The Hidden King

When Ahaziah’s mother, Athaliah, saw that her son was dead, she set out to kill the whole royal family of Judah.

But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram and the sister of Ahaziah, secretly took Ahaziah’s son Joash away from among the king’s sons as they were being killed. She put the boy and his nurse in a bedroom. They hid him from Athaliah, and so he was not killed. 2 Chronicles calls her Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram, and says she was the wife of Jehoiada the priest.

For six years the boy stayed with her, hidden in the Lord’s house, while Athaliah ruled over the land.

2 Chronicles says Jehoiada found his courage and made a covenant with five commanders of hundreds. They were Azariah the son of Jeroham, Ishmael the son of Jehohanan, Azariah the son of Obed, Maaseiah the son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat the son of Zichri. They went all around Judah and gathered the Levites from all its towns, along with the heads of the families of Israel. Then they came to Jerusalem. The whole gathering made a covenant with the king in God’s house.

Jehoiada told them, “The king’s son must reign, as the Lord has said about the sons of David.”

Then he gave the commanders their orders. “This is what you must do. Those of you who come on duty on the Sabbath will split into thirds. One third will guard the king’s palace, one third will be at the Sur Gate, and the last third at the gate behind the guards. So you will guard the house and form a barrier. And your two companies, all of you who go off duty on the Sabbath, will guard the Lord’s house around the king. Surround the king, every man with his weapons in his hand. Anyone who comes inside your ranks is to be killed. Stay with the king when he goes out and when he comes in.”

2 Chronicles gives his orders this way. A third of the priests and Levites who came on duty on the Sabbath were to guard the doorways. A third were to be at the palace, and a third at the Foundation Gate. All the people were to be in the courtyards of the Lord’s house. No one was to go into the house except the priests and the Levites who served there, because they were holy. All the people were to follow the Lord’s instructions. The Levites were to surround the king, every man with his weapons in his hand. They were to kill anyone who came into the house, and stay with the king wherever he went.

The commanders did everything Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each one brought his men to Jehoiada: the men coming on duty on the Sabbath, and the men going off duty too. 2 Chronicles says it was the Levites and all Judah who did this, and that Jehoiada the priest had not let the shift go.

The priest gave the commanders King David’s spears and shields, which were kept in the Lord’s house.

The guards took their places around the king, every man with his weapons in his hand. They stood from the right side of the house to the left side, by the altar and the house.

Athaliah heard the noise of the guards and of the people running and cheering for the king, and she came to the people in the Lord’s house.

She looked and saw the king standing by the pillar at the entrance, as the tradition was, with the commanders and the trumpeters beside him. All the people of the land were celebrating and blowing trumpets, and the singers with their instruments were leading the praise. Then Athaliah tore her clothes and cried out, “Treason! Treason!”

Jehoiada the priest gave an order to the commanders of hundreds who were in charge of the army. “Bring her out between the ranks,” he said. “If anyone follows her, kill him with the sword.” This was because the priest had said, “Don’t let her be killed in the Lord’s house.”

So they seized her. She went out by the horses’ entrance to the palace, and there she was killed. 2 Chronicles says they made way for her, and that they killed her at the entrance of the Horse Gate.

Then all the people of the land went to Baal’s house and pulled it down. They smashed his altars and images to bits and killed Mattan, Baal’s priest, in front of the altars.

The priest put officers in charge of the Lord’s house. 2 Chronicles says Jehoiada put them under the priests from the tribe of Levi. David had given those priests their work in the Lord’s house. They were to offer the Lord’s burnt offerings as the law of Moses says, with joy and singing, the way David had ordered. Jehoiada also set gatekeepers at the gates of the Lord’s house, so that no one who was unclean in any way could come in.

Then Jehoiada brought along the commanders of hundreds, the Carites, the guard and all the people of the land. They led the king down from the Lord’s house and went through the Guards’ Gate into the palace, and the king sat down on the throne of the kings. 2 Chronicles names the nobles and the rulers of the people among them, and calls the gate the Upper Gate.

All the people of the land celebrated, and the city was quiet. They had killed Athaliah with the sword at the palace.

Joash was seven years old when he became king.

Joash did what was right in the Lord’s eyes all the years that Jehoiada the priest taught him. But the high places were not taken away. The people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there. 2 Chronicles says he did what was right as long as Jehoiada the priest lived.

Jehoiada found two wives for Joash, and Joash became the father of sons and daughters.

Joash gave the priests an order. “Here is what to do with all the money that is brought into the Lord’s house as holy gifts. That means the amount each person is valued at, and any money someone decides on his own to bring. Each of you is to take it from the people who give to you. Then use it to repair the house wherever you find damage.”

2 Chronicles tells it this way. Some time later, Joash decided to restore the Lord’s house. He gathered the priests and the Levites and told them, “Go out to the towns of Judah and collect money from all Israel, year by year, to repair the house of your God. And be quick about it.” But the Levites did not do it right away.

By the twenty-third year of King Joash’s reign, the priests still had not repaired the damage to the house. So the king called for Jehoiada the priest and the other priests. “Why aren’t you repairing the damage to the house?” he asked. “Don’t take any more money from your treasurers. Hand it over for the repairs.”

In 2 Chronicles, the king called for Jehoiada, the chief priest, and asked him, “Why haven’t you made the Levites collect the tax from Judah and Jerusalem? Moses, the Lord’s servant, and the assembly of Israel set that tax for the Tent of the Testimony.”

The sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had damaged God’s house, and they had given all the holy things of the Lord’s house to the Baals.

The priests agreed to take no more money from the people, and not to do the repairs on the house.

Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest and drilled a hole in its lid. He set it beside the altar, on the right as people come into the Lord’s house. Whenever money was brought into the Lord’s house, the priests who guarded the doorway put it all into the chest. 2 Chronicles says the chest was made at the king’s command and set outside, at the gate of the Lord’s house.

An announcement went out through Judah and Jerusalem: the people were to bring the Lord the tax that Moses, God’s servant, had set on Israel in the wilderness. The leaders were glad, and so were all the people. They brought their money and dropped it into the chest until they had filled it.

Whenever they saw that the chest held a lot of money, the king’s scribe and the high priest came up. They put the money in bags and counted what had been found in the Lord’s house. 2 Chronicles says the Levites brought the chest to the king’s officials. Then the king’s scribe and the chief priest’s officer emptied it and carried it back to its place. They did this day after day and gathered a great deal of money.

They weighed out the money and gave it to the men in charge of the work on the Lord’s house. These men paid the carpenters and builders who worked on the house, and the masons and stonecutters. They bought timber and cut stone for the repairs, and paid for everything else the work on the house needed.

2 Chronicles says the king and Jehoiada gave the money to the men in charge of the work. They hired masons and carpenters to restore the Lord’s house, and workers in iron and bronze to repair it. The workmen got on with the job, and the repairs went forward. They built God’s house back up as it had been designed, and made it strong.

None of the money brought into the Lord’s house was used to make silver cups, snuffers for the lamps, basins, trumpets, or anything else of gold or silver for the house. It went to the workmen, and with it they repaired the Lord’s house.

2 Chronicles says that when the work was done, they brought the money left over to the king and Jehoiada. That money paid for things for the Lord’s house, for the service and for the offerings, including spoons and other things of gold and silver.

The men in charge were handed the money to pay the workmen. No one asked them to show how they spent it, because they could be trusted. The money from the trespass offerings and the sin offerings was not brought into the Lord’s house. It belonged to the priests.

As long as Jehoiada lived, they kept on offering burnt offerings in the Lord’s house.

Then Hazael, king of Syria, attacked Gath and took it, and he made up his mind to go up to Jerusalem.

Joash king of Judah took all the holy things that his ancestors Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah had given to the Lord when they were kings of Judah. He also took the holy things he had given himself, and all the gold that could be found in the treasuries of the Lord’s house and of the palace. He sent it all to Hazael king of Syria, and Hazael went away from Jerusalem.

After Jehoiada died, the leaders of Judah came and bowed down to the king, and the king listened to them.

They abandoned the Lord’s house, the house of their ancestors’ God, and served Asherah poles and idols. Because of this guilt, anger came on Judah and Jerusalem.

Even so, prophets were sent to them to bring them back to the Lord. The prophets warned them, but they would not listen.

Then the Spirit of God came on Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood up above the people and told them, “God says: ‘Why do you disobey the Lord’s commandments? You can’t succeed that way. You have abandoned the Lord, so he has also abandoned you.’”

But they plotted against him, and at the king’s command they threw stones at him in the courtyard of the Lord’s house until he died.

So King Joash did not remember the kindness Jehoiada had shown him, and he killed Jehoiada’s son. As Zechariah was dying, he said, “May the Lord see this and repay it.”

The Syrian army had come with only a small company of men, but the Lord let them defeat a very great army, because Judah had turned away from the Lord, their ancestors’ God. In this way the Syrians carried out judgment on Joash.

Joash’s servants plotted against him. Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer struck him down at the house of Millo, on the way down to Silla, and he died. They buried him with his ancestors in David’s city.

2 Chronicles tells his death this way. When the Syrians went away, they left Joash badly wounded. Then his own servants plotted against him because of the killing of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and they killed him on his bed. They buried him in David’s city, but they didn’t bury him in the tombs of the kings. It says the men who plotted against him were Zabad, whose mother was Shimeath, an Ammonite woman, and Jehozabad, whose mother was Shimrith, a Moabite woman.

The rest of what Joash did is written in the records of the kings of Judah. 2 Chronicles adds that the story of his sons, the great burdens laid on him, and the rebuilding of God’s house are written in the commentary of the book of the kings. And his son Amaziah reigned in his place.