2. Chronik 22:10

The six years' tyranny of Athaliah. - In regard to her, all that is stated is, that after Ahaziah's death she ascended the throne, and caused all the royal seed of the house of Judah, i.e., all the male members of the royal house, to be murdered. From this slaughter only Joash the son of Ahaziah, an infant a year old, was rescued, together with his nurse, by the princess Jehoshabeath, who was married to the high priest Jehoiada. He was hidden for six years, and during that time Athaliah reigned. The same narrative, for the most part in the same words, is found in Kg2 11:1-3, and has been already commented upon there.

We have here what we had before, Kg2 11:1, etc. 1. A wicked woman endeavouring to destroy the house of David, that she might set up a throne for herself upon the ruins of it. Athaliah barbarously cut off all the seed-royal (Ch2 22:10), perhaps intending to transmit the crown of Judah after herself to some of her own relations, that though her family was cut off in Israel by Jehu it might be planted in Judah. 2. A good woman effectually preserving it from being wholly extirpated. One of the late king's sons, a child of a year old, was rescued from among the dead, and saved alive by the care of Jehoiada's wife (Ch2 22:11, Ch2 22:12), that a lamp might be ordained for God's anointed; for no word of God shall fall to the ground.

22:10-12 Athaliah was never regarded as a legitimate monarch; she was given no royal formula of age or length of reign as were other rulers. Her destruction of the rest of Judah’s royal family concentrated on potential male successors; those who were ineligible to reign, such as Ahaziah’s sister, survived the slaughter. Jehosheba was Ahaziah’s half sister, the daughter of King Jehoram by a wife other than Athaliah. The six years of Athaliah’s reign were from 841 to 835 BC.