QUEEN ATHALIAH, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, was a very wicked
woman.
Her son Ahaziah only reigned one year in Jerusalem, and she was his
counsellor to do evil. But at the end of the year he was slain by Jehu,
and the Throne of Judah became empty.
Then Queen Athaliah determined to destroy all the Royal Princes, and
ordered all the sons of Ahaziah to be killed, in order to reign over
the Kingdom herself.
But while these terrible scenes were happening, and the Princes of
Judah were being killed one after another, there was a Princess,
Ahaziah's sister, who made a brave resolve, and carried it out most
successfully.
She knew that one of the King's sons, whom Athaliah had intended to
kill, was a baby of a year old, and she determined that she would do
her utmost to rescue him from the soldiers who were ordered to carry
out this wicked scheme. This Princess was called Jehosheba, and she
was the wife of the High Priest, and evidently could go into the outer
rooms of the Temple.
So while the shouts of the soldiers, and the cries of those who were
being murdered, were filling the air with terrible sounds of confusion,
Jehosheba stole swiftly to the place where she thought she should find
the baby boy, and hiding him under her beautiful robes she bore him
into the Temple, far away from the noise and turmoil, and she hid him
in a bedchamber, under the care of his trusted Nurse.
[Illustration: BORE HIM INTO THE TEMPLE.]
The bedchamber was probably a little room where the mats and bedding
for the priests who lived in the Temple, were kept, and at night they
were brought out and laid upon the floor in the larger chambers; for
that is the custom in the East.
No one missed the little child, for Athaliah believed that all the
Royal Princes were slain. So she immediately put herself on the Throne,
and reigned over the kingdom, practising all her wicked ways as before,
in defiance of the Commands of God.
You will not wonder that she came to a very sorrowful end, as we shall
hear presently.
Meanwhile, Joash, the little heir to the throne, was kept hidden safely
in the Temple. You can picture to yourselves how Jehosheba would have
often gone to that far-off bedchamber to play with her little nephew,
and how she would teach him all she could, to prepare him for the
Kingdom.
It is evident also, when we read the accounts, that her husband,
Jehoiada, the High Priest, was often with the child: for by and by
when six years had passed away, and little Joash was seven years old,
Jehoiada determined that he should be crowned King.
So he called the Captains of the army, and they started out all over
the land of Judah, and gathered the Levites from all the cities, and
the chief fathers of the people, and they all came up to Jerusalem.
[Illustration: Then Jehoiada . . . put the crown on his head.]
Jehoiada shewed them the little King, and made arrangements for their
guarding him on the Coronation Day. He also armed them with spears and
shields and bucklers which had been King David's, and said to them,
"Behold the King's son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons
of David."
So the Captains and the Levites did exactly as Jehoiada told them, and
stood on guard about the King, with their weapons in their hands.
Then Jehoiada brought forward the little son of King Ahaziah, and put
the crown on his head, and the roll of the Testimony in his hand, and
they made him King, and Jehoiada and his sons anointed him; and those
about him clapped their hands with joy, and said, "God save the King!"
But when Athaliah, the wicked Queen, heard the shouting and rejoicing,
she hurried into the House of the Lord, and when she saw the King
standing by a pillar, and the Princes and the trumpeters around him,
and all the people rejoicing, and sounding the trumpets, she rent her
clothes and cried, "Treason! Treason!"
But Jehoiada quickly commanded the Captains to seize Athaliah, and
take her out of the Temple, and to kill her with the sword outside the
Courts; and there she was slain.
Then Jehoiada made a covenant with the King and all the people, that
they should be the Lord's people, and not idolaters any more; and they
went into the house of the idol Baal, and broke it down; and they broke
up the altars of Baal, and his images into small pieces, and killed the
priest of Baal.
So all the people rejoiced greatly, and they brought the King to the
King's house, and he sat on the Throne of Judah.
As long as the faithful High Priest lived, Joash was a good King.
Jehoiada was his counsellor and friend, and under his advice Joash did
much to repair the Temple of God.
But when Jehoiada died, Joash fell into evil company. The Princes of
Judah came and persuaded him to go to the Groves and Idols; and the end
was, that he brought misery on himself, and also on the Kingdom which
he ruled.
God sent Prophet after Prophet to implore the people to return to the
Lord, but Joash went on in his wrong-doing, even to killing the son of
Jehoiada, his old friend and protector.
Joash fell very sick at this time, whether from wounds or from illness,
the Bible does not say; but the servants who waited on him conspired
against him, and killed him in his bed.
Oh! What a sorrowful death! No love, no tender pity, but hatred for all
the evil he had done to the Kingdom, over which he might have reigned
so gloriously, had he only kept close to the Lord God, who would surely
have established his throne.
[Illustration]