Person
Jehoahaz of Israel יהואחז מלך ישראל
king of Israel for seventeen years; his army reduced to fifty horsemen
Jehoahaz son of Jehu reigned seventeen years. In his days Hazael king of Aram and his son Ben-Hadad pressed Israel without pause, and Kings gives a figure that shows how far it went: there remained to the king «fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten thousand foot, for the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them like dust at threshing» (2 Kings 13:7).
In his distress he cried to God, and a «deliverer» was given, and Israel came out from under the hand of Aram. Who this was the text does not say; commentators refer the word either to his son Jehoash or to Assyrian pressure that drew Aram away.
On the timeline
Sources
Tanakh
- Melachim II (2 Kings) 13:1–9 — the seventeen years, the crushing by Aram, and the «deliverer»
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.