Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring. But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were slain, even him and his nurse, and put them in the bedroom; and they hid him from Athaliah, so that he was not slain. He was with her hidden in Yahweh’s house six years while Athaliah reigned over the land. In the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the captains over hundreds of the Carites and of the guard, and brought them to him into Yahweh’s house; and he made a covenant with them, and made a covenant with them in Yahweh’s house, and showed them the king’s son. He commanded them, saying, “This is what you must do: a third of you, who come in on the Sabbath, shall be keepers of the watch of the king’s house; a third of you shall be at the gate Sur; and a third of you at the gate behind the guard. So you shall keep the watch of the house, and be a barrier. The two companies of you, even all who go out on the Sabbath, shall keep the watch of Yahweh’s house around the king. You shall surround the king, every man with his weapons in his hand; and he who comes within the ranks, let him be slain. Be with the king when he goes out, and when he comes in.”
The captains over hundreds did according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded; and they each took his men, those who were to come in on the Sabbath, with those who were to go out on the Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest. The priest delivered to the captains over hundreds the spears and shields that had been king David’s, which were in Yahweh’s house. The guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left side of the house, along by the altar and the house, around the king. Then he brought out the king’s son, and put the crown on him, and gave him the covenant; and they made him king, and anointed him; and they clapped their hands, and said, “Long live the king!”
When Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people, she came to the people into Yahweh’s house: and she looked, and behold, the king stood by the pillar, as the tradition was, with the captains and the trumpets by the king; and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew trumpets. Then Athaliah tore her clothes, and cried, “Treason! Treason!”
Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of hundreds who were set over the army, and said to them, “Bring her out between the ranks. Kill anyone who follows her with the sword.” For the priest said, “Don’t let her be slain in Yahweh’s house.” So they made way for her; and she went by the way of the horses’ entry to the king’s house, and she was slain there. Jehoiada made a covenant between Yahweh and the king and the people, that they should be Yahweh’s people; also between the king and the people. All the people of the land went to the house of Baal, and broke it down. They broke his altars and his images in pieces thoroughly, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. The priest appointed officers over Yahweh’s house. He took the captains over hundreds, and the Carites, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from Yahweh’s house, and came by the way of the gate of the guard to the king’s house. He sat on the throne of the kings. So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet. They had slain Athaliah with the sword at the king’s house.
Jehoash was seven years old when he began to reign.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20 Meaning, all the posterity of Jehoshaphat, to whom the…
Meaning, all the posterity of Jehoshaphat, to whom the kingdom appertained: thus God used the cruelty of this woman to destroy the whole family of Ahab.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–21 2Ki 11:1 And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah…
2Ki 11:1 And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.
Ver. 1. And when Athaliah.] Ahab’s daughter by Jezebel: Gotholiah, the Septuagint and Sulpitius call her; a most wicked woman, another Medea, by whom the devil sought utterly to root out that race whereof Christ was to be born. Josephus saith that out of envy - which Augustine {a} calleth vitium diabolicum, a devilish vice - she sought to destroy the house of David, as Jehu had destroyed her father Ahab’s house. Others, that she thus strengthened herself, that she might be revenged upon Jehu. Most likely, she was carried on to this tragic fact by ambition - which ever rideth without reins - and zeal for Baalism, which - to her grief - she saw was now rooted out by Jehu in the kingdom of Israel. Such another imperious whorish woman - as the Scripture speaketh {Eze 16:30} - was Semiramis, queen of Assyria; {b} Tullia, the wife of Tarquinius Superbus; {c} Irene, empress of Constantinople, and mother of Constantinus Copronymus - whose eyes she put out to make him incapable of the empire, that she might reign alone; Drahomira, queen of Bohemia; and Brumchildis, queen of France, {d} who is said to have been the death of ten princes of the blood, and was herself afterwards put to a cruel death by king Cletharius. But the likest in cruelty to Athaliah was Laodice, the wife of Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia; who, her husband being dead, seized upon the government, raged cruelly against all sorts both of the nobility and commons, whom she caused to be murdered; yea, against her own family, poisoning six of her own sons, that so she might keep the kingdom more securely: only one little one escaped her fury, whom the people at last advanced to the crown, and slew her. {e}
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Destroyed all.] Conatu scilicet, non effectu: she endeavoured it, but God remembered his promise to David, to leave him a lamp in Jerusalem, {1Ki 15:4} and to this promise Joash owed his life and kingdom.
{a} In Ps. cxxxix.
{b} Herodot.
{c} L. Flor.
{d} AEn. Sylv.
{e} Baron., A.D. 614. - Lips.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 i.e. All of the royal family left after those…
i.e. All of the royal family left after those slaughters, 2Ch 21:2,4; 22:1; 2Ki 10:13,14, except one, as the next verse limits and explains it. This she did, partly, out of rage at the extirpation of her family, resolving that David’s family should not outlive liers; partly, from ambition and desire of rule, for which many persons have destroyed their nearest relations; partly, from the zeal which she had for idolatry, and the worship of Baal, which she intended to establish, to which she knew the house of David were implacable enemies; and partly, in her own defence, that she might secure herself from Jehu’s fury, who was commanded by God, and resolved in himself, utterly to destroy all the branches of Ahab’s family, whereof she was one, 2Ki 8:18,26; for had she not done this, she suspected that either the king or people of Judah would have delivered her up to Jehu upon his demand. Possibly those whom she slew were Joram’s children by another wife; of which See Poole "2Ki 1:2". And this was the fruit of Jehoshaphat’s marrying his son to a daughter of that idolatrous and wicked house of Ahab, even the extirpation of all his posterity but one. And this dreadful judgment God permitted, and inflicted upon him and his, to show how much he abhors all such sinful and unequal affinities.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 13, 17 God had assured David of the continuance of his…
God had assured David of the continuance of his family, which is called his ordaining a lamp for his anointed; and this cannot but appear a great thing, now that we have read of the utter extirpation of so many royal families, one after another. Now here we have David's promised lamp almost extinguished and yet wonderfully preserved.
I. It was almost extinguished by the barbarous malice of Athaliah, the queen-mother, who, when she heard that her son Ahaziah was slain by Jehu, arose and destroyed all the seed-royal (Kg2 11:1), all that she knew to be akin to the crown. Her husband Jehoram had slain all his brethren the sons of Jehoshaphat, Ch2 21:4. The Arabians had slain all Jehoram's sons except Ahaziah, Ch2 22:1. Jehu had slain all their sons (Ch2 22:8) and Ahaziah himself. Surely never was royal blood so profusely shed. Happy the men of inferior birth, who live below envy and emulation! But, as if all this were but a small matter, Athaliah destroyed all that were left of the seed-royal. It was strange that one of the tender sex could be so barbarous, that one who had been herself a king's daughter, a king's wife, and a king's mother, could be so barbarous to a royal family, and a family into which she was herself ingrafted; but she did it, 1. From a spirit of ambition. She thirsted after rule, and thought she could not get to it any other way. That none might reign with her, she slew even the infants and sucklings that might have reigned after her. For fear of a competitor, not any must be reserved for a successor. 2. From a spirit of revenge and rage against God. The house of Ahab being utterly destroyed, and her son Ahaziah among the rest, because he was akin to it, she resolved, as it were, by way of reprisal, to destroy the house of David, and cut off his line, in defiance of God's promise to perpetuate it - a foolish attempt and fruitless, for who can disannul what God hath purposed? Grandmothers have been thought more fond of their grandchildren than they were of their own; yet Ahaziah's own mother is the wilful murderer of Ahazaiah's own sons, and in their infancy too, when she was obliged, above any other, to nurse them and take care of them. Well might she be called Athaliah, that wicked woman (Ch2 24:7), Jezebel's own daughter; yet herein God was righteous, and visited the iniquity of Joram and Ahaziah, those degenerate branches of David's house, upon their children.
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II. It was wonderfully preserved by the pious care of one of Joram's daughters (who was wife to Jehoiada the priest), who stole away one of the king's sons, Joash by name, and hid him, Kg2 11:2, Kg2 11:3. This was a brand plucked out of the fire; what number were slain we are not told, but, it seems, this being a child in the nurse's arms was not missed, or not enquired after, or at least no found. The person that delivered him was his own aunt, the daughter of wicked Joram; for God will raise up protectors for those whom he will have protected. The place of his safety was the house of the Lord, one of the chambers belonging to the temple, a place Athaliah seldom troubled. His aunt, by bringing him hither, put him under God's special protection, and so hid him by faith, as Moses was hidden. Now were David's words made good to one of his seed (Psa 27:5), In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. With good reason did this Joash, when he grew up, set himself to repair the house of the Lord, for it had been a sanctuary to him. Now was the promise made to David bound up in one life, and yet it did not fail. Thus to the son of David will God, according to his promise, secure a spiritual seed, which, though sometimes reduced to a small number, brought very low, and seemingly lost, will be perpetuated to the end of time, hidden sometimes and unseen, but hidden in God's pavilion and unhurt. It was a special providence that Joram, though a king, a wicked king, married his daughter to Jehoiada a priest, a godly priest. Some perhaps thought it a disparagement to the royal family to marry a daughter to a clergyman, but it proved a happy marriage, and the saving of the royal family from ruin; for Jehoiada's interest in the temple gave her an opportunity to preserve the child, and her interest in the royal family gave him an opportunity to set him on the throne. See the wisdom and care of Providence, and how it prepares for what it designs; and see what blessings those lay up in store for their families that marry their children to those that are wise and good.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–20 And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that…
And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead,.... Who was the daughter of Ahab, and granddaughter of Omri Kg2 8:18, she arose:
and destroyed all the seed royal; that were left, for many had been slain already; the sons of Jehoshaphat, the brothers of Joram, were slain by him, Ch2 21:4 and all Joram's sons, excepting Ahaziah, were slain by the Arabians, Ch2 22:1, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah were slain by Jehu, Kg2 11:8, these therefore seem to be the children of Ahaziah, the grandchildren of this brutish woman, whom she massacred out of her ambition of rule and government, which perhaps she was intrusted with while her son went to visit Joram king of Israel; other reasons are by some assigned, but this seems to be the chief. For the same reason Laodice, who had six sons by Ariarathes king of the Cappadocians, poisoned five of them; the youngest escaping her hands, was murdered by the people (x), as this woman also was.
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(x) Justin. e Trogo, l. 37. c. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 15, 17 Athaliah usurps the government and destroys all the seed…
Athaliah usurps the government and destroys all the seed royal; only Joash escapes, ver. 1-3. He is made king, ver. 4-12. Athaliah is slain, ver. 13-16. Joash reigns well, ver. 17-21.
She destroyed - 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 upon him and his, to shew how much he abhors all such affinities.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 Athaliah destroys all that remain of the seed royal…
CHAPTER XI
Athaliah destroys all that remain of the seed royal of Judah, 1.
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Jehosheba hides Joash the son of Ahaziah, and he remains hidden
in the house of the Lord six years; and Athaliah reigns over the
land, 2, 3.
Jehoiada, the high priest, calls the nobles privately together
into the temple, shows them the kings son, takes an oath of
them, arms them, places guards around the temple, and around
the young king's person; they anoint and proclaim him, 4-12.
Athaliah is alarmed, comes into the temple, is seized, carried
forth, and slain, 13-16.
Jehoiada causes the people to enter into a covenant with the
Lord; they destroy Baal's house, priest, and images, 17, 18.
Joash is brought to the king's house, reigns, and all the land
rejoices, 19-21.
NOTES ON CHAP. XI
Verse 1. Athaliah] This woman was the daughter of Ahab, and grand-daughter of Omri, and wife of Joram king of Judah, and mother of Ahaziah.
Destroyed all the seed royal.] All that she could lay her hands on whom Jehu had left; in order that she might get undisturbed possession of the kingdom.
How dreadful is the lust of reigning! it destroys all the charities of life; and turns fathers, mothers, brothers, and children, into the most ferocious savages! Who, that has it in his power, makes any conscience
"To swim to sovereign rule through seas of blood?"
In what a dreadful state is that land that is exposed to political revolutions, and where the succession to the throne is not most positively settled by the clearest and most decisive law! Reader, beware of revolutions; there have been some useful ones, but they are in general the heaviest curse of God.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 2Ki 11:1. And destroyed all the seed royal —…
2Ki 11:1. And destroyed all the seed royal — All of the royal family that had not been cut off by Jehu and others, except one, mentioned 2Ki 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.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 Athaliah, as wife of Joram and mother of Ahaziah,…
Athaliah, as wife of Joram and mother of Ahaziah, had guided both the internal and the external policy of the Jewish kingdom; she had procured the establishmeut of the worship of Baal in Judaea 2Ki 8:18, 2Ki 8:27, and had maintained a close alliance with the sister kingdom 2Ki 8:29; 2Ki 10:13. The revolution effected by Jehu touched her nearly. It struck away from her the support of her relatives; it isolated her religious system, severing the communication with Phoenicia; and the death of Ahaziah deprived her of her legal status in Judaea, which was that of queen-mother (the 1Ki 15:13 note), and trausferred that position to the chief wife of her deceased son. Athaliah, instead of yielding to the storm, or merely standing on the defensive, resolved to become the assailant, and strike before any plans could be formed against her. In the absence of her son, hers was probably the chief anthority at Jerusalem. She used it to command the immediate destruction of all the family of David, already thinned by previous massacres 2Ki 10:14; 2Ch 21:4, 2Ch 21:17, and then seized the throne.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Seed. What cruelties are occasioned by ambition! (Worthington) ---…
Seed. What cruelties are occasioned by ambition! (Worthington) --- This is one of the most extraordinary proofs recorded in history. Agrippina was but a faint copy of the unnatural Athalia, (Calmet) who knew that she was destined for slaughter, if she should fall into the hands of Jehu. (Menochius) --- Her impiety might also prompt her to destroy all the posterity of David, that she might introduce the worship of idols more easily. (Theodoret)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 21 B.—Athaliah’s Reign, and Fall
B.—Athaliah’s Reign, and Fall
2Ki_11:1-20. (2Ch_22:10 to 2Ch_23:21.)
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1And [But] when [omit when] Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah [—when she] 1saw that her son was dead, [then] she arose and destroyed all the seed royal. 2But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons which were [who were to be] 2slain; [,] and they hid him, even [omit from and to even: read and put] 3him and his nurse, [omit,] in the bed-chamber [store-room, and hid him] from Athaliah, so that he was not slain. 3And he was with her hid in the house of the Lord six years. And Athaliah did reign over the land.
4And the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers over hundreds, with the captains and the guard [centurions of the life-guards and of the runners] 4and brought them to him into the house of the Lord, and made a covenant with them, and took an oath of them in the house of the Lord, and shewed them the king’s Song of Solomon 5 And he commanded them, saying, This is the thing that ye shall do; A third part of [those of] you that enter in on the sabbath shall even be keepers of the watch of the king’s house; 6And a third part shall be at the gate of [omit of] Sur; and a third part at the gate behind the guard [runners] 5so shall ye keep the watch of the house, that it be not broken down [to prevent entrance]. 7And two parts of [omit two parts of] all [those of] you that go forth on the sabbath [—of both sorts of soldiers—] 6even they shall keep the watch of the house of the Lord about the king. 8And ye shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand: and he that cometh within [breaketh through] the ranges [ranks] 7let him be slain: and be ye with the king as he goeth out and as lie cometh in. 9And the captains over the hundreds did according to all things that Jehoiada the priest commanded: and they took every man his men that were to come in on the sabbath, with them that should go out on the sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest. 10And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give king David’s spears 8and shields, that were in the temple of the Lord. 11And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, from the right corner [hand wall] of the temple [house] to the left corner [hand wall] of the temple [house] along by [towards] the altar and the temple. 12And he brought forth the king’s son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony; and they made him king, and anointed him; and they clapped their hands, and said, God save the king [lit. Live the king].
13And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard9and of the people, she came to the people into the temple of the Lord. 14And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar [was standing on a platform] as the manner was, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king, and all the people of the land rejoiced [were rejoicing] and blew [blowing] with trumpets: and Athaliah rent her clothes, and cried, Treason, treason. 15But Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth without the ranges [through the ranks]; and him that followeth her kill 10with the sword. For the priest had said, Let her not be slain in the house of the Lord. 16And they laid hands on her [made room for her on either hand]; and she went by the way by the which the horses came into the king’s house: and there was she slain.
17And Jehoiada made a [the] covenant between the Lord and the king and the people, that they should be the Lord’s people; between the king also and the people. 18And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord. 19And he took the rulers over hundreds, and the captains, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from the house of the Lord, and came by the way of the gate of the guard [runners] to the king’s house. And he sat on the throne of the kings. 20And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was in quiet: and [but] they slew [had slain] Athaliah with the sword beside [at] the king’s house.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Introductory Remarks—The parallel account in the Chronicles is, in some places, word for word the same as the one before us. It cannot, however, have been copied from this record, for it not only varies in particular details, but also contains additions, and those such as the Chronicler cannot possibly have invented himself, e. g., the names of the five centurions and their fathers (2Ch_23:1). It is, therefore, very generally admitted that the two accounts are derived from one and the same original record, from which the author of the books of Kings and the Chronicler each took different extracts according to the stand-point of each. The record before us is not only older, but it is also clear and definite, so that when it is regarded by itself simply it presents no difficulties. These do not present themselves until we turn to the story in Chronicles, which is, it is true, in some cases more full and detailed, but which is, on the whole, far less clear. In any attempt at reconciliation, therefore, we must not, as Keil does, make the Chronicles the standard, but must start from the record which here lies before us. Noteworthy as the additions and variations in the Chronicles may appear, they can only be accepted in so far as they are not contradictory to this account.
2Ki_11:1. But Athaliah, &c. We may suppose that she had carried on the government as queen-regent (גְּבִירָה cf. 1Ki_15:13; 1Ki_11:19), [In the latter place it is applied to a queen-consort, as in Jer_13:18; Jer_29:2. In 1Ki_15:13 and here it is applied to the queen-mother. It is a title which implies more actual political power and influence than מַלְכָּה. The queen-mother has always been, and is, a personage of influence in oriental countries. For the importance of this role in the Israelitish monarchy, and for the influence exerted on the history by some of the individuals who filled it (Bathsheba, Maacah, Athaliah, Jezebel), see Stanley’s Lectures, 2d ser. p. 432], during the absence of her son at Ramoth and at Jezreel (2Ki_8:28-29), and now she took the royal authority directly into her own hands. In order to establish herself on the throne, she proceeded in the usual manner of oriental usurpers (see above, on chap. 10). She slew all the “seed royal,” i.e., all the male members of the royal house who might eventually become pretenders to the throne. The forty-two “brethren of Ahaziah,” who were slain by Jehu (2Ki_10:13 sq.), were not, therefore, all the princes there were, but a certain portion of them, especially those who were grown up.
2Ki_11:2. Jehosheba was the sister of Ahaziah, but not the daughter of Athaliah. She was the daughter of another wife of king Jehoram. According to 2Ch_20:11, she was the wife of Jehoiada, the priest—a statement the truth of which Thenius unjustly questions. It explains Jehoiada’s conduct most satisfactorily. The Chronicler has וַתִּתֵּן, after הַמּוּמָתִים, and this word must here be supplied. חֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת is not the “bed-chamber” (Luther, E. V.) either of the royal princes (Clericus), or of the priests and levites (Vatablus), but the room of the palace in which the beds, mattresses, and coverlets were stored, and where no one lived. The child, who was an infant at the breast, was temporarily hidden here, and then he was brought, for greater security, into the house of Jehovah, i.e., into a room adjoining the temple, or into one of the temple chambers, so that he was under the care of the high-priest. With her, i.e., with the wet-nurse, whose care he yet needed; not, “with Jehosheba” (Thenius), for she could not remain concealed for so long a time. The nurse remained with him, after he was weaned, as his attendant until his sixth year. Instead of אִתָּה the Chronicler has, less precisely, אִתָּם, with them, i.e., in their family. The priest and Jehosheba kept him in concealment. The Sept. translate אִתָּם, in Chronicles, by μετ’ αὐτῆς, which they also give for אִתָּה in Kings. We cannot infer, with Keil, that he was concealed “in the house of the high-priest, in one of the courts of the temple,” for there is no hint anywhere that the high-priest and his family lived in any part of the temple-building (cf. Neh_3:26 sq., from which the contrary seems more probable).
2Ki_11:4. And the seventh year Jehoiada sent, &c. For שָׁלַח the Chronicler has הִתְחַזַּק, i.e., “he took courage.” It seemed to Jehoiada doubtful whether he ought to keep the prince any longer in concealment. Perhaps also the government of Athaliah had become more and more unendurable. In 2Ki_11:15; 2Ki_11:18 he is called simply הַכֹּהֵן, whereby he is designated as high-priest. Cf. 2Ki_12:11. The centurions were the commanders each of a hundred men of the life-guards and the runners (see notes on 1Ki_1:38; 1Ki_14:27). The Chronicler gives the names of these centurions and of their fathers, which he can only have obtained from the original document which served as authority both for him and for the writer of this history. As there are five names given we may infer that the entire life-guard consisted of 500 men. It is to be noticed that their agreement is not called a שֶׁקֶר, as in the case of Baasha, Zimri, &c., but a בְּרִית. Only Athaliah calls it שֶׁקֶר, 2Ki_11:14. The oath which Jehoiada took of them in the holy place can only have been to this effect, that they would bring about the elevation of the prince to the throne, but, for the present, would keep the intention to do so secret. He then showed the prince to them. In the account in Chronicles the words: “And took an oath of them in the house of Jehovah, and showed them the king’s son,” are wanting. Instead, we read there: “And they went about in Judah, and gathered the levites out of all the cities of Judah, and the chief of the fathers of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem. And all the congregation (i.e., the collected representatives of the people) made a covenant with the king in the house of God. And he (Jehoiada) said unto them, Behold, the king’s son shall reign as the Lord hath said of the sons of David.” There is no contradiction here, for we may well suppose that Jehoiada at first only admitted the five chiefs into the secret, and won their adhesion, but that they, before they proceeded to carry out the plan proposed (2Ki_11:5 sq.), sought to assure themselves of the support of the levites and of the representative family chiefs, and invited them to one of the three great yearly festivals, at which they were accustomed to visit Jerusalem according to the law, so that their presence there would not attract attention. [See appendix to this section for a detailed comparison of the two accounts.]
2Ki_11:5. And he commanded them, &c. Jehoiada’s plan was to take military possession of the two places, which here were of prime importance, the palace and the temple. In the latter was the young prince, who was then to be crowned and anointed; in the former was the throne, of which he was afterwards to take possession. 2Ki_11:5-6 treat of the taking possession of the palace; 2Ki_11:7-8 of that of the temple. It should be particularly observed that Jehoiada’s words are addressed to the centurions of the life-guard and of the runners (2Ki_11:4). Therefore when he says (2Ki_11:5): A third part מִכֶּם; and (2Ki_11:7): both sorts בָּכֶם, he means of course no other than the soldiers under the command of these captains, who are distinctly mentioned, in 2Ki_11:9, as their “men,” so that it is simply impossible to understand by it, “levites.” The entire body of men at their disposal consisted, therefore, of those who had to undertake guard-duty on the sabbath, and of those who were released from service on that day. Those who entered upon service at that time were to hold control of the palace at three points; one third at the בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ, by which we have to understand here the royal residence proper, in distinction from the less important accessory buildings connected with it (2Ki_11:5, in which, it may be remarked in passing, וְשָׁמְרוְ must be read instead of וְֹשׂמְרֵי. The Sept. add after φυλακὴν οἴκου τοῦ βασιλέως, the words: ἐν τῷ πυλῶνι.) The second third-part was to hold the gate סוּר. No gate by this name is mentioned elsewhere. According to the signification of the stem סוּר, to depart from the way, it can refer only to the exit or side-door of the palace. The third third-part received the charge בַּשַּׁעַר אַחַר הָרָצִים, or, as it is called in 2Ki_11:19 simply, שַׁעַר הָרָצִים. [The “runners” were probably couriers whose line of duty was to act as the king’s messengers. This gate was probably so called, because it was the one before which they were usually stationed, either on guard-duty, or awaiting commands which were directed to their department of the service, or both.—W. G. S.] Since the new king held his solemn entry into the palace through this gate (2Ki_11:19), it must have been the chief gate; through which there was the most direct approach to the royal residence. It was “behind” the runners, since their usual station was before it. The word מַסָּח is not a proper name (Luther: Massa; Vulg.: Messa), but means repulse, defence, that which wards off, from נסח, to ward off, and it is in apposition to מִשְׁמֶרֶת. It may be referred to all three of the third-parts, since all three were intended to ward off and expel every one who might desire to gain admission to the palace. This was the duty assigned to those who commenced duty on the sabbath. Those who were released on that day were to guard the temple (2Ki_11:7). They were not to be divided up into subdivisions to do duty at separate posts, but their two יָדוֹת were to form שְׂדֵרוֹת and to take the young king in their midst (2Ki_11:8) By יָדוֹת are meant, in distinction from שְׁלִשִׁית (2Ki_11:5-6) the two different sorts of soldiers, according to their weapons and duties, i.e., the life-guards and the runners. שְׂדֵרוֹת are the ranks, in which they were to arrange themselves, between which the king went out of the temple into the palace. Any one who broke through them and ventured inside was to be slain (2Ki_11:8). “Let it be observed with what accuracy בָּכֶם is used in 2Ki_11:7, where the reference is to a distinction of functions, and מִכֶּם in 2Ki_11:5, where the reference is to merely numerical subdivisions of the force” (Thenius). The final words of 2Ki_11:8 : And be ye with the king as he goeth out and as he cometh in, belong to the directions which Jehoiada gave for the division of the numbers and of the functions of the soldiers for this especial case. They cannot, therefore, be taken as of general signification, referring to all the life of the king, under all circumstances: “In all his business, or, in all his movements” (Keil), as in Deu_28:6; Deu_31:2, but they refer to the execution of this plan, and are to be understood of the movement of the king from the temple to the palace (Thenius). In 2Ki_11:9 sq. follows the actual execution of the commands of Jehoiada which have been imparted in the preceding verses.
2Ki_11:10. And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give, &c. Instead of the sing. הַחֲנִית, the Chronicler has the plural הַחֲנִיתִים, and all the ancient versions present the plural in the verse before us. It seems that it stood originally הַחֲניתֹת (Isa_2:4; Mic_4:3), and the last ת was lost by an error in copying (Keil). “We must understand that these were not David’s own weapons, but some which he had captured, and placed in the temple as an offering. According to Ewald, whose opinion Thenius approves, Jehoiada gave these weapons to the captains, “in order to begin and consecrate the enterprise on which they were about to enter, of restoring the family of David to the throne, by using the weapons of the great ancestor of that family.” But perhaps his only reason for distributing these arms among them was, that those who had retired from service at the palace had left their weapons there. The centurions divided these weapons among their soldiers, as 2Ki_11:11 expressly mentions, among the “runners,” not, therefore, among levites. When the men were thus armed, they were stationed: “From the right-hand side of the house to the left-hand side of the house, along towards the altar and the temple,” so that they surrounded and covered the person of the king. The meaning is that they shut off the space from the temple-building proper to the altar, and that the king stood in the midst of this space. Whether one row stood across the front from side to side, and two others parallel, along the side (Bertheau), or whether one row stood from the right-hand corner of the temple to the altar, and the other from the altar to the left-hand corner (Thenius), must be left undecided. Not until after the troops had been thus arranged, did Jehoiada lead out the young prince into the midst of the open space (2Ki_11:12). הָעֵדוּת does not mean the insignia regia (Clericus), or the phylacteries (Deu_6:8, Grotius), but, the Law, and, if not the whole Pentateuch, at least the Decalogue, which is so often called the “Testimony” (Exo_25:21; Exo_16:34, &c.). This was probably given into his hands as a symbol of what is declared to be the law for the king in Deu_17:19, whereas the diadem was placed upon his head (2Sa_1:10). He was then anointed (1Ki_1:39). To clap the hands was a sign of delight and approval (Isa_55:12). Besides the armed force, the priests, and the levites, a multitude of people was also present (2Ki_11:14), which denotes that the coronation took place on a feast-day, when the people collected in Jerusalem from all parts of the country. The acclamations of the people are in the same words as in 1Ki_1:25.
2Ki_11:13. And when Athaliah heard the noise, &c. As worshipper of Baal, who, at that time, had his own temple in Jerusalem (2Ki_11:18), Athaliah took no part in the feasts of the worshippers of Jehovah, in the Jehovah-temple, and, on this day, she paid the less heed to what was going on in the temple, inasmuch as the change of the guards in the palace had taken place as usual, and nothing indicated any unusual disturbance. The great outcry, which she either heard herself, as she well might in view of the short distance from the palace to the temple, or which was reported to her by her attendants, aroused her suspicions, so that she betook herself thither. Josephus states that she went out of the palace with her own troops (μετὰ τῆς ἰδίας στρατιᾶς), and that, when she came to the temple, the priests allowed her to enter, but the guards prevented her guards from following; that Athaliah, when she saw the crowned boy, cried out, and commanded that he who had dared to try to usurp her authority should be put to death, and that thereupon Jehoiada gave orders that she should be led out and executed outside of the temple. [That the queen should have gone down in person into the temple, without guards or attendants, to quell what must have appeared to be a mere vulgar riot, is certainly an astonishing incident—W. G. S.] The words הָרָצִין הָעָם cannot be translated: “Of the people who flocked to the spot” (Luther, after the Vulg.). “The text must have read originally הָרָצִין וְהָעָם, and the ו must have fallen out by a copyist’s error” (Thenius, Keil). The Chronicler transposes the words: הָעָם הָרָּצִים, and adds: וְהַמְהַלְלִים אֶת־הַמֶּלֶךְ, i. e., the people who were flocking together and hailing the king. The רָצִים are, however, in this context, always the “runners” who formed a part of the royal guards (2Ki_11:4; 2Ki_11:6; 2Ki_11:11; 2Ki_11:19), so that the word can mean nothing else in 2Ki_11:13, and the text of the Chronicles cannot, with any good reason at all, be preferred.
2Ki_11:14. The king stood עַל־הָעָמּוּד, i.e., not “at the column” (Luther) [or, “by a pillar” (E. V.)], but at the appointed, traditional place, which was reserved for the king, by established usage (בַּמִּשְׁפָּט), as in chap, 2Ki_23:3; 2Ch_34:31. Thenius understands by it “the top step of the stairs which led up to the temple,” but this would not be any especial position, because the priests passed and stood there every day. Evidently a particular place is meant, an elevated dais or platform (Vulg.: tribunal), which was reserved for the king alone, for, when Athaliah saw the prince standing there, she knew at once what the transaction was which was being accomplished. The people, who stood in the forecourt, could not have seen the king, if he had stood on the top of the temple-steps, on account of the altar ten cubits high which stood in the court of the priests. The platform in question must have stood before the altar, at the entrance to the inner fore-court (בַּמָּבוֹא 2Ch_23:13), so that the king, when he stood upon it, was the first object to strike the eye of Athaliah as she entered. Solomon had caused just such arrangements to be made (2Ch_6:13; see Exeg. on 1Ki_8:22)—The Vulg. incorrectly renders הַשָּׂרִים by cantores, the Sept. by οἱ ᾠδοί, and Luther by “singers,” as if the word were הַשָּׁרִים. They are the centurions, as in 2Ki_11:4; 2Ki_11:9. The word is correctly translated in the Sept. and Vulg. versions of Chronicles by οἱ ἄρχοντες, and principes.—הַחֲצֹצְרוֹת, trumpets, for trumpeters. Since the word occurs in 2Ki_12:14, in the enumeration of the utensils of the temple, and is also used in Num_10:2 to designate the trumpets or horns of the priests, and since, moreover, 1Ch_15:24 (2Ki_13:8), the priests appear as מַחְצְצרִים בַּחֲצֹצְרוֹת, we can think here only of levites or priests as the persons who were blowing the trumpets.—And all the people of the land, i.e., “the multitude which was present” (Bertheau), as in 2Ki_11:13, not, “the entire force of militia, which was present in Jerusalem” (Thenius).—Athaliah rent her clothes, not so much in grief as from terror, like Joram, 2Ki_6:30.
2Ki_11:15. But Jehoiada the priest commanded, &c. The centurions of the life-guard are here designated as commanders of the army in general. “The readers are to be reminded by this addition that the military forces were willing to obey Jehoiada” (Bertheau).—Have her forth through (or between) the ranks, לַשְּׂדֵרֹת, i.e., within the ranks, “so that she was led through the ranks, and was hindered from taking any measures in accord with her adherents” (Bertheau). Any one who might desire to take her part, or to assist her, was to be slain.—יָשִׂימוּ לָהּ יָדַיִם (2Ki_11:16), i.e., not, as Luther [and the E. V.] translate, following the Sept. (ἐπέβαλον αὐτῇ χεῖρας), and the Vulg. (imposuerunt ei manus), “They laid hands on her,” but, as the Chaldee version renders it, and as almost all the expositors understand it: “They made for her two sides,” i.e., they made room for her, opening the ranks on both sides, “formed in rank and escorted her out” (Keil). By מְבוֹא הַסּוּסִים, the entrance-way for horses into the royal stables is to be understood, so that it is not the “horse-gate” (Neh_3:28), as Josephus understands, for this was a gate of the inner city, and led into the city, not into the palace. She was not to be conducted by the way into the palace, because the new king was to make his solemn entry into the palace by this. It does not follow, however, that Athaliah was “to die shamefully and disgracefully by the stables” (Thenius), for the royal stables were not, as such, a shameful or unclean place.
2Ki_11:17. And Jehoiada made the covenant, &c. Not a covenant (Luther), but the covenant, i.e., the covenant of Jehovah with Israel, which had been broken by the false worship of Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah. This covenant was solemnly renewed. It attached primarily to the relation between the king and people on the one hand, and Jehovah on the other (they were to be Jehovah’s people and belong to Him, Deu_4:28), then, also, to the relation between the king and the people. The people was to be, from that time on, once more the people of God; it was to worship and serve Him alone. The king was to rule according to the “testimony,” i.e., the Law of Jehovah, which had been solemnly put into his hands, and the people were to be loyal to the legitimate king of the family of David. The immediate and necessary consequence of this renewal of the covenant was the destruction of the temple of Baal, with its altars and idols (2Ki_11:18). When and by whom this temple was built is nowhere stated. It is most probable that it was erected by Jehoram, under the influence of Athaliah (2Ki_8:18), as the one in Samaria was built by Ahab, under the influence of Jezebel (1Ki_16:32). Thenius is wrong in inferring from 2Ch_24:7, that this temple was erected “in the enclosure of the temple of Jehovah,” for that passage says only that Athaliah and her sons had plundered the Jehovah-temple of all which they could use in the worship of Baal. There can be no doubt that we must understand it to refer to a building on another elevation. It is certain also that Mattan, the priest of Baal who was slain, did not perform his functions in the same place with Jehoiada. [The grounds which lead Bähr to believe that the temple of Baal was not on Mount Moriah are not satisfactory. Every indication which we have in regard to it goes to show that it was there. Mount Moriah is just the spot which would have been chosen for the site of a temple by any nation of ancient times which might have lived at Jerusalem. There was no other elevation near or convenient. The “old city” was perhaps in some places a little higher than Mount Moriah, but it presented no sharp and clear elevation, such as those which ancient nations always chose as sites of temples, if there was one in the neighborhood. The other hills were too far away. It would be little in accord with the character of Athaliah to suppose that she gave up the best site, which was, at the same time, one of the grandest in the world, according to the taste in those matters, to the Jehovah-religion, and sought another for her own favorite deities. The Jehovah-religion may have been strong enough in Judah to force a compromise, and maintain a joint possession of the mountain. 2Ch_24:7 says that Athaliah and her sons had “broken down” or “torn down (פָּרְעוּ) the house of God” Just how much that means we cannot perhaps determine, but the temple was standing and available for worship, &c., at this time, as we see, and it may well be meant that they broke down such portions of the walls of the courts, &c., as was necessary to get room for the temple of Baal. See also 2Ki_12:5 (Exeg.) and 2Ch_24:7. Still farther, if 2Ki_11:18 is in its proper chronological position before 2Ki_11:19, and is not, as Thenius thinks, to be taken as belonging after it in order of time, then it gives a strong ground for believing that the temple of Baal was on Mount Moriah. They stayed to tear it down before they formed the procession, and left the temple-mountain to “go down” and escort the king into the palace. It cannot be regarded, therefore, as “beyond doubt” that Mattan and Jehoiada did not perform their functions in the same place. That the latter did not like the juxtaposition, we may well believe, but if the question was whether to share Mount Moriah with the worshippers of Baal, or to remove the Jehovah-worship from it, or to give up the Jehovah-worship altogether, we may easily imagine what course he would have chosen.—W. G. S.]—Duncker, whom Weber again follows, deduces from the sentence: The priests appointed פְּקֻדֹּת over the house of the Lord, the arbitrary conclusion that, in spite of the victory of the priestly party, “Nevertheless the number of the servants of Baal was so great, and their courage was so little broken, that it was necessary to protect the temple of Jehovah against their attacks by especial guards” Thenius also thinks that there is reference here to a kind of temple-officers which had not existed before, “by whom a new desecration of the temple by the worship of false gods was to be prevented” We must understand by it, as is expressly stated 2Ch_23:18, the overseers who were appointed by David (1 Chronicles 25.), and who, during the time that idolatry prevailed, had not been regularly kept up, or perhaps had not been appointed at all. That the article is wanting cannot be decisive to the contrary. [So Keil. Ewald, Thenius, and Bunsen, on the contrary, think that they were intended to protect the temple against the attacks of the heathen. The Chronicler develops this short note into an elaborate statement, as he does all the notices of the origin of any ritual formalities or hierarchical organizations. It is not clear, however, that it should have been thought necessary, just at the time when the Jehovah-religion could once more count on the support of the throne, to appoint new and permanent officers to protect the temple from heathen attacks and desecrations. Moreover, this clause, thus understood, makes the position of 2Ki_11:18 before 2Ki_11:19 probably incorrect as regards the order of time. Shall we understand that they stayed to appoint temple-officers before completing the inauguration of the king? It would be most reasonable to understand it to state simply that they appointed a guard to stay and protect the temple from any sudden attack of the enraged worshippers of Baal, while all the rest went to escort the king into the palace, and see him mount the throne.—W. G. S.] According to 2Ki_11:19, the centurions mentioned in 2Ki_11:4, with their troops, the life-guards and the runners, escorted the king down (וַיֹּרִידוּ) from the House of Jehovah in a solemn procession arranged (וַיִּקַּח) by the priest Jehoiada. Escorted him down, it is said, because there was a ravine between Mount Moriah and Mount Zion, over which at that time there probably was no bridge. They came through the “Gate of the Runners” (the Chronicler gives בְּתוֹךְ instead of דֶּרֶךְ, by way of explanation) into the palace, where the throne stood, upon which the king seated himself. The Gate of the Runners belonged therefore to the palace. The Sept. take בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ as a direct genitive, οἴκου τοῦ βασιλέως. It was unquestionably the chief gate, for the solemn entry would not take place through any other (Thenius). Ewald, Thenius, and Bertheau connect וְהָעִיר שָׁקָטָה with the following, in opposition to the massoretic punctuation: “And the city remained quiet when they slew Athaliah with the sword:” that is to say, her adherents remained peaceful and did not venture to make any movement to save her. But, in that ease, the words “with the sword” would be unnecessary. The correct interpretation of the words is rather that the concluding sentence is intended to append to 2Ki_11:16 an emphatic statement of the manner in which she was put to death, and, at the same time, to call attention to the fact that, by her death, the last member of the house of Ahab was removed, and the legitimate authority of the house of David was restored. In this interpretation this sentence brings the account to a well-rounded close.
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Appendix.—In the exegetical explanations which precede, only the less important variations of the Chronicles have been noticed, and no account has been taken of the grand divergence of the two narratives in their general conception of the occurrence, in order that the continuous elucidation of the text before us might not be too much interrupted, and in order that no confusion might arise. The chief variation now, one which runs through the entire account, is, that, according to the Chronicler, it was not the centurions of the royal guards, but the priests, the levites, and the family-chiefs, by whose aid Jehoiada accomplished his reformation (2Ch_23:2); furthermore, that the first third of the priests and levites who entered upon service on the sabbath were appointed לְשֹׁעֲרֵי הַסִּפִּים, i.e., to be gate-keepers of the threshold, the second to guard the king’s house, and the third to keep the gate הַיְסוֹד (2Ki_11:4-5); finally, that the two classes of priests and levites, those who entered upon, and those who were released from, service, remain together (2Ki_11:8), so that, in general, it is only the temple, and not the royal palace at various points, which is guarded. Modern criticism explains these variations as “arbitrary alterations” of the Chronicler, which he adopted “out of preference for the tribe of Levi, in order to. ascribe to the priest-caste an honor which belonged to the prætorians”(Thenius, De Wette). This assertion is, to say the very least, exaggerated. No suspicion of falsehood can attach to the idea that the priests and levites participated in the coronation and inauguration of the new king, especially seeing that the main object to be gained by this was the abolition of idolatry (2Ki_11:17 sq.). The plan of the enterprise, according to the account before us, did not proceed from the centurions of the prætorian guard, but from the head of the priest-class, and it would be astonishing and unnatural if the high-priest had excluded all his comrades in rank, office, and family, from participation in a transaction which was not only political, but also religious, and which took place in the temple. This participation was a matter of course, all the more seeing that the act, according to all the indications (see notes on 2Ki_11:4; 2Ki_11:13), took place on a feast, at which priests and levites were bound to be present. The author does not, therefore, exclude them, he rather takes their participation for granted, as we see distinctly from 2Ki_11:14. Still less does the Chronicler exclude the prætorian guard from participation; he even gives what this author does not give in regard to them, viz., the names of the centurions and of their fathers, and thereby he shows how important their part in the work appeared to him, and also shows that he had not forgotten them, but desired that they should be kept in honorable remembrance. He could not, therefore, have had any intention of robbing them of any honor which belonged to them, and conferring it upon the levites. But while this author permits the participation of the levites to remain unemphasized, as something which was a simple matter of course, the Chronicler, who certainly looks at the history more from the priestly, levitical standpoint, feels bound to give it greater prominence. There is no contradiction between the two accounts in this respect. The case is somewhat different, however, in regard to the other detailed variations. The three localities which were to be held, each, according to the Chronicler, by one third of the priests and levites, cannot possibly have been all in the temple, for the בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ, the guard of which is entrusted (2Ki_11:5) to the second third, can only be the king’s house or palace, not “the place in the temple where the young king was (in concealment)” (Keil). The “Gate יְסוֹד,” which was entrusted to the third third, was, as no one doubts, the same which is called in Kings (2Ki_11:6) the “Gate סוּר.” It appears there distinctly as a gate of the palace. Probably יְסוֹד is only another reading for םוּר. A temple-gate with this name is not mentioned anywhere else. The סִפִּים, which the first third are to guard (2Ki_11:4), might, according to 1Ch_9:19, be a locality in the temple, but it is utterly impossible that they should be identical, as Keil assumes, with the “Gate of the Runners” in the account here before us (2Ki_11:6), for this gate is distinctly mentioned in 2Ki_11:19 as the one through which the king, after the procession had left the House of Jehovah, was conducted into the palace. According to this account, that gate was guarded by the third third of that portion of the troops under the command of the centurions which entered upon duty on that day, and not by priests and levites, who, of course, never mounted guard at the palace. These variations of the two accounts cannot be reconciled, and we are absolutely forced to admit that the Chronicler, although he made some more detailed extracts from the original document than the author of the Book of Kings, nevertheless did not accurately discriminate between the priests and levites and the military life-guard, and did not keep separate the shares of the two in the transaction. Keil asserts, in order, in spite of this, to bring the two accounts into accord: Jehoiada “determined to carry out the project chiefly by the aid of the priests and levites, who relieved each other, in the service of the temple, on the sabbath, and he entrusted the chief command of these forces to the captains of the royal life-guard, that they, with the force of priests and levites under their command, might take possession of the approaches to the temple, in order to repel any attempt of the military to force an entrance, and might protect the young king. These captains came into the temple without weapons in order not to attract attention, therefore Jehoiada gave them the weapons of king David, which were laid up in the temple.” But the account of the Chronicler says nothing of any commission of the command over the priests and levites to the centurions, and this account directly contradicts any such notion (see above, on 2Ki_11:5), [not to say anything of the very great intrinsic improbability that any such arrangement—putting military leaders in command of priestly forces—would ever have been adopted, or that, if it had, it would have worked well.—W. G. S.] According to the account before us it is impossible to exclude the troops ordinarily under the command of the centurions from a share in the transaction. It was almost more necessary to get possession of the palace than of the temple, because the king was to make his solemn entry into it, and mount the throne after his coronation. It is not an argument against the notion that a guard was set over the palace, that Athaliah came down out of it to the people in the temple. There was no object in preventing her from coming out; the guard was set to prevent any one from getting in (מַסָּח 2Ki_11:6). There is no force in the citation of Josephus (Antiq., 7. 14, 7): “Each of the twenty-four classes of priests took charge of the worship for eight days from sabbath to sabbath,” or in the observation that “it is not known that any such arrangement was observed with respect to the life-guards or any other portion of the army,” for of course all regular guards had to relieve each other at definite times, and the record says distinctly that this was the custom of the troops who were under command of the centurions.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL
1. The elevation of Joash to the throne of Judah has great importance in the history of redemption, inasmuch as God’s guidance and protection of the house of David appears in it, and as it is a confirmation of the promise given to this house that it should never be extinguished, and that its light should never fail (2Sa_7:13 sq.; 1Ki_11:36; 1Ki_15:4; 2Ki_8:19; cf. Psa_132:17). In the kingdom of Israel the dynasties changed; one overthrew the other and destroyed it; with Jehu the fourth had already begun. In the kingdom of Judah, on the contrary, the house of David had maintained itself until this time. But now, when Jehu had killed Ahaziah and forty-two of his relatives, and all the remaining royal seed had been destroyed by Athaliah, it appeared that the line of David also was at an end. But God wonderfully ordered it so that an infant of this house escaped the massacre and was saved. He remained concealed for years, and it must have been believed that David’s lamp had gone out forever, when suddenly the sole remaining offshoot of the house of David ascended the throne, and, with the murderess Athaliah, the last survivor of the house of Ahab perished. As the fulfilment of the promise to protect the house of David must have been recognized in this event, there was in it at the same time, for every faithful servant of Jehovah, a pledge that the God of Israel would protect this house also for the future in any calamities; and so He did, until finally, according to the promise, the great “son of David” came, who was not only the “lamp” of David, but the light of the world, whose kingdom shall have no end (Luk_1:32-33; Luk_1:69).
2. All the mischief which the relationship contracted by Jehoshaphat with the house of Ahab (1 Kings 22, Hist § 1) had brought upon Judah, culminated in the reign of Athaliah, which brought Judah and its royal house to the verge of ruin. Athaliah was a faithful copy of. her mother Jezebel, fanatical, idolatrous, imperious, and cruel. As her mother had controlled Ahab, so she controlled Jehoram and her son Ahaziah. It was she who transplanted idolatry into Judah, which had, until then, been faithful to Jehovah. Under her influence a temple of Baal was built in Jerusalem itself. She plundered the temple of Jehovah and took all the sacred implements for use in the service of Baal (2Ch_24:7). After the death of her son she usurped the royal authority, so that a woman came to sit upon the throne, a thing which had never taken place before and never took place afterwards, and which not only was in direct contradiction with one of the essential duties which devolved upon a king of Israel, who, as such, was to be a “servant of God,” but also was contrary to the express provision of the law. Maimonides, in the tract Melachim, draws this inference, thus: “They place no woman on the throne, for it is said (Deu_17:15): ‘Thou shalt in any wise set him king,’ not queen. So also, in all positions of dignity and authority, they place only men.” Athaliah’s usurpation of the throne was the dissolution of the Israelitish monarchy. In order to maintain herself in her usurped authority, she put to death, not, like other usurpers, her opponents, but those who were connected with her own family, her own nephews and grandchildren. The ground for this “senseless crime” (Ewald) cannot be sought in the fact that she desired to annex Judah to Israel, for Jehu was reigning there, but only in the blind and passionate love of power of this “wicked” woman (2Ch_24:7), and in her raging hate against the house of David, to which all true servants of Jehovah adhered. For six years she pursued her own courses undisturbed, and believed herself secure, when finally the legitimate heir to the throne, who had escaped the massacre by God’s evident protection, appeared and was anointed king. As her mother Jezebel had stood upon her majesty in her dealings with Jehu, and had believed that she could command, so she came, proud and insolent, into the house of Jehovah, and, forgetting the illegitimacy of her own authority, founded, as it was, solely upon violence, she cried out: “Treason, treason!” But again, as her mother had heard her doom pronounced: “Throw her down!” so she hears the command: “Have her forth! and him that followeth her kill with the sword.” As there was no one who took the part of the hated woman, she died, abandoned by all her servants, a just and disgraceful death. Thereby Judah and its royal house were saved. Racine concludes his tragedy Athalie, with these words:
Par cette fin terrible, et due à ses forfaits,
Apprenez, roi des Juifs, et n’oubliez jamais,
Que les rois dans le ciel ont un juge sévère,
L’innocence un vengeur, et l’orphelin un père.
3. The high-priest Jehoiada is, for his time, a very remarkable character. Although, through his wife Jehosheba, he was connected with the idolatrous court, and although he was entrusted with an office which, under the circumstances, was doubly difficult, yet he held firm and true to the God of Israel, and to the legitimate dynasty. The Lord had given the last heir of this line into his hands, and, at the peril of his life, he protects him for years in concealment, guarding him as his own child, and waiting in faith and patience until Jehovah shall give means and ways to restore the apparently exterminated royal house. As the yoke of the tyrannical woman became more and more unendurable, he “strengthened himself” [i.e., took courage, made up his mind] (2Ch_23:1), and put his hand to the work. He did not wish to open the way to the throne for the young heir by deceit or craft, by cruelty and bloodshed. In the first place he admits the captains of the military guard into the secret, and makes sure of their assistance; then he causes the priests and levites, and the heads of all the families, i.e., the representatives of the people, to be summoned to Jerusalem for a public festival. He. does not wish to do anything by himself alone, but with the consent of the different classes among the entire people. His plan bears witness, not only to his wisdom and prudence, but also to his patriotism. He takes all his measures in such a way that the end is accomplished without tumult or violence, but yet without chance of failure. It is not selfishness and love of power, but pure and disinterested love to Jehovah and to His people which is his motive. Only when Athaliah stigmatizes the restoration of the legitimate order of things as treason and insurrection, puts herself on the defensive, and calls for armed opposition to the movement, does he give orders to lead the crowned monster, as Dereser justly calls her, out of the sanctuary, and deliver her over to her well-deserved fate. His next care then is to renew the covenant between the king and people, exhorting the former to fidelity to the law, and the latter to fidelity to the king. Then finally he leads the king to the throne, and the people put an end to the idol-worship. If ever a man stood pure and blameless in the midst of such a bold, difficult, and far-reaching enterprise, then Jehoiada, the ideal Israelitish priest, did so here.
4. Our modern historians see, in the elevation of the descendant of David to the throne of his fathers, a priest-revolution, just as they see, in the elevation of Jehu, a prophet-revolution. So Duncker (Gesch. d. Alt., s. 417), whom Weber (Gesch., s. 241) follows, states it thus: “The priests of the temple at Jerusalem had yielded to the foreign worship much more easily than the prophets in Israel. The example and the success of the latter gradually exercised an influence upon Judah. After the prophets of Israel had brought about the ruin of the house of Omri, the priests tried to overthrow the last remnant of this family in Judah also.… The fall of Joram of Israel, and perhaps also the hope of finding in Joash, the son of Ahaziah, whom the priests held in concealment from Athaliah in the temple, an easy tool for priestly influence, induced the high-priest Jehoiada to undertake the overthrow of the queen.” Winer (R.-W.-B., i. s. 111) also presents the incident in a similar manner: “The priests saved her (Athaliah’s) grandson, Joash, with the help of a princess, in the temple. When he had grown up he was secretly anointed king, and Athaliah was put to death in a popular insurrection excited by the priests.” Here we have another specimen of that history-making which ignores what the text says, and states, as assured historical fact, that which it does not say. That the priests in Judah gave way more easily to the Baal-worship than the prophets of Israel; that they, encouraged by the example and success of the latter, dethroned and murdered Athaliah, and regarded Joash as one who would probably prove an easy tool in their hands; that the priests saved Joash and hid him in the temple; that he was secretly anointed king, and that then a popular rising was instigated by the priests; of all that, there is nothing in either record. On the contrary, both agree in stating that the sister of king Ahaziah, without any assistance from the priests, took away the infant, and hid him in the palace itself, in the bed store-room, and that she then hid him, for greater security, in the temple, which was under the charge of her husband, the high-priest. These two near relatives of the prince were, for six years, the only ones who knew of his existence. Not until the seventh year did Jehoiada admit any one to the secret, and then not the priests, but the captains of the military guard, and he took of them an oath of secrecy. They it was who summoned the chiefs of the people, and the priests, and the levites, to the festival at Jerusalem, and who took the lead in carrying out the plan. The young prince was not anointed “secretly,” but as openly as possible. Not only the priests, but also the captains of the royal guard, the representatives of the people, and the people themselves, shouted their acclamations to the new king. The coronation took place without violence, without any scene of public disturbance. The city is quiet, and the people joyful (2Ki_11:20). How can anyone then speak of a “popular rising instigated by the priests?” Criticism here comes into contradiction with itself. It declares the record in Chronicles unreliable and unhistorical, because it gives such prominence to the participation of the priests and levites, whereas the record in Kings only mentions the captains of the guard, and yet it says that the entire enterprise was conducted by the priests. But it is radically perverse and false to regard the incident as a revolution or a revolt. That Athaliah, as even De Wette expresses it, “usurped the throne of David,” that she took the royal authority into her own hands, that she destroyed all the remaining seed-royal, that was a revolution. What Jehoiada undertook, not by himself, but in harmony with all ranks, and with the representatives of the people, was a repeal of the revolution, and a restoration of the constitutional, divine as well as human, order. It would have been contrary to conscience and to duty, if Jehoiada had gone down to the grave with the secret that there was yet living a legitimate heir of the throne of David. It was most natural that he should take the initiative in the restoration of the legitimate monarchy, because he had the prince under his care, and no one knew anything about him but Jehoiada and his wife. Moreover, it was doubly his duty, as chief of those whose calling it was to guard and teach the law, i.e., the covenant of God with Israel (Mal_2:7; Deu_33:10; Lev_10:11), to labor to the end that the organic law of the kingdom, which was a theocracy, should be maintained; and, when this law was trodden under foot by the usurping sovereign, no one was so much bound as he to restore it, that is, to renew the covenant. In the kingdom of Israel, where, since Jeroboam, there was no longer any lawful priesthood (2Ch_11:13 sq.), it was the prophets who had to watch over the covenant of Jehovah and to fight for it. In Judah, on the contrary, “the diminished and weakened priesthood, together with the true Jehovah-prophets, had to form the opposition to the patronage of paganism” (Ewald). Jehoiada’s enterprise did not aim to bring about the dominion of the priesthood, but that of the legitimate theocratic dynasty. He, therefore, turned first to the servants of the crown for assistance—aimed to have the new king inaugurated by their power. After this was accomplished, he restored the priestly offices. He aimed at nothing more and nothing less than the restoration of the original theocratic constitution.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
2Ki_11:1-3. Queen Athaliah. (a) Her wicked plans, 2Ki_11:1. (Idolatrous and fond of power, like her mother Jezebel, she takes the royal authority into her own hands, in self-will and contrary to right, and murders all the male seed, in order to put an end forever to the house of David. Würt. Summ.: We see here whither ambition and love of rule may lead men. Athaliah does not spare her own innocent grandchildren, but causes them to be put to death, only in order that she may be called queen, and may remain such. Sir_3:29 sq.). (b) The frustration of her plans, 2Ki_11:2-3. (Job_5:12; Psa_2:4; Psa_33:10. Würt. Summ: No one can tread down him whom God sustains. Thus, Pharaoh would have been glad to destroy Israel; Saul would have slain David; Herod, the child Jesus; they could not accomplish it, however; they only injured themselves and perished, just as Athaliah did also.)
2Ki_11:1. Jehoshaphat’s marriage of his son with a daughter of the house of Ahab, although he brought it about in a good intention, produced the result that Athaliah ruled over Judah, and brought the dynasty of David to the brink of ruin. Neue Würt. Summ.: So, many a quiet, humble, God-fearing family has been brought into calamities, affecting both body and soul, by a thoughtless marriage. The hope that those who are brought up by godless parents will themselves reform and turn to the fear of God has very slight foundation.
2Ki_11:1-4. Krummacher: King Joash. (a) The great danger which threatened him; (b) but how gloriously he was protected, and (c) how high he was elevated.
2Ki_11:1. When she saw, &c. That which should have made her hesitate and bow in humility to God’s judgment, only made her insolent and blood-thirsty. That is the judgment which obstinacy and wilfulness bring upon themselves.
2Ki_11:2. Calw. Bib.: We have an instance in Jehosheba how, even in the midst of godlessness in a family, any one who will can make an exception.—Jehosheba stole him. That was not “stealing” the child, but saving him. What can a woman do better and nobler than to save an infant child from danger of soul and body, and take him under her protection for the sake of God and His promises?
2Ki_11:3. “He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” He watches over helpless infants, and holds His protecting hand over them (Mat_18:10; Psa_91:11-13).—Krummacher: Joash is a voiceless, yet a mighty, preacher of the security of the elect of God.—When the godless appear to have succeeded in the attainment of their objects, and believe that they have conquered, the very moment of their victory is the unperceived commencement of their ruin. The cross of Christ was the victory of His enemies, but this very victory was what brought about their total defeat.
2Ki_11:4-12. Joash’s Elevation to the Throne. (a) How it was determined upon and prepared, 2Ki_11:4-8. (Jehoiada took the initiative in it, for it was his right and duty. It was no rebellion and conspiracy against a just authority, but a fact by itself. Rebels violate law and right in order that they may rule; Jehoiada restored law and right, and did not wish to rule; he remained what he was. He conducted himself with courage, but also with wisdom and prudence. See Historical, § 3). (b) How it was carried out and accomplished, 2Ki_11:9-12. (With the participation and approval of the different classes of the entire people, without conspiracy, bloodshed, or violence; in the house of God, whose servant the king was; the crown and the law were given into his hands; he was anointed; significant symbols of his calling as king of the people of God.)
2Ki_11:4. Jehoiada, a faithful priest, such as is pleasing to God (1Sa_2:35). It is not hard to proclaim the word of God, when the mighty and great of this world hold to it, but the faithfulness which is needed in the stewards of God’s mysteries is that which will not be stayed or impaired, when the great of this world despise and persecute the word; which will sail against the wind of courtly or popular favor, and will persevere in patience (1Co_4:1-2).—Würt. Summ.: The servants of the Church in the New Testament have not the same calling as the high-priests in the Old, so that they have not to meddle with worldly affairs.—Where spiritual and worldly authority go hand in hand, where both unite for the sake of God and for His cause, there the Lord gives blessing and prosperity.
2Ki_11:5 sq. Kyburz: Jehoiada teaches us by his example that we ought not to shun either danger or labor in a just cause, but also that we should go prudently to work.
2Ki_11:9 sq. To take weapons in hand and risk one’s life for one’s country, redounds to the glory and honor of any nation.
2Ki_11:12. The word of God says: “By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth” (Pro_8:16). Therefore kings should be crowned in the house of God. Starke: The crown and the law of the Lord belong together. God give to Christendom princes who love His Word!
2Ki_11:13-16. Athaliah’s Fall, (a) Her last appearance, 2Ki_11:13-14. (She comes boldly and impudently into the midst of the people, blinded to their disposition towards her. Insolently relying upon her imagined majesty, she commands resistance to the movement which is in progress—a faithful type of many tyrants. Pride goes before a fall.) (b) Her terrible end, 2Ki_11:15-16. (Abandoned, despised, and hated by all the people, who rejoice over her fall, she goes to meet her doom, and receives the fate which her deeds deserve. “All they that take the sword,” &c. Mat_26:52. She is punished by that by which she had sinned.)—And all the people rejoiced. That was no forced joy, produced at command, but a natural and sincere joy. It is great good fortune for a people when its dynasty is preserved. It may and ought to rejoice in the house of God, when God has released it from tyranny and usurpation.—Kyburz: Sedition! treason! is the cry of Joram, Jezebel, and Athaliah, and of all those who are themselves most to blame for it (Act_24:5).
2Ki_11:17-20. The Results of Athaliah’s Fall. (a) The renewal of the covenant, 2Ki_11:17; (b) the destruction of the Baal-worship, 2Ki_11:18-19; (c) the rest and peace of the land.
2Ki_11:17. The abolition and extermination of all which is bad and perverse is necessary, but it is beneficial only when the construction of what is true and good is added to it (Jer_1:10). The reformers of the sixteenth century not only denied and protested, but at the same time they also laid the foundation, other than which none can be laid, and on this they built the Church.—The covenant which Jehoiada renewed. (a) The covenant of the king and the people with God. (The basis and fountain of all national prosperity. An irreligious state is a folly and an impossibility; it is no-thing.) (b) The covenant between king and people. (It is built upon the former. There is prosperity in a country only when the prince rules before and with God, and the people is obedient through obedience to God. Without this fundamental condition all constitutions, laws, and institutions, however good they may appear, are useless.) Lange: No relation of subjects and rulers is sound if it has not the covenant with God as its basis on either side.
2Ki_11:18. “The zeal of thine house” (Joh_2:17). That applies here to an entire people. (Calw. Bibel: It is a grand national event when a people destroys its idols.) He who stands by God and His word tolerates neither gross nor refined idolatry. Where there is decided faith in the living God, the altars of the false gods fall of themselves.—The offices in the House of God. God is a God of order, therefore these offices are necessary (Eph_4:11-12).
2Ki_11:19-20. Würt. Summ.: Where there are pious and faithful rulers, the people should rejoice, should thank God for them, and pray fervently to him for their prolonged life, so that they may lead a peaceful and godly life under their government.
2Ki_11:20. Starke: Governments which are founded in blood always end disastrously.
Footnotes:
[1]2Ki_11:1.—[The chetib, וראתה, is to be retained. Athaliah is put in independent construction at the head of the sentence, as general subject, and then what she did is stated in detached sentences. The construction is made smoother if we take away the ו, but the style then loses some of its liveliness. So Thenius and Keil.]
[2]2Ki_11:2.—The keri הַמּוּמָתִים is confirmed by 2Ch_22:11. The chetib הַמֻּמָותִים [should be punctuated הַמְּמוֹתִים.—W. G. S.] mortes, cannot without violence be translated as Keil proposes: “Those who were doomed to death.”—Bähr. [Ewald raises the question whether the chetib cannot be punctuated מְמוּתִים and explained as a participle hofal, in which the chief vocal force has been concentrated in the second syllable. He cites several cognate instances of considerable force, § 131, d, note.—On the use of the participle for a preterit future, see Ewald, § 335, b, and cf. Gen_19:14; Exo_11:5; Jdg_13:8.]
[3]2Ki_11:2.—[After הממותים supply וַתִּתֵּן from 2Ch_22:11; cf. Exegetical.]
[4]2Ki_11:4.—[The chetib, מְאָיוֹת is only a longer and more original form for the keri, מֵאוֹת, “since מֵאָה is contracted from מַאֲיָה.” Ewald, § 267, d.—לְ here forms a periphrasis for the genitive.]
[5]2Ki_11:6.—[I.e., before which the runners generally kept guard.]
[6]2Ki_11:7.—[יָדוֹת does not mean “parts” in the same sense as הַשְּׁלִשִׁית מִן means a fraction of. Its first meaning is hands, and so parts like hands, that is, two branches of one subject, as the two hands are parts of one person. It refers to the two military divisions, life-guards and runners, of which the squad which retired on the Sabbath was composed. The preposition בְּ after it marks these as component or essential parts. See further the Exegetical notes on the verse.]
[7]2Ki_11:8.—[I. e., any one who strives to break through the cordon of guards thus posted so as to penetrate either into the palace or the temple.]
[8]2Ki_11:10.—[We must read the plural הַחֲנִיתִים, as in Chron. “The sing. in a collective sense is not a probable construction in prose” (Thenius).]
[9]2Ki_11:13.—[The Aramaic form of the plural in ־ִין (רָצִין) is very rare in Hebrew prose. It occurs in 1Ki_11:33; 2Sa_21:20 (chetib). In poetry it is more frequent. Ewald, § 177, a.]
[10]2Ki_11:15.—[הָמֵת, inf. abs. for imper.—W. G. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 13, 14, 15, 17 Jehosheba--or Jehoshabeath (Ch2 22:11).
Jehosheba--or Jehoshabeath (Ch2 22:11).
daughter of King Joram--not by Athaliah, but by a secondary wife.
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stole him from among the king's sons which were slain--either from among the corpses, he being considered dead, or out of the palace nursery.
hid him . . . in the bedchamber--for the use of the priests, which was in some part of the temple (Kg2 11:3), and of which Jehoiada and his wife had the sole charge. What is called, however, the bedchamber in the East is not the kind of apartment that we understand by the name, but a small closet, into which are flung during the day the mattresses and other bedding materials spread on the floors or divans of the sitting-rooms by day. Such a slumber-room was well suited to be a convenient place for the recovery of his wounds, and a hiding-place for the royal infant and his nurse.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 ATHALIAH’S USURPATION, 2Ki_11:1-3.
ATHALIAH’S USURPATION, 2Ki_11:1-3.
1. Destroyed all the seed royal — The ferocious Athaliah, a worthy daughter of the bloody Jezebel, acted at Jerusalem as queen mother, (see 1Ki_15:10; 1Ki_15:13, notes,) and probably exercised her royal functions during her son’s absence in Jezreel. As soon as she heard of Ahaziah’s death she resolved to usurp his throne, and, in perfect accordance with her own savage character, and the notions of the time as to making a throne secure, she secured the death, as she supposed, of all her grandchildren, and all the royal family who might claim a title to the throne. Her great authority and influence, as queen mother, explains the apparent ease with which she seems to have accomplished her purpose.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–21 Ch. 2Ki_11:1-3. Athaliah, having slain all the seed royal…
Ch. 2Ki_11:1-3. Athaliah, having slain all the seed royal of Judah, except Joash, usurps the throne for six years (2Ch_22:10-12)
1. And [R.V. Now] when Athaliah] Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and became the wife of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat.
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she arose and destroyed] The verb here rendered ‘arose’ is often joined with another verb to give the notion of ‘setting earnestly about’ any business. Thus in Exo_32:1 it is used ‘Up make us gods’, and in 1Ki_14:2 ‘Arise and disguise thyself’, also 1Ch_22:19 ‘Arise therefore and build ye the sanctuary’. See too Gen_37:35 ‘And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him’.
all the seed royal] i.e. All those that remained after the destruction wrought by Jehu on the brethren of Ahaziah (see above 2Ki_10:4). Judah, as well as Israel, seems at this date to have had no lack of families in the royal houses. Those whom Athaliah slew were of course the male members of the royal family.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 ATHALIAH USURPS THE THRONE OF JUDAH, BUT IS DEPOSED…
XI.
ATHALIAH USURPS THE THRONE OF JUDAH, BUT IS DEPOSED AND SLAIN, AND HER GRANDSON JOASH CROWNED, THROUGH THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF THE HIGH PRIEST JEHOIADA. (Comp. 2Ch_22:10; 2Ch_23:21.)
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(1) And when Athaliah . . . saw.—Rather, Now Athaliah . . . had seen. (The and, which the common Hebrew text inserts before the verb, is merely a mistaken repetition of the last letter of Ahaziah. Many MSS. omit it.)
As to Athaliah and her evil influence on her husband Jehoram, see 2Ki_8:18; 2Ki_8:26-27. By her ambition and her cruelty she now shows herself a worthy daughter of Jezebel.
Her son.—Ahaziah (2Ki_9:27). The history of the Judæan monarchy is resumed from that point.
Destroyed all the seed royal.—“The seed of the kingdom” (see margin) means all who might set up claims to the succession. Ahaziah’s brothers had been slain by the Arabs (2Ch_21:17); and his “kinsmen” by Jehu (2Ki_10:14). Those whom Athaliah slew would be for the most part Ahaziah’s own sons, though other relatives are not excluded by the term.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–21 Vers. 1-21. REVOLUTION IN JUDAH, FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS…
Vers. 1-21. REVOLUTION IN JUDAH, FOLLOWING THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN ISRAEL. REIGN OF ATHALIAH OVER JUDAH. CONSPIRACY OF JEHOIADA, AND DEATH OF ATHALIAH.
Vers. 1-3. On learning the death of Ahaziah, (2Ki_9:27) Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, the queen-mother, murders all her grandchildren (except the youngest, Joash, who is secreted by his aunt, Jehosheba) and seizes the kingdom. No resistance is made to her, and she retains the sole authority for six years. The worship of Baal, introduced by Jehoram into Judah, and supported by Ahaziah, (2Ki_8:27) is maintained by her. (2Ki_11:18)
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And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead. (On Athaliah, see the comment upon 2Ki_8:18) She was married to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, probably in the lifetime of his father, to cement the alliance concluded between Ahab and Jehoshaphat against the Syrians. (1Ki_22:2-4) She inherited much of her mother Jezebel"s character, obtained an unlimited ascendancy over her husband, Jehoram, and kept her son Ahaziah in leading-strings. It was unquestionably through her influence that Jehoram was prevailed upon to introduce the Baal-worship into Judah (2Ki_8:18; 2Ch_2:5, 2Ch_2:11) and Ahaziah prevailed upon to maintain it (2Ki_8:27; 2Ch_22:3, "He also Talked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly On the death of Ahaziah, she found her position seriously imperiled. The crown would have passed naturally to one of her grandchildren, the eldest of the sons of Ahaziah. She would have lost her position of gebirah, or queen mother, which would have passed to the widow of Ahaziah, the mother of the new sovereign. If she did not at once lose all influence, at any rate a counter-influence to hers would have been established; and this might well have been that of the high priest, who was closely connected by marriage with the royal family. Under these circumstances, she took the bold resolution described in the next clause. She arose and destroyed the seed royal. She issued her orders, and had all the members of the house of David on whom she could lay her hands put to death. The royal house had already been greatly depleted by Jehoram"s murder of his brothers, (2Ch_21:4) by Arab marauders, (2Ch_21:17) and by Jehu"s murder of the "brethren of Ahaziah"; (2Ki_10:14) but it is clear that Ahaziah had left several sons behind him, and some of his "brethren" had also, in all probability, left issue. There may also have been many other descendants of David in Judah, belonging to other branches of the house than that of Rehoboam. Athaliah, no doubt, endeavored to make a clean sweep, and get rid of them all.
Vers. 1-3 and 14-16.
Athaliah and Jezebel, the wicked daughter and the wicked mother.
It has often been noted that, while women are, as a general rule, better than men, in the cases where they enter upon evil courses their wickedness exceeds that of their male associates. The character of Lady Macbeth is true to nature. Wicked women are more thorough-going than wicked men, more bloody, more daring, more unscrupulous. In Athatiah we have a sort of repetition of Jezebel a second picture on the same lines the picture of a fierce, ambitious, utterly unscrupulous woman, occupying much the same station as her mother, equally powerful, equally unsparing, and equally remorseless. Both women are represented as
I DEVOTEES OF THE SAME SENSUOUS AND IMMORAL CULT. Jezebel introduces the Baal and Ashtoreth worship into Israel; Athaliah into Judah. Each defiles the capital of her adopted country with a temple to Baal a temple where images of Baal are set up, altars erected to him, and sacrifices offered to him. Each brings with her into her new home the Baal priesthood, and installs it in power.
II OPEN ANTAGONISTS OF JEHOVAH. Jezebel persecutes the Jehovistic prophets, slaying as many as she can, and threatening the life even of Elijah. (1Ki_18:4 1Ki_19:2) Athaliah stops the temple-worship at Jerusalem, has breaches made in the temple walls, and gives to Baal the offerings which properly belong to Jehovah. (2Ch_24:7)
III MURDERESSES. Jezebel, of Naboth (1Ki_21:8-14) and of the Jehovistic prophets; (1Ki_18:4) Athaliah, of "all the seed royal of the house of Judah". (2Ch_22:10)
IV EAGER TO GRASP AND WIELD SOVEREIGN POWER. Jezebel governs Ahab, (1Ki_21:25) uses his signet, (1Ki_21:8) orders executions, (1Ki_18:4 1Ki_21:10) and the like. Athaliah governs Jehoram (2Ki_8:18) and Ahaziah, (2Ch_22:3) and then seizes the royal power, and actually rules Judaea. (2Ki_11:3) Athaliah is, on the whole, the bolder of the two, and the more unscrupulous; since to destroy the entire seed royal, including several of her own grandchildren, was a more atrocious and unnatural deed than any committed by Jezebel; and the actual assumption of the royal name and power, in spite of her sex, was a more audacious proceeding than any on which her mother ventured. But her audacity verged on rashness, which cannot be said of Jezebel She brought her fate upon herself; Jezebel succumbed to an inevitable stroke of adverse fortune. There was weakness in Athaliah"s half-measures after she became queen, in her suffering Jehoiada to retain so much liberty and so much power, and still greater weakness in her unsuspiciousness. We cannot imagine Jezebel, if she had ever been actual queen, allowing herself to be put down in the way that Athaliah was. She would at least have made a fight for her life, instead of walking straight into a trap, which was what Athaliah did. Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat is an old saying. Athaliah"s folly at the last can only be accounted for by an infatuation, which may have been a Divine judgment on her.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN. Vers. 1-16.
The preservation and coronation of Joash.
This is a touching story of hymen wickedness and of God"s overruling and preserving power. Three principal personages come before us here, from each of whom something may be learned.
I ATHALIAH AND HER WORK. Athaliahs life-work was a Work of destruction. She did much harm. She did no good. A daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (sometimes called a daughter of Omri, whose granddaughter she was), she had inherited all the evil propensities of her parents. She destroyed her own husband, Jehoram King of Judah. We read of him that "he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab: for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife: and he wrought that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord". (2Ch_21:6) She destroyed also her son Ahaziah. We read of him that "he also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly. Wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord like the house of Ahab; for they were his counselors after the death of his father to his destruction". (2Ch_21:3, 2Ch_21:4) And now she completes her destructive career by putting to death her grandchildren, the seed royal of the kingdom. There are many women like Athaliah, whose life-work is a work of destruction. What harm one wicked woman can do! Some corrupt the morals of others. Some, by their evil-speaking and slander, do what they can to destroy the reputation and good name of their neighbors. The Jezebels and Athaliahs of Scripture story have their parallels in the Queen Marys, the Pompadours, the Medicis, and the Maintenons of more modern times.
II JEHOSHEBA AND HER WORK. Jehosheba"s work was a work of preservation. She too was a king"s daughter. But she had not been corrupted by the wickedness of the court. She was the wife of Jehoiada the priest a good wife of a good man. She rescued Joash from Athaliah"s massacre, and kept him hid in the priests" apartments in the temple. There he was hid for six years, until the time that, as a boy-king, he was called to the throne. If there are Athaliahs in the world still, there are also Jehoshebas. If there are women of cruelty, there are also women of sympathetic and. compassionate spirit. If there are women who are corrupters of others, how many there are who by their own pure life and conduct have been the preservers of public purity and morality! If one wicked woman can do much harm, one pure-minded Christian woman can do a vast amount of good. What an amount of quiet beneficence is being carried on by Christian women throughout the world at the present day! What a vast number of ladies who visit and minister to the poor! What a vast number of ladies who, in hospitals and in private houses, devote themselves to the noble work of nursing the sick I How many are engaged in instructing the young in our Sunday schools! How many have gone forth as missionaries to heathen lands! Woman"s work in the Christian Church, and in the cause of charity and philanthropy, seems to be increasing every year.
III JEHOIADA AND HIS WORK. Jehoiada"s work was of a twofold nature. His work was both destroying and preserving. He destroyed idolatry. He put an end to Athaliah"s reign and life. He did not believe in the policy of non-resistance. He believed in doing his utmost to overthrow even the power of the reigning queen, when that power was wickedly obtained, and exercised in an evil way, dishonoring to God and injurious to the interests of the nation. Like many another reformer, he incurred the charge of disloyalty and treason. But there are many things that need to be destroyed. And who can overestimate the harm done by a wicked ruler? But Jehoiada was no mere revolutionist. He did not rebel against Athaliah for revolution"s sake. He did not put an end to her reign because of his antipathy to governments. He would have agreed with St. Paul that "the powers that be are ordained of God." He set up another king in her place, and, in place of the idolatry which she had sanctioned, he set up the worship of the true God. We see in the whole narrative the overruling providence of God. Athaliah thought she would make her power secure by her holocaust of young princes. But man proposes, and God disposes. We see also the use of human instrumentality. God works by means. He used Jehosheba to preserve the young life which in the end was the means, in Jehoiada"s hand, of overthrowing the wicked power of Athaliah. C.H.I.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Vers. 1-21.
The history of Athaliah.
when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead," etc. Among the blackest names in the long roll of the world"s infamy are those of kings and queens, and amongst them Athaliah is not the least abhorrent and revolting. She was the daughter of Ahab King of Israel, and of Jezebel, his notorious wife. She married Joram (or Jehoram) King of Judah. She was the mother of Ahaziah, and advised him in his wickedness. After Jehu had slain him, she resolved to put an end to all the children of her husband by his former wives, and then mount the throne of Judah herself. But the half-sister of Ahaziah, Jehosheba, secured Joash, one of the children and heir to the throne, and secreted him with his nurse for six long years. In the seventh year the young prince was brought forth and placed on the throne. Crowds of people assembled to witness the ceremony, and Athaliah, hearing the shouts of the crowd, hastened to the temple, utterly unsuspicious even of the existence of the young king. When, however, she caught a sight of the young king and heard the hurrahs of the crowd, she felt that her atrocious plans had been frustrated, and in her savage humiliation rent her clothes and cried, "Treason! Treason!" But her hour was over; she was too late to rally a party in favor of her own interest, and by the command of the priest she was instantly removed and violently destroyed. In this woman"s life, as here sketched, we have hereditary de, rarity, outwitted wickedness, and just retribution.
I HEREDITARY DEPRAVITY. We find in this woman, Athaliah, the infernal tendencies of her father and her mother, Ahab and Jezebel. Though they had been swept as monsters from the earth, and were now lying in the grave, their hellish spirit lived and worked in this their daughter. It is, alas! often so. We have an immortality in others, as well as in ourselves. The men of long-forgotten generations still live in the present. Even the moral pulse of Adam throbs in all. By this fact we are reminded:
1. That the moral qualities of parents may become physical tendencies in their children. The man who voluntarily (and all moral qualities are voluntary productions) contracts habits of falsehood, dishonesty, profanity, incontinence, drunkenness, and general intemperance, transmits these to his children as physical tendencies. This is marvelous, but patent to every observer of society and student of history. Who cannot refer to both men and women who have received an unappeasable craving for strong drinks by the drunken habits contracted by their parents?
2. That the evil moral qualities of parents, reappearing in their children in the form of physical tendencies, is no complete justification for the childrens wickedness. This is clear:
(1) From the fact that God has endowed all with sufficient force to control all physical tendencies. Most men have sufficient mental faculties to quench the strongest physical passion.
(2) From the personal consciousness of every sinner. When the conscience is quickened, the greatest liar, debauchee, drunkard, thief, becomes filled with compunctions for the crimes committed. Every sigh of remorse on account of sin is a testimony to the power of the human mind to control the passions.
(3) From the Divine Word as found in the Scriptures. "Whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free." "He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.
3. That the way to raise the human race is to improve their moral qualities. Indoctrinate men"s souls with truth, benevolence, piety, chastity, purity, etc., and you help on the race to its millennium. And in no other way. The gospel is the instrument for this.
II OUTWITTED WICKEDNESS. NO doubt this woman, who thought she had destroyed all the "seed royal," considered she had made her way to the throne clear and secure. For six long years she had no conception that one had escaped her bloody purpose. Now it was revealed to her, and her disappointment maddens her with vengeance, and excites the desperate cry, "Treason! Treason!" It is ever so. "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty." History abounds with the examples of the bafflement of wrong. The conduct of Joseph"s brethren, Ahithophel, Sanballat, Haman, and the Jewish Sanhedrin in relation to Christ, are instances. Satan, the arch-enemy of the universe, will exemplify this through all the crises of his accursed future. A piece of conduct, wrought by the highest human skill and earnest industry, if not in accord with the immutable principles of right and truth, can no more succeed in its purpose than a house can stand, which is built regardless of the resistless laws of gravitation. The architecture may look well, the materials be most precious, and the production be most costly, yet down it must come, and confound the builder. Craftiness uses lies as concealment and defense, but the eternal law of Providence makes them snares. One lie leads to another, and so on, until they become so numerous that the author involves himself in contradictions, and he falls and flounders like a wild beast in a snare.
III JUST RETRIBUTION. "Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth without the ranges: and him that followeth her kill with the sword.... And they laid hands on her; and she went by the way by the which the horses came into the king"s house: and there was she slain.... And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was in quiet: and they slew Athaliah with the sword beside the king"s house." Thus Soepe intereunt aliis meditantes necem. Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves. Here is:
1. A terrible retribution.
2. A prompt retribution. It came on her here before she passed into the other world. Retribution is going on now and here.
3. A retribution administered by human hands. Truly "the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet he shall perish forever.... Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night." An Oriental act thus vividly describes the retribution that must follow wickedness
"All vice to which man yields in greed to do it, Or soon or late, be sure, he"ll sorely rue it; Experience deep, howe"er false seeming blind him, Surcharged with retribution, out will find him.
It locks upon his soul a fatal fetter, Explodes throughout his face in horrid tatter, Over his shameless eyeballs brings a blurring, Keeps in his heart a deadly fear-load stirring;
At all pure joys with fiendish talon snatches, The noblest traits from out his being catches; Each beam and hope and vision darkens, His conscience stuns whene"er towards heaven be hearkens;
On goading thorns his sleepless longing tosses, With soul remorse-foam pleasure"s waves embosses. Sometimes from phantom-fears impels him flying, Sometimes in frantic horrors shrouds his dying;
Now turns his dearest friends to cease to love him, Now spreads avenging Siva"s form above him; Makes this world black with prison walls and gibbets, And in the next escape from hell prohibits.
The whole creation"s strange and endless dealing, In spite of shields and veils and arts concealing, Proclaims that whosoe"er is long a sinner Can only be by it of woe a winner. D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-3.
Athaliah"s usurpation.
Athaliah was the evil genius of Judah, as Jezebel was of Israel. The mother was slain, but, unwarned by her fall, the daughter snatched at the reins of power, and held the throne for six years. The track of both was marked by violence, bloodshed, and political convulsion.
I THE WICKEDNESS OF ATHALIAH. Ahaziah"s death gave Athaliah her opportunity. Nothing could more clearly reveal the wicked disposition of the woman than the means by which she raised herself to the throne.
When she "saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.
1. She was a woman, yet, to pave her way to power, she did not hesitate to crush every feminine instinct in her breast, and to imbrue her hands in innocent blood.
2. She was a mother, yet she remorselessly put to death her own grandchildren. The youngest was a babe, but her savage temper made no distinctions. Her son"s offspring were only rivals, to be got out of the way by murder. In this tigress-like nature of the queen-mother all womanhood is effaced. Truly "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel". (Pro_12:10)
II THE PRESERVATION OF JOASH. After all, Athaliah"s end was not gained. Unknown to this savage woman, one of Ahaziah"s sons, the youngest, was saved from the general massacre by his aunt Jehosheba, and, after a temporary concealment in the store-chamber of the palace, was conveyed to the temple, and there secretly brought up. We have in this deliverance of the young Joash:
1. An example of faith and courage. IS was "by faith" that the pious Jehosheba did this daring act, even as it was by faith that the parents of Moses hid their goodly child. (Heb_11:23) And faith, in this instance as in the other, had its reward.
2. A proof of Gods faithfulness to his promise. It had been promised to David that he should never want a man to sit on his throne. (1Ki_8:25) That promise seemed now frustrated, when to outward appearance every descendant of David was destroyed. But "the counsel of the Lord standeth forever". (Psa_33:11) No device of man can prevail against that.
3. An illustration of how God can defeat the designs of the wicked. Skillfully as the wicked lay their plots, there is generally something overlooked, forgotten, which brings them to naught. Some witness of their crimes is left undetected. They seem to have closed up every chink and cranny through which defeat could enter, yet it is found that some loophole has been left. A good and true cause may be safely left in the hands of God. He will not suffer it to fail. J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 10 And when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that…
2Ki_11:1-21
And when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead.
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The history of Athaliah
The blackest names in the long roll of the worlds infamy are those of kings and queens, and amongst them Athaliah is not the least abhorrent. In this womans life, as here sketched, we have--
I. Hereditary depravity. We find in this woman, Athaliah, the infernal tendencies of her father and her mother, Ahab and Jezebel. Though they had been swept as monsters from the earth, their hellish spirit lived and worked in this their daughter. We have an immortality in others, as well as in ourselves. In this fact we are reminded--
1. That the moral qualities of parents may become physical tendencies in the children. The man who voluntarily contracts habits of falsehood, dishonesty, profanity, incontinence, drunkenness, and general intemperance, transmits these to his children as physical tendencies.
2. That the evil moral qualities of parents, reappearing in their children in the form of physical tendencies, is no complete justification for the childrens wickedness. This is clear
(1) From the fact that God has endowed all with sufficient force to control all physical tendencies.
(2) From the personal consciousness of every sinner.
(3) From the Divine Word as found in the Scriptures. Whatsoever good thing any man doeth the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons. The fact of hereditary depravity reminds us--
3. That the way to raise the human race is to improve their moral qualities. In this womans life we see--
II. Outwitted wickedness. No doubt this woman, who thought she had destroyed all the seed royal, considered she had made her way to the throne clear and secure. For six long years she had no conception that one had escaped her bloody purpose. Now it was revealed to her, and her disappointment maddens her with vengeance, and excites the desperate cry, Treason, treason! It is ever so. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty. History abounds with the examples of the bafflement of wrong. The conduct of Josephs brethren, Ahithophel, Sanballat, Haman, and the Jewish Sanhedrim in relation to Christ, are instances. Craftiness uses lies as concealment and defence, but the eternal law of Providence makes them snares. In this womans life we see--
III. Just retribution. Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves. Here is
(1) A terrible retribution.
(2) A prompt retribution. It came on her there before she passed into the other world. Retribution is going on now and here. There is
(3) A retribution administered by wicked men. God punishes the wicked by the wicked. The whole history of the world is an illustration of this. Truly the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. Though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds, yet he shall perish for ever Yea he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. (David Thomas, D. D.)
Malign succession
A wicked mother left behind her a wicked daughter. What else could be expected but that the demoniac Jezebel should be reflected and repeated, so far as character and conduct were concerned, in her daughter Athaliah? How very often such a malign succession is seen! Henry VIII. was terribly given to executing any of his subjects who opposed him. His elder daughter, Queen Mary, led the awful persecution against Protestants in which so many martyrs were burned, including Bishops Ridley, Hooper, Latimer, and Archbishop Cranmer. Had she had a gentler father her disposition might have been more merciful. (Christian Commonwealth.)
Athaliah
Observe a very strong peculiarity in human nature, as shown in the conduct of Athaliah. She went into the temple and saw the young Joash with a crown upon his head, and she shrieked out, Treason, treason! Poor innocent Athaliah! Who would not pity so gentle a dove, with a breast of feathers and a cruel dart rankling in it. Sweet woman, gentle loving creature, injured queen--her hands were perfectly clean; she was the victim of a cruel stratagem; she was outwitted by heads longer than hers; she, poor unsuspecting soul, had been brought into this condition, and all she could do was to cry in injured helplessness, Treason, treason! How moral we become under some circumstances! How very righteous we stand up to be under certain provocations! Who could but pity poor Athaliah, who had nursed her grandchildren with a wolfs care? We do this very self-same thing very often in our own lives. Where is the man who does not suppose that he has a right to do wrong? But let other people do wrong, and then hear him. Given a religious sect of any name whatsoever, that has the domination of any neighbourhood, and the probability is that that religious sect will use its supremacy somewhat mischievously in certain circumstances. It will not let anybody who opposes its tenets have an acre of ground in that neighbourhood, nor will it allow any sect that opposes its principles to build a church there. No, it takes a righteous view of the circumstances; it will not trifle with its responsibilities; it can allow no encroachment; it is charged with the spirit of stewardship, and must be faithful to its sacred obligations. So it cants and whines, whatever its name be: if it be the name we bear religiously so much the worse. We speak of no particular sect, or of any sect that may be placed in such peculiar circumstances as to claim the domination and supremacy in any neighbourhood. Now let any member of that sect leave that particular locality and go to live under a different set of circumstances, and apply for a furlong of ground, or for a house that he may occupy as tenant; then let it be found that his religious convictions are a bar to his entrance upon the enjoyment of local properties and liberties, he will call Persecution, persecution! How well it befits his lips. The very man who in one district persecuted to the death those who opposed him removes to another locality where a screw is applied to his own joints, and he cries out, Persecution--persecution! It is Athaliahs old trick, and will have Athaliahs poor reward. See how the cry of the wicked is unheeded. She was a woman, and by so much had a claim upon the sympathy of the strong. No mans heart went out towards her in loyal reverence. With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged. With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. As I have done, said a sufferer of old, to others, so the Lord hath requited me. Though hand join in hand, yet the wicked shall not go unpunished. If you are treating any of your family, your wife or husband or child, with base cruelty, it will surely come home to you some other day. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
ATHALLAH
(B.C. 842-836)
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JOASH BEN AHAZIAH OF JUDAH
(B.C. 836-796)
2Ki_11:1-21; 2Ki_12:1-21
"Par cette fin terrible, et due a ses forfaits,
Apprenez, Roi des Juifs, et noubliez jamais,
Que les rois dans le ciel ont un juge severe,
Linnocence un vengeur, et les orphelins un pere!"
- RACINE, "Athalie."
"Regardless of the sweeping whirlwinds sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects its evening prey."
- GRAY.
BEFORE we follow the destinies of the House of Jehu we must revert to Judah, and watch the final consequences of ruin which came in the train of Ahabs Tyrian marriage, and brought murder and idolatry into Judah, as well as into Israel.
Athaliah, who, as queen-mother, was more powerful than the queen-consort (malekkah), was the true daughter of Jezebel. She exhibits the same undaunted fierceness, the same idolatrous fanaticism, the same swift resolution, the same cruel and unscrupulous wickedness.
It might have been supposed that the miserable disease of her husband Jehoram, followed so speedily by the murder, after one years reign, of her son Ahaziah, might have exercised over her character the softening influence of misfortune. On the contrary, she only saw in these events a short path to the consummation of her ambition.
Under Jehoram she had been queen: under Ahaziah she had exercised still more powerful influence as Gebirah, and had asserted her sway alike over her husband and over her son, whose counsellor she was to do wickedly. It was far from her intention tamely to sink from her commanding position into the abject nullity of an aged and despised dowager in a dull provincial seraglio. She even thought that
"To reign is worth ambition though in hell
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."
The royal family of the House of David, numerous and flourishing as it once was, had recently been decimated by cruel catastrophes. Jehoram, instigated probably by his heathen wife, had killed his six younger brothers. {2Ch_21:2-4} Later on, the Arabs and Philistines, in their insulting invasion, had not only plundered his palace, but had carried away his sons; so that, according to the Chronicler, "there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz [i.e., Ahaziah], the youngest of his sons." {2Ch_21:17} He may have had other sons after that invasion; and Ahaziah had left children, who must all, however, have been very young, since he was only twenty-two or twenty-three when Jehus servants murdered him. Athaliah might naturally have hoped for the regency; but this did not content her. When she saw that her son Ahaziah was dead, "she arose and destroyed all the seed royal." In those days the life of a child was but little thought of; and it weighed less than nothing with Athaliah that these innocents were her grandchildren. She killed all of whose existence she was aware, and boldly seized the crown. No queen had ever reigned alone either in Israel or in Judah. Judah must have sunk very low, and the talents of Athaliah must have been commanding, or she could never have established a precedent hitherto undreamed of, by imposing on the people of David for six years the yoke of a woman, and that woman a half-Phoenician idolatress. Yet so it was! Athaliah, like her cousin Dido, felt herself strong enough to rule.
But a womans ruthlessness was outwitted by a womans cunning. Ahaziah had a half-sister on the fathers side, the princess Jehosheba, or Jehoshabeath, who was then or afterwards (we are told) married to Jehoiada, the high priest. The secrets of harems are hidden deep, and Athaliah may have been purposely kept in ignorance of the birth to Ahaziah of a little babe whose mother was Zibiah of Beersheba, and who had received the name of Joash. If she knew of his existence, some ruse must have been palmed off upon her, and she must have been led to believe that he too had been killed. But he had not been killed. Jehosheba "stole him from among the kings sons that were slain," and, with the connivance of his nurse, hid him from the murderers sent by Athaliah in the palace storeroom in which beds and couches were kept. Thence, at the first favorable moment, she transferred the child and nurse to one of the chambers in the three stories of chambers which ran round the Temple, and were variously used as wardrobes or as dwelling-rooms.
The hiding-place was safe; for under Athaliah the Temple of Jehovah fell into neglect and disrepute, and its resident ministers would not be numerous. It would not have been difficult, in the seclusion of Eastern life, for Jehosheba to pass off the babe as her own child to all but the handful who knew the secret.
Six years passed away, and the iron hand of Athaliah still kept the people in subjection. She had boldly set up in Judah her mothers Baal worship. Baal had his temple not far from that of Jehovah; and though Athaliah did not imitate Jezebel in persecuting the worshippers of Jehovah, she made her own high priest, Mattan, a much more important person than Jehoiada for all who desired to propitiate the favors of the Court.
Joash had now reached his seventh year, and a Jewish prince in his seventh year is regarded as something more than a mere child. Jehoiada thought that it was time to strike a blow in his favor, and to deliver him from the dreadful confinement which made it impossible for him to leave the Temple precincts.
He began secretly to tamper with the guards both of the Temple and of the palace. Upon the Levitic guards, indignant at the intrusion of Baal-worship, he might securely count, and the Carites and queens runners were not likely to be very much devoted to the rule of the manlike and idolatrous alien queen. Taking an oath of them in secrecy, he bound them to allegiance to the little boy whom he produced from the Temple chamber as their lawful lord, and the son of their late king.
The plot was well laid. There were five captains of the five hundred royal bodyguards, and the priest secretly enlisted them all in the service. The Chronicler says that he also sent round to all the chief Levites, and collected them in Jerusalem for the emergency. The arrangements of the Sabbath gave special facility to his plans; for on that day only one of the five divisions of guards mounted watch at the palace, and the others were set free for the service of the Temple. It had evidently been announced that some great ceremony would be held in the shrine of Jehovah; for all the people, we are told, were assembled in the courts of the house of the Lord. Jehoiada ordered one of the companies to guard the palace; another to be at the "gate Sur," or the gate "of the Foundation"; another at the gate behind the barracks (?) of the palace-runners, to be a barrier against any incursion from the palace. Two more were to ensure the safety of the little king by watching the precincts of the Temple. The Levitic officers were to protect the kings person with serried ranks. Jehoiada armed them with spears and shields, which David had placed as trophies in the porch; and if any one tried to force his way within their lines he was to be slain.
The only danger to be apprehended was from any Carite mercenaries, or palace servants of the queen: among all others Jehoiada found a widespread defection. The people, the Levites, even the soldiers, all hated the Baal worshipping usurper.
At the fateful moment the guards were arranged in two dense lines, beginning from either side of the porch, till their ranks met beyond the altar, so as to form a hedge round the royal boy. Into this triangular space the young prince was led by the high priest, and placed beside the matstsebah-some prominent pillar in the Temple court, either one of Solomons pillars Jachin and Boaz, or some special erection of later days. Round him stood the princes of Judah, and there, in the midst of them, Jehoiada placed the crown upon his head, and in significant symbol also laid lightly upon it for a moment "The Testimony"-perhaps the Ten Commandments and the Book of the Covenant-the most ancient fragment of the Pentateuch which was treasured up with the pot of manna inside or in front of the Ark. Then he poured on the childs head the consecrated oil, and said, "Let the king live!"
The completion of the ceremony was marked by the blare of the rams horns, the softer blast of the silver trumpets, and the answering shouts of the soldiers and the people. The tumult, or the news of it, reached the ears of Athaliah in the neighboring palace, and, with all the undaunted courage of her mother, she instantly summoned her escort, and went into the Temple to see for herself what was taking place. She probably mounted the ascent which Solomon had made from the palace to the Temple court, though it had long been robbed of its precious metals and scented woods. She led the way, and thought to overawe by her personal ascendency any irregularity which might be going on; for in the deathful hush to which she had reduced her subjects she does not seem to have dreamt of rebellion. No sooner had she entered than the guards closed behind her, excluding and menacing her escort.
A glance was sufficient to reveal to her the significance of the whole scene. There, in royal robes, and crowned with the royal crown, stood her little unknown grandson beside the matstsebah, while round him were the leaders of the people and the trumpeters, and the multitudes were still rolling their tumult of acclamation from the court below. In that sight she read her doom. Rending her clothes, she turned to fly, shrieking, "Treason! treason!" Then the commands of the priest rang out: "Keep her between the ranks, till you have got her outside the area of the Temple; and if any of her guards follow or try to rescue her, kill him with the sword. But let not the sacred courts be polluted with her blood." So they made way for her, and as she could not escape she passed between the rows of Levites and soldiers till she had reached the private chariot-road by which the kings drove to the precincts. There the sword of vengeance fell. Athaliah disappears from history, and with her the dark race of Jezebel. But her story lives in the music of Handel and the verse of Racine.
This is the only recorded revolution in the history of Judah. In two later cases a king of Judah was murdered, but in both instances "the people of the land" restored the Davidic heir. Life in Judah was less dramatic and exciting than in Israel, but far more stable; and this, together with comparative immunity from foreign invasions, constituted an immense advantage.
Jehoiada, of course, became regent for the young king, and continued to be his guide for many years, so that even the kings two wives were selected by his advice. As the nation had been distracted with idolatries, he made the covenant between the king and the people that they should be loyal to each other, and between Jehoiada and the king and the people that they should be Jehovahs people. Such covenants were not infrequent in Jewish history. Such a covenant had been made by Asa {2Ch_15:9-15} after Abijams apostasy, as it was afterwards made by Hezekiah {2Ch_29:10} and by Josiah. {2Ch_29:31} The new covenant, and the sense of awakenment from the dream of guilty apostasy, evoked an outburst of spontaneous enthusiasm in the hearts of the populace. Of their own impulse they rushed to the temple of Baal which Athaliah had reared, dismantled it, and smashed to pieces his altars and images. The riot was only stained by a single murder. They slew Mattan, Athaliahs Baal priest, before the altars of his god.
With Jehoiada begins the title of "high priest." Hitherto no higher name than "the priest" had been given even to Aaron, or Eli, or Zadok; but thenceforth the title of "chief priest" is given to his successors, among whom he inaugurated a new epoch.
It was now Jehoiadas object to restore such splendor and solemnity as he could to the neglected worship of the Temple, which had suffered in every way from Baals encroachments. He did this before the kings second solemn inauguration. Even the porters had been done away with, so that the Temple could at any time be polluted by the presence of the unclean, and the whole service of priests and Levites had fallen into desuetude.
Then he took the captains, and the Carians, and the princes, and conducted the boy-king, amid throngs of his shouting and rejoicing people, from the Temple to his own palace. There he seated him on the lion-throne of Solomon his father, in the great hall of justice, and the city was quiet and the land had rest. According to the historian, "Joash did right all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him." The stock addition that "howbeit the bamoth were not removed, and the people still sacrificed and offered incense there," is no derogation from the merits of Joash, and perhaps not even of Jehoiada, since if the law against the bamoth then existed, it had become absolutely unknown, and these local sanctuaries were held to be conducive to true religion.
It was natural that the child of the Temple should have at heart the interests of the Temple in which he had spent his early days, and to the shelter of which he owed his life and throne. The sacred house had been insulted and plundered by persons whom the Chronicler calls "the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman," {2Ch_24:7} meaning, probably, her adherents. Not only had its treasures been robbed to enrich the house of Baal, but it had been suffered to fall into complete disrepair. Breaches gaped in the outer walls, and the very foundations were insecure. The necessity for restoring it occurred, not, as we should have expected, to the priests who lived at its altar, but to the boy-king. He issued an order to the priests that they should take charge of all the money presented to the Temple for the hallowed things, all the money paid in current coin, and all the assessments for various fines and vows, together with every freewill contribution. They were to have this revenue entirely at their disposal, and to make themselves responsible for the necessary repairs. According to the Chronicler, they were further to raise a subscription throughout the country from all their personal friends.
The kings command had been urgent. Money had at first come in, but nothing was done. Joash had reached the twenty-third year of his reign, and was thirty years old; but the Temple remained in its old sordid condition. The matter is passed over by the king as lightly, courteously, and considerately as he could; but if he does not charge the priests with downright embezzlement, he does reproach them for most reprehensible neglect. They were the appointed guardians of the house: why did they suffer its dilapidations to remain untouched year after year, while they continued to receive the golden stream which poured-but now, owing to the disgust of the people, in diminished volume-into their coffers? "Take no more money, therefore," he said, "from your acquaintances, but deliver it for the breaches of the house." For what they had already received he does not call them to account, but henceforth takes the whole matter into his own hands. The neglectful priests were to receive no more contributions, and not to be responsible for the repairs. Joash, however, ordered Jehoiada to take a chest and put it beside the altar on the right. All contributions were to be dropped into this chest. When it was full, it was carried by the Levites unopened into the palace, {2Ch_24:11} and there the kings chancellor and the high priest had the ingots weighed and the money counted; its value was added up, and it was handed over immediately to the architects, who paid it to the carpenters and masons. The priests were left in possession of the money for the guilt-offerings, and for the sin-offerings, but with the rest of the funds they had nothing to do. In this way was restored the confidence which the management of the hierarchy had evidently forfeited, and with renewed confidence in the administration fresh gifts poured in. Even in the cautious narrative of the Chronicler it is clear that the priests hardly came out of these transactions with flying colors. If their honesty is not formally impugned, at least their torpor is obvious, as is the fact that they had wholly failed to inspire the zeal of the people till the young king took the affair into his own hands.
The long reign of Joash ended in eclipse and murder. If the later tradition be correct, it was also darkened with atrocious ingratitude and crime.
For, according to the Chronicler, Jehoiada died at the advanced age of one hundred and thirty, and was buried, as an unwonted honor, in the sepulchers of the kings. When he was dead, the princes of Judah came to Joash, who had now been king for many years, and with a strange suddenness tempted the zealous repairer of the Temple of Jehovah into idolatrous apostasy. With soft speech they seduced him into the worship of Asherim. It was marvelous indeed if the child of the Temple became its foe, and he who had made a covenant with Jehovah fell away to Baalim. But worse followed. Prophets reproved him, and he paid them no heed, in spite of "the greatness of the burdens"-i.e., the multitude of the menaces-laid upon him. {2Ch_24:27} The stern, denunciative harangues were despised. At last Zechariah, the son of his benefactor Jehoiada, rebuked king and people. He cried aloud from some eminence in the court of the Temple, that "since they had transgressed the commandments of Jehovah they could not prosper: they had forsaken Him, and He would forsake them." Infuriated by this prophecy of woe, the guilty people, at the command of their guiltier king, stoned him to death. As he lay dying, he exclaimed, "The Lord look upon it, and require it!"
The entire silence of the elder and better authority might lead us to hope that there may be room for doubt as to the accuracy of the much later tradition. Yet there certainly was a persistent belief that Zechariah had been thus martyred. A wild legend, related, in the Talmud, tells us that when Nebuzaradan conquered Jerusalem and entered the Temple he saw blood bubbling up from the floor of the court, and slaughtered ninety-four myriads, so that the blood flowed till it touched the blood of Zechariah, that it might be fulfilled which is said, {Hos_4:2} "Blood toucheth blood." When he saw the blood of Zechariah, and noticed that it was boiling and agitated, he asked, "What is this?" and was told that it was the spilled blood of the sacrifices. Finding this to be false, he threatened to comb the flesh of the priests with iron currycombs if they did not tell the truth. Then they confessed that it was the blood of the murdered Zechariah. "Well," he said, "I will pacify him." First he slaughtered the greater and lesser Sanhedrin: but the blood did not rest. Then he sacrificed young men and maidens: but the blood still bubbled: At last he cried, "Zechariah, Zechariah, must I then slay them all?" Then the blood was still, and Nebuzaradan, thinking how much blood he had shed, fled, repented, and became a Jewish proselyte!
Perhaps the worst feature of the story against Joash might have been susceptible of a less shocking coloring. He had naturally all his life been under the influence of priestly domination. The ascendency which Jehoiada had acquired as priest-regent had been maintained till long after the young king had arrived at full manhood. At last, however, he had come into collision with the priestly body. He was in the right; they were transparently in the wrong. The Chronicler, and even the older historians, soften the story against the priests as much as they can; but in both their narratives it is plain that Jehoiada and the whole hierarchy had been more careful of their own interests than of those of the Temple, of which they were the appointed guardians. Even if they can be acquitted of potential malfeasance, they had been guilty of reprehensible carelessness. It is clear that in this matter they did not command the confidence of the people; for so long as they had the management of affairs the sources of munificence were either dried up or only flowed in scanty streams, whereas they were poured forth with glad abundance when the administration of the funds was placed mainly in the hands of laymen under the kings chancellor. It is probable that when Jehoiada was dead Joash thought it right to assert his royal authority in greater independence of the priestly party; and that party was headed by Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada. The Chronicler says that he prophesied: that, however, would not necessarily constitute him a prophet, any more than it constituted Caiaphas. If he was a prophet, and was yet at the head of the priests, he furnishes an all but solitary instance of such a position. The position of a prophet, occupied in the great work of moral reformation, was so essentially antithetic to that of priests, absorbed in ritual ceremonies, that there is no body of men in Scripture of whom, as a whole, we have a more pitiful record than of the Jewish priests. From Aaron, who made the golden calf, to Urijah, who sanctioned the idolatrous altar of Ahaz, and so down to Annas and Caiaphas, who crucified the Lord of glory, they rendered few signal services to true religion. They opposed Uzziah when he invaded their functions, but they acquiesced in all the idolatries and abominations of Rehoboam, Abijah, Ahaziah, Ahaz, and many other kings, without a syllable of recorded protest. When a prophet did spring from their ranks, they set their faces with one consent, and were confederate against him. They mocked and ridiculed Isaiah. When Jeremiah rose among them, the priest Pashur smote him on the cheek, and the whole body persecuted him to death, leaving him to be protected only by the pity of eunuchs and courtiers. Ezekiel was the priestliest of the prophets, and yet he was forced to denounce the apostasies which they permitted in the very temple. The pages of the prophets ring with denunciations of their priestly contemporaries. {Isa_24:2; Jer_5:31; Jer_23:11; Eze_7:26; Eze_22:26; Hos_4:9; Mic_3:11, etc.}
We do not know enough of Zechariah to say much about his character; but priests in every age have shown themselves the most unscrupulous and the most implacable of enemies. Joash probably stood to him in the same relation that Henry II stood to Thomas a Becket. The priests murder may have been due to an outburst of passion on the part of the kings friends, or of the king himself-gentle as his character seems to have been-without being the act of black ingratitude which late traditions represented it to be. The legend about Zechariahs blood represents the priests spirit as so ruthlessly unforgiving as to awaken the astonishment and even the rebukes of the Babylonian idolater. Such a legend could hardly have arisen in the case of a man who was other than a most formidable opponent. The murder of Joash may have been, in its turn, a final outcome of the revenge of the priestly party. The details of the story must be left to inference and conjecture, especially as they are not even mentioned in the earlier and more impartial annalists.
It is at least singular that while Joash, the king, is blamed for continuing the worship at the bamoth, Jehoiada, the high priest, is not blamed, though they continued throughout his long and powerful regency. Further, we have an instance of the priest-regents autocracy which can hardly be regarded as redounding to his credit. It is preserved in an accidental allusion on the page of Jeremiah. In Jer_29:26 we read his reproof and doom of the lying prophecy of the priest Shemaiah the Nehelamite, because as a priest he had sent a letter to the chief priest Zephaniah and all the priests, urging them as the successors of Jehoiada to follow the ruling of Jehoiada, which was to put Jeremiah in a collar. For Jehoiada, he said, "had ordered the priests, as officers [pakidim] in the house of Jehovah, to put in the stocks every one that is mad and maketh himself a prophet. {Jer_29:24-32} If, then, the Jehoiada referred to is the priest-regent, as seems undoubtedly to be the case, we see that he hated all interference of Jehovahs prophets with his rule. That the prophets were usually regarded by the world and by priests as "mad," we see from the fact that the title is given by Jehus captains to Elishas emissary; {2Ki_9:11} and that this continued to be the case we see from the fact that the priests and Pharisees of Jerusalem said of John the Baptist that he had a devil, and of Christ that He was a Samaritan, and that He, too, had a devil. If Joash was in opposition to the priestly party, he was in the same position as all Gods greatest saints and reformers have ever been from the days of Moses to the days of John Wesley. The dominance of priestcraft is the invariable and inevitable death of true, as apart from functional, religion. Priests are always apt to concentrate their attention upon their temples, altars, religious practices and rites-in a word, upon the externals of religion. If they gain a complete ascendency over their fellow-believers, the faithful become their absolute slaves, religion degenerates into formalism, "and the life of the soul is choked by the observance of the ceremonial law." It was a misfortune for the Chosen People that, except among the prophets and the wise men, the external worship was thought much more of than the moral law. "To the ordinary man," says Wellhausen, "it was not moral but liturgical acts which seemed to be religious." This accounts for the monotonous iteration of judgments on the character of kings, based primarily, not upon their essential character, but on their relation to the bamoth and the calves. Although the historian of the Kings gives no hint of this dark story of Zechariahs murder, or of the apostasy of Joash, and indeed narrates no other event of the long reign of forty years, he tells us of the deplorable close. Hazaels ambition had been fatal to Israel; and now, in the cessation of Assyrian inroads upon Aram, he extended his arms towards Judah. He went up against Gath and took it, and cherished designs against Jerusalem. Apparently he did not head the expedition in person, and the historian implies that Joash bought off the attack of his "general." But the Chronicler makes things far worse. He says that the Syrian host marched to Jerusalem, destroyed all the princes of the people, plundered the city, and sent the spoil to Hazael, who was at Damascus. Judah, he says, had assembled a vast army to resist the small force of the Syrian raid; but Joash was ignominiously defeated, and was driven to pay blackmail to the invader. As to this defeat in battle the historian is silent; but he mentions what the Chronicler omits-namely, that the only way in which Joash could raise the requisite bribe was by once more stripping the Temple and the palace, and sending to Damascus all the treasures which his three predecessors had consecrated, -though we are surprised to learn that after so many strippings and plunderings any of them could still be left. The anguish and mortification of mind caused by these disasters, and perhaps the wounds he had received in the defeat of his army, threw Joash into "great diseases." But he was not suffered to die of these. His servants-perhaps, if that story be authentic, to avenge the slain son of Jehoiada, but doubtless also in disgust at the national humiliation-rose in conspiracy against him, and smote him at Beth-Millo, where he was lying sick. The Septuagint, in 2Ch_24:27, adds the dark fact that all his sons joined in the conspiracy. This cannot be true of Amaziah, who put the murderer to death. Such, however, was the deplorable end of the king who had stood by the Temple pillar in his fair childhood, amid the shouts and trumpet-blasts of a rejoicing people. At that time all things seemed full of promise and of hope. Who could have anticipated that the boy whose head had been touched with the sacred oil and over-shadowed with the Testimony-the young king who had made a covenant with Jehovah, and had initiated the task of restoring the ruined Temple to its pristine beauty-would end his reign in earthquake and eclipse? If indeed he had been guilty of the black ingratitude and murderous apostasy which tradition laid to his charge, we see in his end the nemesis of his ill-doing; yet we cannot but pity one who, after so long a reign, perished amid the spoliation of his people, and was not even allowed to end his days by the sore sickness into which he had fallen, but was hurried into the next world by the assassins knife.
It is impossible not to hope that his deeds were less black than the Chronicler painted. He had made the priests feel his power and resentment, and their Levitic recorder was not likely to take a lenient view of his offences. He says that though Joash was buried in the City of David, he was not buried in the sepulchers of his fathers. The historian of the Kings, however, expressly says that "they buried him with his fathers in the City of David," and he was peaceably succeeded by Amaziah his son.
There is a curious, though it may be an accidental, circumstance about the name of the two conspirators who slew him. They are called "Jozacar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants." The names mean "Jehovah remembers," the son of "Hearer," and "Jehovah awards," the son of "Watcher"; and this strangely recalls the last words attributed in the Book of Chronicles to the martyred Zechariah. "Jehovah look upon it, and require it!" The Chronicler turns the names into "Zabad, the son of Shimeath, an Ammonitess, and Jehozabad, the son of Shimrith, a Moabitess." Does he record this to account for their murderous deed by the blood of hated nations which ran in their veins?
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 17 2Ki_11:1. Athaliah destroyed all the seed royal—She herself usurped…
THE USURPATION OF ATHALIAH IN JUDAH
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
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2Ki_11:1. Athaliah destroyed all the seed royal—She herself usurped the throne; and, to ensure her hold, slew all rival claimants. Jehu had already destroyed “forty-two” brethren or relations of Ahaziah (2Ki_10:13).
2Ki_11:2. Jehosheba, &c.—Her father was king Jehoram, but her mother was not the queen Athaliah; she and her sister Ahaziah were daughters by another wife of Jehoram. Took Joash and hid him in the bedchamber—i.e., not the sleeping apartment, but the storeroom in which bedding was kept, for so בַּחֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת means. No one would be supposed to occupy that storeroom.
2Ki_11:3. Hid in the house of the Lord—After a temporary hiding in the storeroom, he was removed into one of the temple chambers, and thus placed in greatest security under Jehoiada, the high priest’s care.
HOMILETICS OF 2Ki_11:1-3
THE DESPERATION OF REVENGE
I. Is mingled with an ungovernable ambition.—As soon as Athaliah heard of the death of her son Ahaziah, and of the sanguinary policy pursued by Jehu, she determined to be revenged, and she set about the work with all the ferocity and unrelenting hardihood that characterised her mother Jezebel. Her imperious Zidonian nature and love of power were gratified, as well as her thirst for revenge. Through the path of vengeance she saw her way to a throne. A savage nature is always a suspicious one, and Athaliah saw that to make her power secure, her work of revenge must be thorough and complete. Revenge is a mean, paltry feeling, and cannot be cherished long, except in connection with selfish and ambitious schemes.
II. Hesitates not to adopt the cruellest measures to attain its object.—“She arose and destroyed all the seed-royal (2Ki_11:1). This insatiable ogress, this she-vampire, was so utterly insensible to all natural affection, or had become so consummate a mistress in the art of dissembling and stifling emotion, that, without a tear or a sob, she massacred her own grandchildren. She revelled in bloodshed, and rejoiced to “wade through slaughter to a throne.” It was an evidence of her great capabilities and domineering influence, or of the utter moral degeneracy of Judah, that she, a foreigner and an idolater, should be allowed to reach supreme authority, and by such unnaturally cruel methods. Ambition, rendered desperate by revenge, is reckless as to the means used to achieve its purpose.
III. Is unconsciously frustrated when its plans seem most completely carried out (2Ki_11:2). Joash, the infant son of Ahaziah, was snatched from the general massacre, and hid in a room used for stowing away beds. Little did Athaliah dream that that helpless infant was to be the instrument of her fall. Revenge is ever a mistaken policy. The ancient poet tells us that Nemesis was transformed by Jupiter into a goose, to point out the folly of revenge. “Suppose a mad dog bites me,” argues Feltham in his Resolves, “shall I be mad, and bite that dog again? If I kill him, it is not so much to help myself, as to keep others from harm. My interest is to seek a present remedy, while, pursuing the cur, I may at once both lose my wit and my cure. If a wasp sting me, I pursue not the winged insect through the air, but straight apply to draw the venom forth.” The right of vengeance belongs to God alone. To take the matter into our own hands we usurp His authority and insult His righteous Majesty. In seeking to rectify a wrong, we inflict a greater, and bring ruin and confusion upon ourselves. “While we throw a petty vengeance on the head of our offending brother, we boldly pull the Almighty’s on our own.”
IV. Cannot give permanency to its triumphs. “He was hid six years. And Athaliah did reign over the land” (2Ki_11:3). Only six years, and then—the swift-footed Nemesis—“the bitterest of the immortals”—overtook the imperial murderess. Six years of tyrannising power, of regal display, of cringing adulation on the part of her professed supporters, and then—a sudden and ignominious downfall. Six years of patient waiting, of vigilant watching, of careful preparation on the part of those who had to redress the wrong, and then—the blow fell with crushing and decisive effect. Was it worth while to commit such horrible crimes for such brief, illusive, and equivocal results? It does not pay to sin. The triumph snatched by the red hand of crime withered in the grasp. The sceptre is transformed into an avenging sword, the crown into a wreath of torture, and the throne into a tomb.
LESSONS:—
1. An ambitious spirit has great temptations to do wrong.
2. Revenge is blind to the consequences of its Acts 3. It is God-like to forgive rather than retaliate, to suffer wrong than resent it.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ki_11:1-3. Queen Athaliah.
1. Her wicked plans. Idolatrous and fond of power, like her mother Jezebel, she takesthe royal authority into her own hands, in self-will and contrary to right, and murders all the male seed, in order to put an end for ever to the house of David. We see here whither ambition and love of rule may lead men.
2. The frustration of her plans. No one can tread down him whom God sustains. Thus, Pharaoh would have been glad to destroy Israel; Saul would have slain David; Herod the child Jesus. They could not accomplish it. They only injured themselves and perished, as Athaliah did.—Wurt. Summ.
—We have reached the eve of a great revolution and counter revolution, which alone of all the events in the history of the kingdom of Judah possesses the dramatic interest belonging to so many other parts of the sacred story, and which is told with a vividness of detail, implying its lasting significance, and contrasting remarkably with the scanty outlines of the earlier reigns. The friendly policy of the two royal houses had culminated in the marriage of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, with Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab. In her, the fierce determined energy which ran through the Phœnician princes and princesses of that generation—Jezebel, Dido, Pygmalion—was fully developed. Already in her husband’s reign the worship of Baal was restored; and when the tidings reached Jerusalem of the overthrow of her father’s house, of the dreadful end of her mother, and of the fall of her ancestral religion in Samaria, instead of daunting her resolute spirit, it moved her to a still grander effort. It was a critical moment for the house of David. Once from a struggle within the royal household itself, a second time from an invasion of Arabs, a third time from the revolution in the massacres of Jehu’s accession, the dynasty had been thinned and thinned till all the outlying branches of those vast polygamous households had been reduced to the single family of Ahaziah. Ahaziah himself had perished with his uncle on the plain of Esdraelon, and now, when Athaliah saw that Ahaziah was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal. The whole race of David seemed to be swept away. In the general massacre of the princes one boy, still a babe in arms, had been rescued by Jehosheba. He was known as “the king’s son.” The light of David was burnt down to its socket, but there it still flickered. The stem of Jesse was cut down to the very roots; one tender shoot was all that remained On him rested the whole hope of carrying on the lineage of David.—Stanley.
2Ki_11:1. When the corpse of her son was brought to Jerusalem—when she heard how horribly her mother and how treacherously her brother had been slain—that her son’s kindred had been cut off at the pit of the shearing house, and that the worshippers of Baal had been immolated in Samaria—Athaliah caught the strong contagion of blood-thirstiness from the report of these doings. She saw herself a stranger in a strange land, an alien by birth and by religion, without common sympathies between herself and the people among whom she occupied so high a place, and without support from the remaining members of the family to which she had become allied. All the strong ones were gone. What hindered that she should herself seize the dropped reigns of government, and guide the fierce steeds of ruin which threatened to whirl her to destruction? What had she to expect from the spirit which had gone abroad, and from the ulterior designs of Jehu, unless she entered upon a bold course of reaction which might insure both her safety and her greatness! There have been those who deemed themselves compelled to leap into a throne to save themselves from utter ruin; and we would fain believe this was the case with Athaliah.—Kitto.
—Such another imperious woman was Semiramis, Queen of Assyria; Irene, empress of Constantinople and mother of Constantinus Copronymus, whose eyes she put out to make him incapable of the empire, that she might reign alone (vide “Gibbon’s Roman Empire,” ch. 47); and Brumchildis, queen of France, who is said to have been the death of ten princes of the blood, and was herself afterwards put to a cruel death. But the likest in cruelty to Athaliah was Laodice, the wife of Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, who, her husband being dead, seized upon the government, raged cruelly against both nobility and commons, whom she caused to be murdered; poisoned six of her own sons that she might keep the kingdom more securely; only one little one escaped her fury, whom the people at last advanced to the crown, and slew her.—Trapp.
—Jehoshaphat’s marriage of his son with a daughter of the house of Ahab, although he brought it about in a good intention, produced the result that Athaliah ruled over Judah, and brought the dynasty of David to the brink of ruin. So many a quiet, humble, God-fearing family has been brought into calamities, affecting both body and soul, by a thoughtless marriage. The hope that those who are brought up by godless parents will themselves reform and turn to the fear of God has very slight foundation.—Lange.
2Ki_11:2-3. Stolen from death. Grandmothers are more lenient with their children’s children than they were with their own. At forty years of age, if discipline be necessary, chastisement is used; but at seventy, the grandmother, looking upon the misbehaviour of the grandchild, is apologetic, and disposed to substitute confectionary for whip. There is nothing more beautiful than this mellowing of old age toward childhood. But here, we have a contrast. It is old Athaliah, the queenly murderess. She ought to have been honourable. Her father was a king; her husband was a king; her son was a king. And yet we find her plotting for the extermination of the entire royal family, including her own grandchildren. But while the ivory floors of the palace run with carnage, and the whole land is under the shadow of a great horror, a fleet-footed woman, a clergyman’s wife, Jehosheba by name, stealthily approaches the imperial nursery, seizes upon the grandchild that had somehow as yet escaped massacre, wraps it up tenderly but in haste flies down the palace stairs, her heart in her throat lest she be discovered in this Christian abduction. With this youthful prize she presses into the room of the ancient temple, the church of olden time, unwraps the young king, and puts him down, sound asleep as he is, and unconscious of the peril that has been threatened; and there for six years he is secreted in that church apartment. Meanwhile old Athaliah smacks her lips with satisfaction, and thinks that all the royal family are dead.
I. The first thought is that the extermination of righteousness in an impossibility. When a woman is good, she is apt to be very good; and when she is bad, she is apt to be very bad, and this Athaliah was one of the latter sort. She would exterminate the last scion of the house of David, through whom Jesus was to come. She folds her hands, and says: The work is done—is completely done. Is it? In the swaddling-clothes of that church apartment are wrapped the cause of God and the cause of good government. That is the scion of the house of David; it is Joash, the religious reformer; it is Joash, the friend of God; it is Joash, the demolisher of Baalitish idolatry. Rock him tenderly; nurse him gently. Athaliah, you may kill all the other children, but you cannot kill him. Eternal defences are thrown all around him, and this clergyman’s wife, Jehosheba, will snatch him up, will hide him for six years, and at the end of that time he will come forth for your dethronement and obliteration. Just as poor a botch does the world always make of extinguishing righteousness. Just at the time when they thought they had slain all the royal family of Jesus, some Joash would spring up and take the throne of power. Infidelity says: “I’ll just exterminate the Bible,” and the Scriptures were thrown into the street for the mob to trample on, and they were piled up in the public squares and set on fire, and mountains of indignant contempt were hurled on them, and learned universities decreed the Bible out of existence. If there should come a time of persecution in which all the known Bibles of the earth should be destroyed—all these lamps of life that blaze in our pulpits and in our families extinguished—in the very day that infidelity and sin should be holding jubilee over the universal extinction, there shall be a secreted copy of the Bible; and this Joash of eternal literature would come out and come up and take the throne, and the Athaliah of infidelity and persecution would fly out of the back door of the palace, and drop her miserable carcase under the hoofs of the horses of the king’s stables. You cannot exterminate Christianity. You cannot kill Joash.
II. The second thought is: That there are opportunities in which we may save royal life. You know that profane history is replete with stories of strangled monarchs and of young princes who have been put out of the way. Here is the story of a young king saved. Jehosheba, you hold in your arms the cause of God and good government. Fail, and he is slain; succeed, and you turn the tide of the world’s history in the right direction. It seems as if between that young king and his assassins there is nothing but the frail arm of a woman. But why should we spend our time in praising this bravery of expedition, when God asks the same thing of you and me? All around us are the imperilled children of a great king. They are born of Almighty parentage, and will come to a throne or a crown if permitted. But sin, the old Athaliah, goes forth to the massacre. There are sleeping in your cradles by night, there are playing in your nurseries by day, imperial souls waiting for dominion, and whichever side the cradle they get out will decide the destiny of empires. For each one of those children sin and holiness contend—Athaliah on the one side, Jehosheba on the other. Jehosheba knew right well that unless that day the young king was rescued, he would never be rescued at all. The reason we don’t reclaim all our children from worldliness is because we begin too late. Parents wait until their children lie before they teach them the value of truth. They wait until their children swear before they teach them the importance of righteous conversation. They wait until their children are all wrapped up in this world before they tell them of a better world. May God arm us all for this work of snatching royal souls from death to coronation. Can you imagine any sublimer work than this soul saving?
III. The third thought is: That the church of God is a good hiding place. Would God that we were all as wise as Jehosheba, and knew that the church of God is the best hiding-place. Perhaps our parents took us there in early days; they snatched us away from the world and bid us behind the baptismal font, and amid the bibles and the psalm books. Oh, glorious enclosure! How few of us appreciate the fact that the church of God is a hiding-place! There are many people who put the church at so low a mark that they begrudge it everything, even the few dollars they give towards it. They make no sacrifice. If your children are to come up to lives of virtue and happiness, they will come up under the shadow of the church. If the church does not get them, the world will. Ah! when you pass away—and it will not be long before you do—it will be a satisfaction to see your children in Christian society. You want to have them sitting at the holy sacraments. You want them mingling in Christian associations. You would like to have them die in the sacred precincts! Oh! church of God, gate of heaven, let me go through it! All other institutions are going to fail. Jay Cooke’s banking institution went down, Duncan, Sherman, and Co. went down, and all earthly institutions will perish; but the church of God, its foundation is the “Rock of Ages,” its charter is for everlasting years, its keys are held by the universal proprietor, its dividend is heaven, its president is God. God grant that all this audience, the youngest, the eldest, the worst, the best, may find their safe and glorious hiding-place, where Joash found it, in the temple.—(Talmage in C. W. P.)
—O God! how worthy of wonder are thy just and merciful dispensations, in that thou sufferest the seed of good Jehoshaphat to be destroyed by her hand in whose affinity he offended, and yet savest one branch of this stock of Jehoshaphat for the sake of so faithful a progenitor!—Bp. Hall.
2Ki_11:2. The great agents of the world’s reformation.
1. Are prepared in secret.
2. May depend upon a single life.
3. Cannot be destroyed by the hatred and cruelty of the wicked.
4. Will inevitably come to the front
—The perils of a good movement.
1. May appear to be extinct when its reviving force is but in hiding.
2. Its hopes may be suspended on a frail infant life.
3. It is opposed with unrelenting cruelty.
4. It is unexpectedly befriended in its greatest extremity.
—We have an instance in Jehosheba how, even in the midst of godlessness in a family, any one who will, can make an exception. Jehosheba stole him. That was not stealing the child, but saving him. What can a woman do better and nobler than to save an infant from danger of soul and body, and take him under her protection for the sake of God and his promises?—Lange.
2Ki_11:3. As mother of the king she had great power, high influence, and many dependants, which rendered her, in default of a king and of a capable heir to the throne, the most powerful person in the land. She was thus enabled to accomplish all her objects; and Judah beheld the strange sight of a woman, and that woman a foreigner, seated upon the throne of David. Under such auspices, idolatry became rampant in Judah. It would seem that nothing had been gained by the expression of idolatry in Israel; the same thing existed still, the place only having been changed, just as the piece of wood which disappears for a moment under the water comes up again a little way off. No doubt, the cause of the Baal-worship was strengthened by large accessions of fugitives who stole away from Israel.—Kitto.
—When the godless appear to have succeeded in the attainment of their objects, and believe that they have conquered, the very moment of their victory is the unperceived commencement of their ruin. The cross of Christ was the victory of His enemies, but this very victory was what brought about their total defeat.—Krummacher.
—Mischief sometimes fails of those appointments wherein it thinks to have made the surest work. God laughs in Heaven at the plots of tyrants, and befools them in their deepest projects. He had said to David—“Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy seat.” In vain shall earth and hell conspire to frustrate it.—Bp. Hall.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 2 Kings
2 Kings
JEHOIADA AND JOASH
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2Ki 11:1 - 2Ki 11:16.
The king of Judah has been killed, his alliance with the king of Israel having involved him in the latter’s fate. Jehu had also murdered ‘the brethren of Ahaziah,’ forty-two in number. Next, Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah and a daughter of Ahab, killed all the males of the royal family, and planted herself on the throne. She had Jezebel’s force of character, unscrupulousness and disregard of human life. She was a tigress of a woman, and, no doubt, her six year’s usurpation was stained with blood and with the nameless abominations of Baal worship. Never had the kingdom of Judah been at a lower ebb. One infant was all that was left of David’s descendants. The whole promises of God seemed to depend for fulfilment on one little, feeble life. The tree had been cut down, and there was but this one sucker pushing forth a tiny shoot from ‘the root of Jesse.’
We have in the passage, first, the six years of hiding in the temple. It is a pathetic picture, that of the infant rescued by his brave aunt from the blood-bath, and stowed away in the storeroom where the mats and cushions which served for beds were kept when not in use, watched over by two loving and courageous women, and taught infantile lessons by the husband of his aunt, Jehoiada the high priest. Many must have been aware of his existence, and there must have been loyal guarding of the secret, or Athaliah’s sword would have been reddened with the baby’s blood. Like the child Samuel, he had the Temple for his home, and his first impressions would be of daily sacrifices and white-robed priests. It was a better school for him than if he had been in the palace close by. The opening flower would have been soon besmirched there, but in the holy calm of the Temple courts it unfolded unstained. A Christian home should breathe the same atmosphere as surrounded Joash, and it, too, should be a temple, where holy peace rules, and where the first impressions printed on plastic little minds are of God and His service.
We have next the disclosure and coronation of the boy king. The narrative here has to be supplemented from that in 2Ch 23:1 - 2Ch 23:21, which does not contradict that in this passage, as is often said, but completes it. It informs us that before the final scene in the Temple, Jehoiada had in Jerusalem assembled a large force of Levites and of the ‘heads of the fathers’ houses’ from all the kingdom. That statement implies that the revolution was mainly religious in its motive, and was national in its extent. Obviously Jehoiada would have been courting destruction for Joash and himself unless he had made sure of a strong backing before he hoisted the standard of the house of David. There must, therefore, have been long preparation and much stir; and all the while the foreign woman was sitting in the palace, close by the Temple, and not a whisper reached her. Evidently she had no party in Judah, and held her own only by her indomitable will and by the help of foreign troops. Anybody who remembers how the Austrians in Italy were shunned, will understand how Athaliah heard nothing of the plot that was rapidly developing a stone’s throw from her isolated throne. Strange delusion, to covet such a seat, yet no stranger than many another mistaking of serpents for fish, into which we fall!
Jehoiada’s caution was as great as his daring. He does not appear to have given the Levites and elders any inkling of his purpose till he had them safe in the Temple, and then he opened his mind, swore them to stand by him, and ‘showed them the king’s son.’ What a scene that would be-the seven-year-old child there among all these strange men, the joyful surprise flashing in their eyes, the exultation of the faithful women that had watched him so lovingly, the stern facing of the dangers ahead. Most of the assembly must have thought that none of David’s house remained, and that thought would have had much to do with their submitting to Athaliah’s usurpation. Now that they saw the true heir, they could not hesitate to risk their lives to set him on his throne. Show a man his true king, and many a tyranny submitted to before becomes at once intolerable. The boy Joash makes Athaliah look very ugly.
Jehoiada’s plans are somewhat difficult to understand, owing to our ignorance of the details as to the usual arrangements of the guards of the palace, but the general drift of them is plain enough. The main thing was to secure the person of the king, and, for that purpose, the two companies of priests who were relieved on the Sabbath were for once kept on duty, and their numbers augmented by the company that would, in the ordinary course, have relieved them. This augmented force was so disposed as, first, to secure the Temple from attack; and, second, to ‘compass the king’-in his chamber, that is. We learn from 2 Chronicles that it consisted of priests and Levites, and some would see in that statement a tampering with the account in this passage, in the interests of a later conception of the sanctity of the Temple and of the priestly order. Our narrative is said to make the foreign mercenaries of the palace guard the persons referred to; but surely that cannot be maintained in the face of the plain statement of 2Ki 11:7, that they kept the watch of the Temple, for that was the office of the priests. Besides, how should foreign soldiers have needed to be armed from the Temple armoury? And is it probable on the face of it that the palace guard, who were Athaliah’s men, and therefore antagonistic to Joash, and Baal worshippers, should have been gained over to his side, or should have been the guards of the house of Jehovah? If, however, we understand that these guards were Levites, all is plain, and the arming of them with ‘the spears and shields that had been king David’s ‘ becomes intelligible, and would rouse them to enthusiasm and daring.
Not till all these dispositions for the boy king’s safety, and for preventing an assault on the Temple, had been carried out, did the prudent Jehoiada venture to bring Joash out from his place of concealment. Note that in 2Ki 11:12 he is not called ‘the king,’ as in the previous verses, but, as in 2Ki 11:4, ‘the king’s son.’ He was king by right, but not technically, till he had been presented to, and accepted by, the representatives of the people, had had ‘the testimony’ placed in his hands, and been anointed by the high-priest. So ‘they made him king.’ The three parts of the ceremony were all significant. The delivering of ‘the testimony’ {the Book of the Law- Deu 17:18 - Deu 17:19} taught him that he was no despot to rule by his own pleasure and for his own glory, but the viceroy of the true King of Judah, and himself subject to law. The people’s making him king taught him and them that a true royalty rules over willing subjects, and both guarded the rights of the nation and set limits to the power of the ruler. The priest’s anointing witnessed to the divine appointment of the monarch and the divine endowment with fitness for his office. Would that these truths were more recognised and felt by all rulers! What a different thing the page of history would be!
The vigilance of the tigress had been eluded, and Athaliah had a rude awakening. But she had her mother’s courage, and as soon as she heard in the palace the shouts, she dashed to the Temple, alone as she was, and fronted the crowd. The sight might have made the boldest quail. Who was that child standing in the royal place? Where had he come from? How had he been hidden all these years? What was all this frenzy of rejoicing, this blare of trumpets, these ranks of grim men with weapons in their hands? The stunning truth fell on her; but, though she felt that all was lost, not a whit did she blench, but fronted them all as proudly as ever. One cannot but admire the dauntless woman, ‘magnificent in sin.’ But her cry of ‘Treason! treason!’ brought none to her side. As she stood solitary there, she must have felt that her day was over, and that nothing remained but to die like a queen. Proudly as ever, she passed down the ranks and not a face looked pity on her, nor a voice blessed her. She was reaping what she had sown, and she who had killed without compunction the innocents who stood between her and her ambitions, was pitilessly slain, and all the land rejoiced at her death.
So ended the all but bloodless revolution which crushed Baal worship in Judah. It had been begun by Elijah and Elisha, but it was completed by a high priest. It was religious even more than political. It was a national movement, though Jehoiada’s courage and wisdom engineered it to its triumph. It teaches us how God watches over His purposes and their instruments when they seem nearest to failure, for one poor infant was all that was left of the seed of David; and how, therefore, we are never to despair, even in the darkest hour, of the fulfilment of His promises. It teaches us how much one brave, good man and woman can do to change the whole face of things, and how often there needs but one man to direct and voice the thoughts and acts of the silent multitude, and to light a fire that consumes evil.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Usurpation of Athaliah and Preservation of Joash
The Usurpation of Athaliah and Preservation of Joash
1. Athaliah] She was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (2Ki_8:18, 2Ki_8:26), possessed her mother's high courage, and, like her, was a devoted worshipper of Baal. Her position as queenmother she would naturally lose on the accession of Ahaziah's son, the deceased monarch's wife becoming queen-mother in her stead. She, therefore, took measures to place herself on the throne by removing all rivals, and then proceeded to make the worship of Baal predominant in the land: see 2Ch_24:7.
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2. In the bedchamber] This was presumably one of the side-chambers of the Temple described in 1Ki_6:5-10.
4. Jehoiada] He was the high priest and married to the princess Jehosheba (2Ch_22:11).
Rulers] For their names see 2Ch_23:1. Captains] RV 'Carites' (and so in 2Ki_11:19). These were probably foreign mercenaries from Caria in Asia Minor (they are mentioned by Herodotus as employed by the Egyptian king Psammetichus), who formed the bodyguard of the Judæan sovereigns.
5. A third part of you, etc.] The precise arrangements are obscure, but it is probable that on the sabbath one-third of the royal guards were on duty at the palace and twothirds at the Temple; of these the former body, separated into three divisions (2Ki_11:5-6), was posted at different parts of the building to prevent Athaliah's personal supporters from leaving it (though she herself was allowed to do so), whilst the latter, and larger, body was assembled at the Temple to secure the safety of Joash (2Ki_11:7).
6. The gate of Sur] RV omits 'of.' In 2Ch_23:5 it is called 'the gate of the foundation.' Position unknown. That it be not broken down] better, 'and be a barrier.'
8. Ranges] RV 'ranks,' and so in 2Ch_23:15.
11. Along by the altar] i.e. the troops were posted in two columns converging towards the altar of burnt offering in the Temple court, so as to enclose a triangular space.
12. The testimony] i.e. a copy of the Law: cp. Exo_25:16, and see Deu_17:18. But the literal rendering is, 'they put upon him the crown and the testimony,' and the last word should perhaps be 'the bracelets' which kings wore as part of their insignia (2Sa_1:10). (In the Heb. there is only a difference of a single letter.)
14. By a pillar] perhaps better, 'on the platform,' from which the king used to address the people.
15. Without the ranges] RV 'between the ranks,' so that she was surrounded by troops.
16. Laid hands on her] So the LXX. RV has,' made way for her' (so that she might be got out of the Temple before she was slain).
18. The house of Baal] i.e. of the Zidonian Baal to whose worship Athaliah, as the daughter of Jezebel, adhered. According to Josephus this temple was built by Jehoram and Athaliah.
20. All.. rejoiced] The brief usurpation of Athaliah was the only interruption to the orderly succession of kings of the house of David throughout the history of Judah, a fact which testifies to the strong attachment which the people felt towards it, and forms a striking fulfilment of the promise made to David (2Sa_7:15-16).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 3. Athaliah and Jehoiada’s Revival
3. Athaliah and Jehoiada’s Revival
CHAPTER 11
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1. Athaliah’s wicked reign (2Ki 11:1-3; 2Ch 22:10-12)
2. Joash (Jehoash) proclaimed king (2Ki 11:4-12; 2Ch 23:1-11)
3. The death of Athaliah (2Ki 11:13-16; 2Ch 23:12-15)
4. Jehoiada’s revival (2Ki 11:17-21; 2Ch 23:16-21)
Athaliah, the wicked daughter of a wicked pair (Ahab and Jezebel), the widow of Joram, King of Judah, Jehoshaphat’s son and the mother of Ahaziah, who had been slain by Jehu, destroyed the seed royal. She did so because she wanted the authority herself. It was an awful deed, inspired by him who is the murderer from the beginning. And Satan aimed through her at something of which his instrument was ignorant. It was one of the many attempts Satan made to exterminate the male offspring to make the coming One, the promised saviour, the seed of the woman, impossible. Had he succeeded through Athaliah in the destruction of the royal seed of David, the promise made to David would have become impossible. Notice the first little word in the second verse, “But.” Satan’s attempt failed. The watchful eye of Jehovah and His power frustrated it all. A wicked woman killed her own children and a godly woman was used to keep one of the royal seed alive.
Jehosheba (“the LORD’s oath” is the meaning of her name), through whom the covenant-oath was sustained, was the wife of Jehoiada (meaning “the LORD knows”), the high-priest (2Ch 22:11); he was brother-in-law to Ahaziah (2Ch 22:11) and Jehosheba was probably a half sister of Ahaziah. She took the young child from among the King’s sons and hid him first in the bed-chamber and then in the house of the LORD till the seventh year. Well may we see here a most beautiful type of our Lord Jesus Christ. Like Joash He was doomed to death, yea, He died. But He was raised from the dead and is now hidden in the house of God above, the heavens having received Him. Joash, the heir of the throne of David, was hidden till the seventh year even as the true heir to the throne of David is now hidden in the presence of God till the six years (six the number of man’s day, the present age) are passed. And when the seventh year comes--the beginning of the coming age, He will be brought forth as Joash was brought from his hiding place and be crowned king.
A remnant selected by Jehoiada saw the king first. It is a great scene this chapter describes. The company brought together, armed with King David’s shields and spears, the king’s son brought into the midst, Jehoiada putting the crown upon his head, anointing him with oil, they clapped with their hands and shouted “God save the King.” Greater will be the scene when He will be crowned King of Kings, whose right it is to reign. Athaliah, the usurper, appears on the scene, attracted by the noise. She is face to face with the crowned king and receives now her well-deserved punishment outside of the house of the LORD. A great revival followed. A covenant was made by Jehoiada between the LORD and the king and people “that they should be the LORD’s people.” Baal’s altars and images are broken. The king sits upon his throne. All the people of the land rejoiced and there was peace. All these blessed results are faint foreshadowings of what is yet to be when the usurper is cast out, when the true King is crowned. Then Israel will be in truth the LORD’s people, idolatry will cease, the land and the people will rejoice and the city be quiet.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 Jehoash Becomes King
Jehoash Becomes King
v. 1. And when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, herself the daughter of Jezebel and the granddaughter of Omri, 2Ki 8:26-27, saw that her son was dead, 2Ki 9:27, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal, all the male members of the royal house, in order that she might retain her position of queen-mother and queen-regent.
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v. 2. But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash (or Jehoash), the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons which were slain, the younger princes who were here put to death in addition to the older relatives executed by Jehu, 2Ki 10:14; and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bed-chamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain; his aunt saved his life by hiding him in the room where the bedding of the palace was stored, where no one lived.
v. 3. And he was with her, with his nurse, who afterward became his attendant, hid in the house of the Lord, in the dwelling of the high priest, whose wife Jehosheba was, 2Ch 22:11, six years, being kept in concealment during all this time. And Athaliah did reign over the land.
v. 4. And the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers over hundreds, with the captains and the guard, the officers and the most powerful part of the army, and brought them to him into the house of the Lord, his position as high priest making this step comparatively easy, and made a covenant with them, and took an oath of them in the house of the Lord, pledging them to help in bringing the rightful heir to the throne, and showed them the king’s son, whose existence had been kept secret till then.
v. 5. And he commanded them, saying, This is the thing that ye shall do: A third part of you that enter in on the Sabbath shall even be keepers of the watch of the king’s house, guarding the royal residence proper;
v. 6. and a third part shall be at the gate of Sur, guarding the side-door of the palace; and a third part at the gate behind the guard, where the king’s messengers were usually stationed, where they received the king’s commands, the chief gate, the direct approach to the royal residence. So shall ye keep the watch of the house that It be not broken down, to ward off any attack which might be directed against the palace.
v. 7. And two parts of all you that go forth on the Sabbath, being relieved of duty at the palace on the Sabbath, even they shall keep the watch of the house of the Lord about the king.
v. 8. And ye shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand; and he that cometh within the ranges, in an attempt to penetrate their ranks, let him be slain. And be ye with the king as he goeth out and as he cometh in, a careful execution of these commands being necessary for the success of the plan.
v. 9. And the captains over the hundreds did according to all things that 3ehoiada, the priest, commanded. And they took every man his men that were to come in on the Sabbath, to go on duty, with them that should go out on the Sabbath, go off duty,and came to Jehoiada, the priest.
v. 10. And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give King David’s spears and shields that were in the Temple of the Lord, probably being deposited there by those retiring from service.
v. 11. And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, as he was brought from his place of concealment, from the right corner, from the wall on the right-hand side, of the Temple to the left corner of the Temple, along by the altar and the Temple, keeping the space between the sanctuary of the Temple and the altar of burnt offering free from all intruders.
v. 12. And he brought forth the king’s son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony, either certain sections or the entire Five Books of Moses, Deu 17:19, and they made him king and anointed him; and they clapped their hands and said, God save the king! This acclamation of the people in the court was the same as in 1Ki 1:25. So the times of affliction were destined to merge into days of blessing and mercy once more; for it is God who gives a country good rulers.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21 Athaliah ... Jehosheba ... Joash
Athaliah ... Jehosheba ... Joash
These are the names of people. (See: How to Translate Names)
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saw that her son was dead
"became aware that her son was dead"
she arose and killed all the royal children
Athaliah did not personally kill the children. AT: "she commanded her servants to kill all the members of Ahaziah's family who might become king" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
took Joash son of Ahaziah, and hid him away from among the king's sons who were killed, along with his nurse; she put them into a bedroom. They hid him from Athaliah so that he was not killed.
"took Ahaziah's very young son Joash and hid him and his nursemaid in a bedroom in the temple. So he was not killed"
He remained with her six years, hidden in the house of Yahweh, while Athaliah reigned over the land
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Joash and Jehosheba hid him in the house of Yahweh for six years while Athaliah ruled the land" (See: Active or Passive)
land
This is a metonym for the people who live in the land. AT: "people of Judah"
translationWords
Athaliah
Ahaziah
die
raise
royal
children
king
Jehoram
Joash
house of God
reign
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 11:1-16 Athaliah, the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah,…
11:1-16 Athaliah, the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah, was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel and the wife of King Jehoram of Judah (8:18, 26). As queen mother, she wielded powerful influence. Unfortunately, it was for evil (8:18, 27; 2 Chr 22:3-4) and included her plans to destroy the rest of the royal family (see 2 Chr 22:10). The demise of Ahab’s family in Samaria was complete, but Athaliah seized power in Judah in a slaughter that mirrored Jehu’s slaughter of her family in Samaria.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.