickness, by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day.”
This letter of Elijah was despised both by king and people. The judgments followed rapidly. The Edomites revolted from under his hand. The Philistines and Arabians invaded his territories, entered Jerusalem, sacked his palace, carried away his wives and all his sons save one. “And after all this the Lord smote him in his bowels, with an incurable disease; and after the end of two years his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases, without being desired, after a reign of eight years; his people made no burning for him, and gave him no burial in the sepulchres of the kings” (II Kings 8: II Chron 21).
What a remarkable letter was this! Was such a one ever written or received before that day? God is a being of infinite wisdom and foreknowledge, and he inspired His prophet to write a letter to this man before he came to the throne, telling him what he should do to others, what others would do to him, and with what disease he should die. He died, leaving a weak and wicked nation behind him. (Hassell’s History ppg 126, 127)