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How old would Ahaz have been when his son, Hezekiah was born? A cursory look at 2 Kings 16:1 and 18:1 suggest he may have only been eleven. (Ahaz was 20 when he became king and he reigned 16 years. So he died aged 36. Hezekiah was 25 when he became king. 36 - 25 = 11)
Would a more likely possibility have been that they were brothers - both of them sons of Jotham?
It is said in 2 Kings 16:20 this
20 Ahaz rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king.
(Emphasis Mine)
Things were much different at that time, so it is very probable that yes, Ahaz had a son at the age of just 11.
This is a question with much debate and theories. To resolve the answer, we must first look at events that have more trustful dates. There are 3 events that provide a more consensus date;
Let's first start with Isaiah 7:14, the sign of Messiah "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel"
This sign if only applied to Jesus 730 years later, has no implication to Ahaz at that time. Isaiah used the word "almah", which translated to "virgin", instead of the formal Hebrew word "bethulah", which has a specific reason. "almah" refers to a woman of childbearing age, but has not been married. Moreover, it has a deeper meaning of "hidden, concealed" that supposedly hasn't been met by the boys. So Isaiah prophecies to Ahaz, "I know you have a secret lover, and now she is pregnant, and she will give birth to a boy, not a girl, and God will be with him." It might have shocked Ahaz that Isaiah knew, and more likely he knew she was pregnant before Ahaz realized, and he knew it was a boy, the next King Hezekiah.
Now we look at 2 Kings 18:13 "In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them." Count backward from 701BC, Hezekiah became King in 715BC, not in compliance to 728BC (3rd year of Hoshea in 2 Kings 18:1); and by the time he was 20, not in compliance to 25 (in 2 Kings 18:2).
If the above is valid, Ahaz became King in 731BC at 20, so Isaiah met him in 735BC while he was 16. This seems to fulfill he had a young secret lover. 2 Kings 15:32 told the father of Ahaz, Jotham reigned in Jerusalem for 16 years, 2 Kings 15:30 told in the 20th year of Jotham, Hoshea assassinated Pekah and took the Israel Kingship, that we know it was 730BC.
As a devote Christian, I totally understand the stake in taking this hypothesis. However, even if I accepted the original verses completely, the verses themselves did not add up to a logical sense.
There is an intense struggle should we take every single word in the Bible infallible as it had been warned in Revelation 22:18-19, or there is a greater will of God that through a time of frequent hand coping and translations, who is capable to devote his life to know him.
May God give us wisdom in reading his book.
By the way, 2 Kings 18:7 says "And the Lord was with him (Hezekiah)...."
Recommend reference from Journal Article "The Date of Hezekiah's Birth" by John McHugh posted in JSTOR.
I would most likely attribute the reigning dates to co-regency rather than early maturity or fatherhood.
According to Wikipedia, the youngest a boy ever impregnated a woman was age 9, but extremely rare and questionable (Source). At age 11, there are several instances.
But the ancients were inconsistent in how they numbered. Sometimes they began with zero, sometimes one. It could be that Ahaz was 20 but almost 21 when he began to reign (as we count age) and Hezekiah could have been just turning 24 (even turning 23 if they began counting his age with "1" instead of zero). That would mean Ahaz became a father at age 13, which is very possible. Or it could be a scribal error. A co-regency would be possible only if Ahaz was incapacitated for a while or if Hezekiah waited for Ahaz's death before reforming the nation. It is unlikely that Hezekiah could bring about the reforms he did with Ahaz sharing the throne.
I may not be reading this correctly, but it looks like Jotham's (King Ahaz's Dad) reign is off by 4 years.
According to Wikipedia:
Rodger Young offers a possible explanation of why four extra years are assigned to Jotham in 2 Kings 15:30 and why Ahaz's 16-year reign (2 Kings 16:2) is measured from the time of Jotham's death in 732/731, instead of when Jotham was deposed in 736/735. Taking into account the factionalism of the time, Young writes:
[A]ny record such as 2 Kings 16:2 that recognized these last four years for Jotham must have come from the annals of the anti-Assyrian and anti-Ahaz court that prevailed after the death of Ahaz. Ahaz is given sixteen years in these annals, measuring from the start of his sole reign, instead of the twenty or twenty-one years that he would be credited with if the counting started from 736t [i.e. 736/735 BC], when he deposed Jotham.[14]
So if Ahaz or actually his court went on to reign for 21 years (years not recognized by the Jews because they count differently) then maybe Ahaz was really older than 36. Maybe he was actually 40, if that is the case then Ahaz could have been 15 when Hezekiah was born. Most likely out of wedlock.
Or is it possible that Hezekiah didn't assume the throne immediately after his dad died? It is possible that there was a delay that the Bible just doesn't address. After all, the Assyrians were heavily involved because of King Ahaz's unfaithfulness to God. Judah was basically subjugated by Assyria.
Remember when King Ahaziah was killed, one of his sons should have become King of Judah. Instead, Ahaziah’s mother decided that she should be queen. She tried to kill all of her own children and grandchildren so that they would not take the throne away from her. She almost succeeded in killing them all. Maybe something like this happened with Hezekiah, but the bible didn't share this detail. Not everything that happened is recorded. Just a thought. But it is possible that a spoiled prince had pre-marital sex at a very young age. It has been documented that an 11-year-old male is capable of procreating.
Ahaz was 20 years old when his son Hezekiah was born! Five years later Father Ahaz is 25 years old. The 25th birth date of Ahaz in Judah is the same as Hoshea of Israel's 03rd year reign. A father(Ahaz) son (Hezekiah) relationship would place son Hezekiah at the age of 05 in this year. Otherwise, the surface reading of 2Ki 18:1-3 would literally make Ahaz and Hezekiah twin brothers instead of Father Son.
It looks more likely that Hezekiah was 15 years when he began to reign rather than 25. Ahaz ascended the throne at 20 years, and may have given birth to Hezekiah at 21. In that sense, Hezekiah would be 15 when his father Ahaz was 36 and died. I hasten to say however, that this deduction has no biblical accuracy. it is a mere conjecturing that makes human sense.
I would subscribe to the possibility of a coregency, although the text doesn't point to a need for that. There's also one more possibility, that is often found; a scribal error.
