_ATHALIAH_ (B.C. 842-836)--_JOASH BEN-AHAZIAH OF
JUDAH_ (B.C. 836-796)
2 KINGS xi. 1-xii. 21
"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 sevère,
L'innocence un vengeur, et les orphelins un père!"
RACINE, _Athalie_.
"Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's 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 Ahab's 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 year's 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 Gebîrah, 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.[233] 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."[234] 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 Jehu's
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-Phœnician idolatress. Yet so it was! Athaliah, like her cousin
Dido, felt herself strong enough to rule.
But a woman's ruthlessness was outwitted by a woman's cunning. Ahaziah
had a half-sister on the father's side,[235] the princess Jehosheba,
or Jehoshabeath, who was then or afterwards (we are told) married to
Jehoiada, the high priest.[236] 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 king's sons that were slain," and,
with the connivance of his nurse, hid him from the murderers sent by
Athaliah in the palace store-room in which beds and couches were
kept.[237] Thence, at the first favourable moment, she transferred the
child and nurse to one of the chambers in the three storeys 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 mother's
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
favours 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 favour, 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 queen's
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 body-guards, and the priest secretly enlisted them all in the
service.[238] 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.[239]
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";[240] another at the gate behind the
barracks(?) of the palace-runners, to be a barrier[241] 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 king's 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.[242]
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
Solomon's pillars Jachin and Boaz, or some special erection of later
days.[243] 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[244]--which was treasured up with the pot of
manna inside or in front of the Ark. Then he poured on the child's 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 neighbouring 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.[245] 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.[246]
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_,[247] 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,[248] 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,[249] 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.[250] 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;[251] 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 king's 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 Jehovah's people. Such covenants
were not infrequent in Jewish history. Such a covenant had been made
by Asa[252] after Abijam's apostasy, as it was afterwards made by
Hezekiah[253] and by Josiah.[254] 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, Athaliah's
Baal-priest, before the altars of his god.[255]
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.[256]
It was now Jehoiada's object to restore such splendour and solemnity
as he could to the neglected worship of the Temple, which had suffered
in every way from Baal's encroachments. He did this before the king's
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."[257] 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.[258]
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,"[259] 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,[260] 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 king's 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.[261] All
contributions were to be dropped into this chest. When it was full, it
was carried by the Levites unopened into the palace,[262] and there
the king's 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[263] 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 colours. 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.[264]
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 honour, in the
sepulchres of the kings.[265] 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 marvellous 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.[266] 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.[267] As he lay dying, he exclaimed, "The
Lord look upon it, and require it!"[268]
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,[269] 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. iv. 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 curry-combs 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 colouring. 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
historian, 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 king's 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.[270]
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 à Becket. The
priest's murder may have been due to an outburst of passion on the
part of the king's 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 Zechariah's blood represents the priest's 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-regent's 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.
xxix. 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."[271] 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 Jehovah's 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 Jehu's captains to
Elisha's emissary;[272] 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 God's
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
Zechariah's 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. Hazael's 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.[273] 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,[274] where he was lying sick. The Septuagint, in 2
Chron. xxiv. 27, adds the dark fact that _all his sons_ joined in the
conspiracy.[275] 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 assassin's 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 sepulchres 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?
FOOTNOTES:
[233] 2 Chron. xxi. 2-4.
[234] 2 Chron. xxi. 17.
[235] ὁμοπάτριος ἀδελφή (Jos.).
[236] 2 Chron. xxii. 11. There are undoubted difficulties about the
statement (see _infra_). There is no other instance of the marriage of
a princess with a priest.
[237] Jos., _Antt._, IX. vii. 1: τὸ ταμιεῖον τῶν κλινῶν. The chamber
of beds was a sort of unoccupied wardrobe-room.
[238] 2 Kings xi. 4: "The centurions of the Carians and of the runners."
[239] This is the second time that the word "Sabbath" occurs, or that
the institution is alluded to, in the history of either monarchy.
[240] Nothing is known of סוּר, Sur, or יְסוֹד _y'sôd_, the Foundation
(2 Chron. xxiii. 5). They are not mentioned elsewhere. LXX., εν τῇ
πύλῃ τῶν ὁδῶν, and (in Chronicles) ἐν τῇ πύλῃ τῇ μέσῃ.
[241] Not as in A.V., "that it be not broken down."
[242] In reading side by side the narratives in the Books of Kings and
Chronicles (2 Chron. xxiii.), it is difficult to avoid the conclusion
that the main anxiety of the Chronicler is to leave the impression
that the work in the Temple was chiefly done by the Levites, and that
the sacred precincts were not polluted by the presence of alien
troops. He evidently stumbled at the notion, conveyed by the older
narrative, that Carians and suchlike semi-heathen mercenaries should
have stood by the altar at a high priest's command; so he substitutes
Levites for guardsmen, and the profane laymen are relegated outside.
In details the two accounts are only reconcilable by a special
pleading which would reconcile _any_ discrepancy.
[243] 1 Kings vii. 21. Comp., however, 2 Kings xxiii. 3.
[244] See Exod. xxv. 16, 21, xvi. 34. הָצֵדוּת (see 2 Chron. xxiii.
11). Kimchi takes it to mean "a royal robe," and other Rabbis a
phylactery on the coronet (Deut. vi. 8). In the Targum to Chronicles
it is explained to mean the costly jewel (2 Sam. xii. 30), of which
none but a descendant of David could bear the weight. For _ha'edôth_
Klostermann therefore suggests _hats'adôth_, "the royal bracelets."
[245] So says Josephus (μετὰ τῆς ἰδίας στρατίας), and it is certain
that she would hardly go unattended.
[246] Jos., _Antt._, IX. vii. 3: Τὸυς δὲ ἑπομένους ὁπλίτας εἶρξαν
εἰσελθεῖν.
[247] The meaning of _al-ha'amôd_ is uncertain (A.V., "by a pillar";
Vulg., "on the tribunal"). Comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 3; 2 Chron. xxiii. 13;
1 Kings viii. 22; 2 Chron. vi. 13.
[248] 2 Kings xi. 15. Not as in A.V., "without the ranges." Heb.,
_lash'dêrôth_; LXX., ἔσωθεν τῶν σαδηρώθ.
[249] A.V., "And they laid hands on her"; LXX., ἐπέβαλον αὐτῃ χεῖρας;
Vulg., _imposuerunt ci manus_. But R.V. as in the text, following the
Targum, and the Jewish commentators, "They made for her two sides."
[250] This is usually understood to be the "horse gate" of the city
(Neh. iii. 28), and so Josephus seems to have taken it, for he says
that Athaliah was killed in "the Kedron Valley." Canon Rawlinson says
that it was more probably in the Tyropœon Valley. But there could have
been no object in dragging the wretched queen all this way. Jehoiada
was only anxious that she should not stain the Temple with her blood,
and "the way by which the horses came into the king's house" seems to
be some private palace-gate. We are expressly told (ver. 16) that
Athaliah was slain "at the king's house," probably in "the king's
garden" (2 Kings xxv. 4).
[251] Wellhausen, _Isr. and Jud._, p. 96.
[252] 2 Chron. xv. 9-15.
[253] 2 Chron. xxix. 10.
[254] 2 Chron. xxxiv. 31.
[255] The name is perhaps an abbreviation from Mattan-Baal, "gift of
Baal." Comp. "Methumballes" (Plaut.). The names of Tyrian kings,
Mitinna, Mattun, occur in inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser II. See
Herod., vii. 98 (Bahr, _ad loc._). "Methumbaal of Arvad" is mentioned
on a monument of Tiglath-Pileser II. (Schrader, ii. 249).
[256] 2 Kings xii. 10; Jer. xxix. 26; 2 Chron. xxiv. 6. Stanley,
_Lectures_, ii. 399.
[257] 2 Kings xii. 2. After "all his days," the R.V. and A.V. add
"_wherein_ Jehoiada instructed him." This, however, is not accurate.
There is a stop at days, and "wherein" should be "_because_." There
seems, however, from the LXX., to be some variation in the text, and
according to the Chronicler Joash became an apostate. LXX., Πάσας τὰς
ἡμέρας ἅς ἐφώτιζεν αὐτὸν ὁ ἱερεύς; Vulg., _Cunctis diebus quibus
docuit eum Jojadas sacerdos_.
[258] The Chronicler (2 Chron. xxiv. 1, 2) _more suo_ copies 2 Kings
xii. 1, 2, but omits 3, because he dislikes the fact that not even his
hero Jehoiada had anything to say against the _bamoth_. But it appears
from 2 Kings xxiii. 9 that the _bamoth_ had regular priests of their
own, who "eat the priestly portions" (according to an old MS.) among
their brethren.
[259] 2 Chron. xxiv. 7.
[260] 2 Kings xii. 4: "The money that every man is set at." Lit.,
"Each the money of the souls of his valuation." Comp. Numb. xviii. 16;
Lev. xxvii. 2.
[261] The Chronicler says "at the gate."
[262] 2 Chron. xxiv. 11.
[263] Lev. v. 1-6, xiv. 13. "Trespass-money" is here first mentioned.
[264] 2 Chron. xxiv. 8-10. There is a difference between the historian
and the Chronicler respecting the vessels of the house.
[265] 2 Chron. xxiv. 15, 16. The statement of the Chronicler is (as so
often) surrounded by difficulties and improbabilities. If Jehoiada was
one hundred and thirty years old when he died, he must have been
ninety when Ahaziah was murdered, at the age of twenty-three. But as
Ahaziah was (apparently) born when his father Jehoram was eighteen,
Jehosheba must have been under eighteen, and must have been married to
a man seventy years older than herself! See Lord Arthur Hervey, _On
the Genealogies_, p. 113.
[266] 2 Chron. xxiv. 27.
[267] Stanley charitably thinks that Joash may have only burst into
hasty words like those of Henry II. against Becket.
[268] The Chronicler says that "the _sons_ of Jehoiada" had helped to
crown him, and that he put "the _sons_ of Jehoiada" to death (2 Chron.
xxiii. 11, xxiv. 25).
[269] Gittin, f. 57, 2; Sanhedrin, f. 96, 2; Hershon, _Treasures of
the Talmud_, p. 276; Lightfoot on Matt. xxiii. 35. There can be little
doubt that the reading "Berechiah" is a later correction of some one
who remembered the murder narrated in Jos., _B. J._, IV. v. 4, and
that the true reading is "son of Jehoiada." This is the last murder of
a prophet mentioned in the Old Testament, and we learn from the Gospel
the fact that he was slain "between the Temple and the altar."
[270] Isa. xxiv. 2; Jer. v. 31, xxiii. 11; Ezek. vii. 26, xxii. 26;
Hos. iv. 9; Mic. iii. 11, etc.
[271] Jer. xxix. 24-32.
[272] 2 Kings ix. 11.
[273] But from the Book of Kings we should not infer that there had
been any fighting at all. The Syrian commander had been bribed to
retire.
[274] We cannot understand the addition "on the way that goeth down to
Silla." Silla is nowhere else referred to.
[275] LXX., 2 Chron. xxiv. 27, καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ πάντες.