2 Kings 11:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And destroyed all the seed royal All of the royal family that had not been cut off by Jehu and others, except one, mentioned 2 Kings 11:2. To this wickedness she was impelled by many motives: 1st, By rage to see Ahab's family destroyed, which made her resolve that the family of David should share the same fate. 2d, By ambition and desire of rule, to make way for which many persons have destroyed their nearest relations. 3d, By her zeal for idolatry and the worship of Baal, which she intended to establish, and to which she knew the house of David were implacable enemies. 4th, By a regard to her own defence, that, by getting into the throne, which she could not do without destroying the royal family, she might secure herself from Jehu's fury, who, she understood, was resolved utterly to destroy all the branches of Ahab's house, of which she was one. Possibly those whom she slew were Jehoram's children by another wife. This was the fruit of Jehoshaphat's marrying his son to a daughter of that idolatrous house of Ahab: and this dreadful judgment God permitted to come upon him and his, to show how much he abhors all such affinities. “The consideration of the fate,” says Dr. Dodd, “which attended these royal families, is sufficient to make one thankful to God for having been born of meaner parentage. The whole offspring of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab, was cut off for their idolatry; and the kings of Judah, having contracted an affinity with the house of Ahab, and being by them seduced into the same crime, were so destroyed, by three successive massacres, that there was but one left: for first Jehoram slew all his brethren, then Jehu all his brother's children, and now Athaliah destroys all the rest that her executioners can meet with.”