King Joash, his reforms, his fall into bad ways, his death
24
📚Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zibiah. She was from Beersheba. 2 📚And Joash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest. 3 📚And Jehoiada took two wives for him, and he became the father of sons and daughters. 4 And after this it came about that Joash decided to repair the house of the LORD. 5 📚And he gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, “Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather money from all Israel to make annual repairs of the house of your God. And you are to do this matter quickly”. However the Levites did not do it quickly.
6 📚And the king called for Jehoiada the chief priest, and said to him, “Why have you not required the Levites to bring in the collection out of Judah and out of Jerusalem, in accordance with the command of Moses the servant of the LORD and of the congregation of Israel, for the tabernacle of witness?”
7 📚For the sons of Athaliah 📖, that wicked woman, had broken into the house of God, and also they had used the dedicated things of the house of the LORD for the Baals 📖.
8 📚And at the king’s command they made a chest and set it outside at the gate of the house of the LORD. 9 📚And they made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem, to bring in to the LORD the collection that Moses the servant of God had levied on Israel in the wilderness. 10 📚And all the leaders and all the people rejoiced 📖, and brought the money in and deposited it in the chest, until they had finished. 11 📚Now it came about when the chest was brought to the king’s office by the hands of the Levites, and when they saw that there was much money, the king’s scribe and the high priest’s official came and emptied the chest, and took it and carried it back to its place. They did this day by day, and gathered a large quantity of money. 12 📚And the king and Jehoiada gave it to those who were doing the work of the service of the house of the LORD, and hired masons and carpenters to repair the house of the LORD, and also to those who worked in iron and bronze to repair the house of the LORD.
13 📚So the workmen worked and the work was finished by them, and they restored the house of God to its original state, and strengthened it. 14 📚And when they had finished it, they brought the rest of the money into the presence of the king and Jehoiada, and with it articles were made for the house of the LORD, articles to use in the service, and with which to offer, and spoons, and articles of gold and silver. And they offered burnt offerings at the house of the LORD continually all the days of Jehoiada.
15 📚But Jehoiada became old, and was full of days when he died. He was a hundred and thirty years old when he died. 16 📚And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both toward God, and toward his house.
24:16 Joash was only 7 years old when he became king (v 1). He was the only one left alive in the royal house of David. Jehoiada was his instructor (see 2 Kings 12:2), and probably was the chief power behind the throne of Judah for years. So at his death the people treated him like a king.⚜
17 📚Now after the death of Jehoiada the leaders of Judah came and bowed down to the king, and the king listened to them 📖. 18 📚And they abandoned the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served idolatrous groves and idols 📖, and wrath 📖 came on Judah and Jerusalem because of this trespass of theirs. 19 📚Yet he sent prophets to them, to bring them back to the LORD, and they testified against them. But they would not listen.
20 📚And the Spirit of God 📖 came on Zechariah 📖, the son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood above the people and said to them, “Thus says God: ‘Why are you breaking the commandments of the LORD, and so not prospering? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has also forsaken you.’ ”
21 📚And they conspired against him, and pelted him with stones at the command of the king in the courtyard of the house of the LORD.
24:21 Neh 9:26; Matt 23:34-35; Acts 7:58; Heb 11:36-38. In this world the best people often receive the worst treatment.⚜
22 📚So Joash the king did not remember the kindness which Zechariah’s father Jehoiada had done him, but killed his son. And as he was dying, he said, “May the LORD see and take vengeance 📖”.
23 📚And it happened at the end of the year, that the army of Syria came up against him, and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the leaders of the people among the people, and sent all their plunder to the king of Damascus. 24 📚For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the LORD delivered a very great army into their hands, because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash. 25 📚And when they had left him (for they left him very sick), his own servants conspired against him because of the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and killed him on his bed, and he died. And they buried him in the city of David, but they did not bury him in the tombs of the kings.
26 📚And these are the ones who conspired against him: Zabad 📖, the son of Shimeath an Ammonitess, and Jehozabad, the son of Shimrith 📖 a Moabitess.
24:23-26 2 Kings 12:17-21. The prayer of the dying prophet was answered in these severe and just ways.⚜
27 📚Now concerning his sons, and the many prophecies against him, and the repairing of the house of God, see, they are written in the annals of the book of the kings. And Amaziah his son reigned in his place.