A verse by verse commentary on 2 Kings 11 dealing with Athaliah and Joash.

1. 2 KI GS 11 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Athaliah and Joash
1 When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that
her son was dead, she proceeded to destroy the
whole royal family.
BAR ES, "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.
CLARKE, "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.

2. GILL, "And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was
dead,.... Who was the daughter of Ahab, and granddaughter of Omri 2Ki_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, 2Ch_21:4 and all
Joram's sons, excepting Ahaziah, were slain by the Arabians, 2Ch_22:1, and the sons of
the brethren of Ahaziah were slain by Jehu, 2Ki_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.
HE RY, "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 (2Ki_11:1), all that she knew to be akin to the crown. Her husband
Jehoram had slain all his brethren the sons of Jehoshaphat, 2Ch_21:4. The Arabians
had slain all Jehoram's sons except Ahaziah, 2Ch_22:1. Jehu had slain all their sons
(2Ch_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
(2Ch_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.
JAMISO , "2Ki_11:1-3. Jehoash saved from Athaliah’s massacre.
Athaliah — (See on 2Ch_22:2). She had possessed great influence over her son, who,

3. by her counsels, had ruled in the spirit of the house of Ahab.
destroyed all the seed royal — all connected with the royal family who might have
urged a claim to the throne, and who had escaped the murderous hands of Jehu (2Ch_
21:2-4; 2Ch_22:1; 2Ki_10:13, 2Ki_10:14). This massacre she was incited to perpetrate -
partly from a determination not to let David’s family outlive hers; partly as a measure of
self-defense to secure herself against the violence of Jehu, who was bent on destroying
the whole of Ahab’s posterity to which she belonged (2Ki_8:18-26); but chiefly from
personal ambition to rule, and a desire to establish the worship of Baal. Such was the sad
fruit of the unequal alliance between the son of the pious Jehoshaphat and a daughter of
the idolatrous and wicked house of Ahab.
K&D 1-3, "The Government of Athaliah (cf. 2Ch_22:10-12). After the death of
Ahaziah of Judah, his mother Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (see at 2Ki_8:18
and 2Ki_8:26), seized upon the government, by putting to death all the king's
descendants with the exception of Joash, a son of Ahaziah of only a year old, who had
been secretly carried off from the midst of the royal children, who were put to death, by
Jehosheba, his father's sister, the wife of the high priest Jehoiada, and was first of all
hidden with his nurse in the bed-chamber, and afterwards kept concealed from Athaliah
for six years in the high priest's house. The ‫ו‬ before ‫ה‬ ָ‫ת‬ ֲ‫א‬ ָ‫ר‬ is no doubt original, the subject,
Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah, being placed at the head absolutely, and a
circumstantial clause introduced with ‫ה‬ ָ‫ת‬ ֲ‫א‬ ָ‫ר‬ְ‫:ו‬ “Athaliah, when she saw that, etc., rose up.”
‫ה‬ ָ‫כ‬ ָ‫ל‬ ְ‫מ‬ ַ ַ‫ה‬ ‫ע‬ ַ‫ר‬ֶ‫ל־ז‬ ָⅴ, all the royal seed, i.e., all the sons and relations of Ahaziah, who could put
in any claim to succeed to the throne. At the same time there were hardly any other
direct descendants of the royal family in existence beside the sons of Ahaziah, since the
elder brothers of Ahaziah had been carried away by the Arabs and put to death, and the
rest of the closer blood-relations of the male sex had been slain by Jehu (see at 2Ki_
10:13). - Jehosheba (‫ע‬ ַ‫ב‬ ֶ‫ּושׁ‬‫ה‬ְ‫,י‬ in the Chronicles ‫ת‬ ַ‫ע‬ ְ‫ב‬ ַ‫ּושׁ‬‫ה‬ְ‫,)י‬ the wife of the high priest
Jehoiada (2Ch_22:11), was a daughter of king Joram and a sister of Ahaziah, but she was
most likely not a daughter of Athaliah, as this worshipper of Baal would hardly have
allowed her own daughter to marry the high priest, but had been born to Joram by a wife
of the second rank. ‫ים‬ ִ‫ּות‬‫מ‬ ְ‫מ‬ (Chethîb), generally a substantive, mortes (Jer_16:4; Eze_
28:8), here an adjective: slain or set apart for death. The Keri ‫ים‬ ִ‫ת‬ ָ‫מוּמ‬ is the participle
Hophal, as in 2Ch_22:11. ‫הם‬ ‫ר‬ ַ‫ד‬ ֲ‫ח‬ ַ is to be taken in connection with ‫ּב‬‫נ‬ְ‫ג‬ ִ : she stole him
(took him away secretly) from the rest of the king's sons, who were about to be put to
death, into the chamber of the beds, i.e., not the children's bed-room, but a room in the
palace where the beds (mattresses and counterpanes) were kept, for which in the East
there is a special room that is not used as a dwelling-room (see Chardin in Harm. Beobb.
iii. p. 357). This was the place in which at first it was easiest to conceal the child and its
nurse. ‫רוּ‬ ִ ְ‫ס‬ַ ַ‫,ו‬ “they (Jehosheba and the nurse) concealed him,” is not to be altered into
‫הוּ‬ ֵ‫יר‬ ִ ְ‫ס‬ ַ ַ‫ו‬ after the Chronicles, as Thenius maintains. The masculine is used in the place of
the feminine, as is frequently the case. Afterwards he was concealed with her (with
Jehosheba) in the house of Jehovah, i.e., in the home of the high-priest in one of the
buildings of the court of the temple.

4. BE SO , "2 Kings 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 2 Kings 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.”
COFFMA , "ATHALIAH; THE QUEE MOTHER USURPED; THE THRO E
OF JUDAH
The reign of this wicked woman must be accounted as the low point in the history of
Israel thus far. Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, the daughter of a
king, the mother of King Ahaziah whom Jehu had slain, the wife of still another
king Jehoram king of Judah; but in this chapter we have the record of how she
murdered all of her own grandchildren and everyone else whom she recognized as a
possible threat to her authority; and although she was not recognized by Judah as a
legitimate ruler, she nevertheless exercised tyrannical authority for over six years.
"Athaliah was a true daughter of Jezebel. She saw to it that all of her husband's
(Jehoram's) brothers were murdered so that his authority might not be challenged
(2 Chronicles 21:4). She made the worship of Baal the national religion of Judah;
the High Priest Jehoiada was degraded; and all the cruelties, immoralities and
irreligion of the house of Ahab were reenacted in the Southern Kingdom, which now
fell to the lowest level in its history."[1]
The true people of Judah never recognized Athaliah as a legitimate ruler of their
kingdom. "The sacred author did not speak of her as a valid ruler at all, gave no
date of her usurpation, nor of her death or burial; and when her successor Jehoash
(Joash) was named, it was not written that he reigned `in her stead' (as in the usual
records), but merely that, `he began to reign' (2 Kings 11:21)."[2]

5. The purpose of Athaliah's six-year rule is evident in what she did. Her purpose, as
stated by Josephus, was to "See that the entire house of David might be
exterminated."[3] And it was only the providence of God that prevented Athaliah's
success in that endeavor. However, there was another purpose. She fully intended to
establish the worship of the pagan Canaanite deity Baal as the official and exclusive
religion of Judah. In line with that, she established and promoted the temple of Baal
near Solomon's temple itself, and she degraded Jehoiada from his position of High
Priest. The Bible does not fully speak of her cruel tyrannies and murderous deeds,
focusing rather upon her murder by the very priest of Jehovah whom she hated and
upon the installation of that remaining heir to the throne of David whom she
happened to overlook the night when she perpetrated the massacre of David's
descendants.
ATHALIAH'S MURDER OF ALL THE ROYAL SEED
" ow when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose
and destroyed all the seed royal. 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 that were slain, even him and his nurse, and put them in the
bedchamber; and they hid him from Athaliah, so that he was not slain; and he was
with her hid in the house of Jehovah six years. And Athaliah reigned over the land."
"God had assured David of the continuation of his family; and this cannot appear
but a great thing ... Here David's line was almost exterminated, and yet wonderfully
preserved."[4] It was by no means all the posterity of David which was threatened
with destruction by Athaliah, but only that portion of it that pertained to the
dynastic kings. The near-total irrelevance of those wicked sons of David who sat on
his earthly throne appears in the fact that the Messiah came through an absolutely
independent line of David's posterity, through athan, not through Solomon and
that parade of reprobate kings.
"Jehosheba, daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah" (2 Kings 11:2). From
Josephus we learn that she was a half-sister of Ahaziah. Ahaziah was the son of
Athaliah by Joram, and Jehosheba was the daughter of Joram by another woman,
not by Athaliah. Still she was the aunt of the infant Joash; and her prompt and
courageous action preserved the dynastic posterity of David
"She put him in the bedchamber, and they hid him from Athaliah, so that he was
not slain" (2 Kings 11:2). The bedchamber mentioned here was a storage room
where mattresses and such things were kept.[5] The problem of keeping him from
being discovered by his evil grandmother Athaliah was easily solved. Jehosheba's
husband was the High Priest Jehoiada, and they prepared an appropriate place and
secreted him in the temple for a period of six years.
"And Athaliah reigned over the land" (2 Kings 11:3). Her six year rule deserved no
further comment. Independently of this passage, we learn that, "She established the

6. exclusive worship of Baal throughout Judah; she shut down all services in the
temple, gave over the sacred vessels of the sanctuary to the priests of Baal, and used
the temple itself as a quarry from which materials were robbed to embellish and
build the temple of Baal."[6]
COKE, ". When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, &c.— The consideration of the
fate 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, kings of Israel, were 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 slew all his
brother's children, and now Athaliah destroys all the rest whom her executioners
can meet with. Enraged to see Ahab's family cut off, she resolved to revenge it on
the house of David. As she was one of Ahab's family, she had reason to apprehend
that Jehu, who had a commission to extirpate all, would not be long before he called
upon her; her only way therefore to secure herself against him was, to usurp the
throne; but this she knew she could not do without destroying all the royal progeny,
who were no well-wishers to the worship of Baal, which she had abetted, and was
resolved to maintain.
ELLICOTT, "(1) And when Athaliah . . . saw.—Rather, ow 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 2 Kings 8:18; 2
Kings 8:26-27. By her ambition and her cruelty she now shows herself a worthy
daughter of Jezebel.
Her son.—Ahaziah (2 Kings 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 (2 Chronicles 21:17); and his “kinsmen” by Jehu (2 Kings 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.
EBC, "ATHALLAH
(B.C. 842-836)
JOASH BE AHAZIAH OF JUDAH

7. (B.C. 836-796)
2 Kings 11:1-21; 2 Kings 12:1-21
"Par cette fin terrible, et due a ses forfaits,
Apprenez, Roi des Juifs, et n’oubliez jamais,
Que les rois dans le ciel ont un juge severe,
L’innocence un vengeur, et les orphelins un pere!"
- RACI E, "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 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

8. his heathen wife, had killed his six younger brothers. {2 Chronicles 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." {2
Chronicles 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 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. o 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 woman’s ruthlessness was outwitted by a woman’s cunning. Ahaziah had a
half-sister on the father’s 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
king’s 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 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
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

9. 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
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 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.
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. 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 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
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

10. 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.
o 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 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 {2
Chronicles 15:9-15} after Abijam’s apostasy, as it was afterwards made by Hezekiah
{2 Chronicles 29:10} and by Josiah. {2 Chronicles 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, Athaliah’s 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.

11. It was now Jehoiada’s object to restore such splendor 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."
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," {2
Chronicles 24:7} meaning, probably, her adherents. ot 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 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,

12. 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, {2 Chronicles 24:11} 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, 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. {2
Chronicles 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 ebuzaradan 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, {Hosea 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."

13. 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 ebuzaradan, 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
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. {Isaiah 24:2; Jeremiah 5:31; Jeremiah 23:11; Ezekiel 7:26; Ezekiel
22:26; Hosea 4:9; Micah 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

14. of enemies. Joash probably stood to him in the same relation that Henry II stood to
Thomas a 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 Jeremiah
29:26 we read his reproof and doom of the lying prophecy of the priest Shemaiah
the ehelamite, 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. {Jeremiah 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 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; {2 Kings
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 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

15. 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 2 Chronicles 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 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 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

16. 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?
PARKER, "Athaliah
Athaliah was a king"s daughter, and a king"s wife. She had a son whose name was
Ahaziah, but as he was an invalid, he did not occupy the throne longer than about
twelve months. As soon as his mother saw that he was dead a fierce and most
murderous passion seized her heart. She resolved to be queen herself. In order to
carry out this nefarious purpose she slew all the seed royal, so that there being no
successor to the throne, she herself ascended it and reigned as queen. It is very
wonderful that some of the most cruel and startling things in the world have been
done by women. One called Laodice poisoned her six sons one by one, that she might
be Empress of Constantinople. Another, ironically named Irene, took the eyes out of
her own boy, that he might be incapable of empire, and that she might reign alone.
These things were done in the ancient time: is any of the cruelty of heart left still?
The accident may be changed—what about the passion and purpose of the heart?
Let every one answer the question individually.
Athaliah made her heap of corpses and laughed in her mad heart, saying that now
she was queen. But always some Fleance escapes the murderer"s clutch. In that
heap of corpses there was an infant boy, hardly twelve months old—he was spared:
the sword had not taken his little life, but the queen knew not that the child Joash
had escaped. He was taken and with his nurse was hidden in the temple, and there
he was trained by the good priest Jehoiada for some six years. All the while the
queen was reigning and doing evil. The little boy was saved by his aunt Jehosheba,
and when six years had passed and the boy was seven years of age, being twelve
months old when he was snatched from impending ruin, Jehoiada called the rulers
together and all the chief and mighty men of Israel, and he revealed the secret to
them, and he disposed them in military order and with military precision around
the young king, and he brought the crown and put it on his head, and he gave him
the testimony or Book of Leviticus , and having gone through all this ceremonial
process, the young king stood upright by the pillar of inauguration in the temple,
and all that great throng clapped their hands and said "God save the king!" and
again "God save the king!" and louder the shout rang till the queen heard it in her
house which was not far off. The nearer the church, the farther from God, as has
been wittily said. She hastened to the sacred place to know the reason of this
hilarious tumult, and when the case was made clear to her, she shrieked and cried
"Treason, treason!" and the voice had no echo in the hearts of men. ot a soul
fluttered, not a heart started up in royal defence—the woman, the evil daughter of
an evil mother, was taken out by the way by the which the horses came into the
king"s house, and the sword she had thrust into the throat of others drank her own
blood. In an event of this kind there must be some great lessons for all time. These
are not merely momentary ebullitions of wrath or malice: they have history in them,
they are red with the common blood of the whole race.

17. Very few men stand out in ancient history with so fair and honourable a fame as
good Jehoshaphat. It is like a tonic, intellectual and spiritual, to read his vivid
history. He was a grand king, long-headed, good-hearted, honest and healthy in
purpose of doing wondrous things for his kingdom and for the chosen of God. But is
there not a weak point in every man? Does not the strongest man stoop? Does not
great Homer sometimes nod? Jehoshaphat had this weakness, that he hankered
after some kind of connection with the wicked house of Ahab. He had a Song of
Solomon , whose name was Jehoram or Joram, and he wanted his son married. He
must look round for royal blood: explain it as we may—no man has explained it
fully yet—Jehoshaphat wanted to be connected with the evil house of Ahab. To that
house he looked for a wife for his son Jehoram. His son married Athaliah, and
Athaliah brought into the kingdom the idolatrous-ness of Ahab and the fierce blood-
thirstiness of Jezebel. That was the root of the mischief. Some roots lie a long time
before they begin to germinate. There may be roots in our lives which will take ten
years or forty years to develop, but the root will bring forth according to its kind.
Let us take care what roots we plant in our life, what connections we form.
Jehoram, the son of good Jehoshaphat, walked in the evil ways of the kings of Israel,
and he wrought that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. For—mark the reason
given by the inspired historian—Jehoram did that which was evil in the eyes of the
Lord, for "he had the daughter of Ahab to wife"! What secrets were indicated by
that one reason! What a whole volume of tragedy is wrapped up in that brief
sentence! The responsibility seems to a large extent transferred from him and placed
upon his wife, who was a subtler thinker, a more desperate character, with a larger
brain and a firmer will, with more accent and force of personality. Jehoram played
the evil trick, repeated the foul habit, went in the wrong direction, bowed down to
forbidden altars, for—he had the daughter of Ahab to wife. She lured him, the
seduction was hers, she won the conquest: when he would have bowed the knee to
the God of heaven, she laughed at him and mocked him into Baal-worship—he fell
as a victim into her industrious and cruel hands.
"Be not unequally yoked together:" do not look upon marriage lightly; do not
suppose that it is a game for the passing day, a flash and gone, a hilarious
excitement, a wine-bibbing, a passing round of kind salutations, then dying away
like a trembling echo. Beware what connections you form, and do not suppose that
the laws of God can be set aside with impunity. Get out of your heads the infinite
mistake that you can do as you like and escape the operation of divine law. Deliver
yourselves from the cruel delusion that you can sow tares and reap wheat. Be not
deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.
Our family life explains our public attitude and influence. What we are at home we
are really abroad. Wives, do not destroy your husbands: when they would do good,
help them; when they propose to give to the cause of charity, suggest that the
donation be doubled, not divided; when they would help in any good and noble
work, give them sympathy, and prayer, and blessing. We never knew a man yet of
any enduring public power that was not made by his wife, and we never knew a
public yet that fully appreciated the value of that ministry. It is secret; it is at home;

18. it does not show, it is not chalked on a black-board, it is not gilded on a high ceiling,
it is silent—but vital. We have seen a man go down in his church life, and we have
wondered why, and it was his wife, the daughter of Ahab, who was degrading him,
narrowing him and dwarfing him in his thinking and sympathy. We have seen a
man go up in his public influence, and we have found that it was his wife who was
encouraging him, helping him, telling him that he was on the right way, and wishing
him good luck in the name of the Lord. See to it that your home is right: have a
beautiful home—morally and religiously; a sacred house, a sanctuary where joy is
the singing angel, and then, when you come abroad into the market-place, into the
pulpit or into parliament, or into trading and commerce, or into any of the social
relations of life, you will bring with you all the inspiration that comes from a home
that blooms like a garden or glows like a summer sun.
Do not suppose that the divine purpose can be set aside by Athaliahs or Irenes or
Laodices, or any false, furious, or desperate characters of any kind. The Lord
promised David that he should always have a candle in Jerusalem. The light was
very low sometimes, it was reduced to a spark in young Joash, but it was God"s
candle, and Athaliah"s wild breath could not blow out that light. The word of the
Lord abideth for ever. Our confidence in the final reclamation of the world from the
grip of evil is not in the eloquence of tongues, nor in the vividness of prophecy, nor
in the dauntlessness of courage—but it is in the written and sealed oath of the
Almighty Maker and Redeemer of his own universe.
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 wolf"s 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. o, 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

19. supremacy in any neighbourhood. ow 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 Athaliah"s old trick, and will
have Athaliah"s 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. o man"s 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.
If you are kind, gentle, true, honest, the wheel will turn in your favour. Blessed are
the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Forget not to send a portion to the hungry,
and extend a hand to the helpless—these are investments that cannot go down; their
value increases with the ages. "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the
Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again." A voice will be heard
saying, "Is there any left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for
Jonathan"s sake?" And some day you will receive great rewards and special
honours because of your father"s generosity to a former generation. Fathers, you
are laying up treasures for children that you know nothing about. You think all you
are laying up for your children is to be measured in pounds, shillings, and pence—
you are doing kindnesses and rendering services that will come up twenty years
hence and longer, and your children will then sit down at tables which you are
spreading now.
Jehoash, or Joash, as the name was shortened, was trained in the temple, under the
good Jehoiada. He was blessed in his aunt—for it was his aunt that took him, the
daughter of Ahab, but not by the mother of Athaliah—and Joash did good all the
days of Jehoiada the priest. See the influence of a noble life, see how religion may
help royalty, and how that which is morally true lifts up patriotism to a higher level.
o country is sound at heart, through and through good, and likely to endure, that
draws not the inspiration of its patriotism from the loftiness and purity of its
religion.
All these tragedies are making the earth reek with abomination today. Athaliah lives
in a vigorous progeny. The times are drunk with iniquity, our streets are the
hunting-grounds of all manner of vice, the earth is furious against the Lord, and
righteousness is as a bruised angel, trampled and insulted in the highways of the
world. Do not decorate the ghastly tomb, and call it the abode of life; let us look at
the wild tragedies that are about us on every hand openly in the face, and ask how
the deadly mischief can be counteracted. O temple of the Lord, temple of the Lord,

20. search thyself with the candle of heaven, and see if there be aught in thee that keeps
up the history of the world"s base Athaliahs.
The great question to be raised and answered by the Christian expositor is this—
How is this mischief to be cured? It is not to be cured by Associations reading
papers to one another at stated times in the year; it is not to be cured by clever
ecclesiastical organisations, by multiplying bishops and ministers and Christian
agencies, merely as such. How then is it to be cured? It took God to answer that
question. He and he only could find the reply to a question accented with fire, and
made urgent with blood. What is the divine answer? There is none other name
under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, but that of Jesus Christ
the Son of God. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners," and he said in one of his tenderest
discourses, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." " ot by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us,
by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." Except a man be
born of the la ver of regeneration—which laver is filled with blood—and of the
Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
This is the answer, poignant, tragical, sublime, tender. Who art thou, poor plasterer,
running up and down the world"s broken walls, and daubing them with
untempered mortar? Who art thou, crying "Peace, peace," when there is no peace?
Who art thou with an inch of gilt, seeking to decorate the world"s death? The
message must be vital, the gospel must be one of blood—"the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth from all sin," and not until we realise the grandeur of that doctrine shall
we rouse ourselves from playing at philanthropy, and become inflamed and inspired
with the desire to save the world.
Athaliah still lives—the connection with the house of Ahab still has evil results: evil-
doers will turn round and complain of being badly used when their turn comes, the
merciless will meet with no real mercy, the pitiless will have to confront the sword of
their own cruelty, and amid all the world"s sin and woe and death there is but one
hope, and its name is—The Cross of Christ.
Selected ote
"And the captains over the hundreds did according to all tilings that Jehoiada
[known by Jehovah] the priest commanded" ( 2 Kings 11:9).—Several persons of
this name are mentioned in the Old Testament, of whom the one most deserving
notice is he who was high priest in the times of Ahaziah and Athaliah. He is only
known from the part which he took in recovering the throne of Judah for the young
Joash, who had been saved by his wife Jehoshebah from the massacre by which
Athaliah sought to exterminate the royal line of David. Jehoiada manifested much
decision and forecast on this occasion; and he used for good the great power which
devolved upon him during the minority of the young king, and the influence which
he continued to enjoy as long as he lived. The value of this influence is shown by the
misconduct and the disorders of the kingdom after his death. He died in b.c834 , at

21. the age of130 , and his remains were honoured with a place in the sepulchre of the
kings at Jerusalem.
GUZIK, "A. The preservation of Joash.
1. (2 Kings 11:1-3) The queen mother reigns over Judah.
When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and
destroyed all the royal heirs. 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 being murdered; and they hid him and his nurse in the bedroom,
from Athaliah, so that he was not killed. So he was hidden with her in the house of
the LORD for six years, while Athaliah reigned over the land.
a. When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead: Ahaziah was
executed by Jehu, as recorded in 2 Kings 9:27-29. She used the occasion of her son’s
death to take power for herself, and she reigned over the land for six years.
i. We remember that Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and was given
to Jehoram, King of Judah as a bride. She was a bad influence on both her husband
(Jehoram of Judah) and her son (King Ahaziah of Judah).
b. And destroyed all the royal heirs: Athaliah was from the family of Ahab, and
Jehu had completely destroyed all of Ahab’s descendants in Israel. ow, after
Jehu’s coup, Athaliah tried to save something for Ahab’s family by trying to
eliminate the house of David in Judah.
i. “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!” (Clarke)
ii. Years before, the King of Judah - Jehoshaphat - married his son to this daughter
of Ahab and Jezebel, hoping to make an alliance with those wicked and apostate
leaders. “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.” (Poole)
iii. “ o character in history, sacred or secular, stands out blacker or more hideous
than this daughter-in-law of the godly Jehoshaphat.” (Knapp)
c. But Jehosheba: This little-known woman had an important place in God’s plan of
the ages. Through her courage and ingenuity, she preserved the royal line of David
through which the Messiah would come. Evil people like Athaliah will begin their
work, but God can always raise up a Jehosheba.
i. “Thus evil always breaks down. It is extremely clever, it calculates on all the
changes, and seems to leave no unguarded place; but with unvarying regularity it

22. fails somewhere to cover up its tracks, or to insure its victory.” (Morgan)
ii. 2 Chronicles 22:11 tells us that Jehosheba was the wife of Jehoiada, the high
priest. Yet, “It is not likely that Jehosheba was the daughter of Athaliah; she was a
sister, we find, to Ahaziah the son of Athaliah, but probably by a different mother.”
(Clarke)
d. He was hidden with her in the house of the LORD for six years: Though Ahaziah
was a bad king who made evil alliances, he was still a descendant of David and the
successor of his royal line. For the sake of David, God remembered His promise and
spared this one young survivor to the massacre of Athaliah. The line of David was
almost extinguished and continued only in the presence of a small boy, but God
preserved that flickering flame.
i. “Josephus (Antiquities 9.7.1) says that the bedroom where the child and his nurse
hid was room where spare furniture and mattresses were stored.” (Wiseman)
ii. Like the boy Samuel, Joash grew up in the temple. Like Samuel, he probably
found little ways to help the priests, whatever could be done without attracting too
much attention.
WHEDO , "1. Destroyed all the seed royal — The ferocious Athaliah, a worthy
daughter of the bloody Jezebel, acted at Jerusalem as queen mother, (see 1 Kings
15:10; 1 Kings 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.
PETT, "1). The Usurping Of The Throne By Athaliah And The Preservation And
Eventual Crowning Of The Davidic Heir Resulting In Her Execution (2 Kings 11:1-
16).
Analysis.
a ow when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she
arose and destroyed all the royal seed (2 Kings 11:1).
b 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 bedchamber, and they hid him from
Athaliah, so that he was not slain (2 Kings 11:2).
c And he was with her hidden in the house of YHWH six years. And Athaliah
reigned over the land (2 Kings 11:3).

23. d And in the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the commanders over
hundreds of the Carites (or ‘the executioners’) and of the guard, and brought them
to him into the house of YHWH, and he made a covenant with them, and took an
oath of them in the house of YHWH, and showed them the king’s son (2 Kings 11:4).
e And he commanded them, saying, “This is the thing that you will do. A third
part of you, who come in on the sabbath, will be keepers of the watch of the king’s
house, and a third part will be at the gate Sur, and a third part at the gate behind
the guard. So will you keep the watch of the house, and be a barrier” (2 Kings 11:5-
6).
f “And the two companies of you, even all who go forth on the sabbath, will
keep the watch of the house of YHWH about the king. And you shall surround the
king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand, and he who comes
within the ranks, let him be slain. And be you with the king when he goes out, and
when he comes in” (2 Kings 11:7-8).
e And the commanders over hundreds did according to all that Jehoiada the
priest commanded, and they took every man 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 (2 Kings 11:9).
d And the priest delivered to the commanders over hundreds the spears and
shields that had been king David’s, which were in the house of YHWH. And 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, by the king and
round about him (2 Kings 11:10-11).
c Then he brought out the king’s son, and put the crown on him, and gave him
the testimony, and they made him king, and anointed him, and they clapped their
hands, and said, “Long live the king.” And when Athaliah heard the noise of the
guard and of the people, she came to the people into the house of YHWH, and she
looked, and, behold, the king stood by the pillar, as the manner was, and the
captains and the rams’ horns by the king, and all the people of the land rejoiced,
and blew rams’ horns. Then Athaliah tore her clothes, and cried, “Treason!
treason!” (2 Kings 11:12-14).
b And Jehoiada the priest commanded the commanders of hundreds who were
set over the host, and said to them, “Have her forth between the ranks, and him who
follows her slay with the sword.” For the priest said, “Let her not be slain in the
house of YHWH” (2 Kings 11:15).
a So they made way for her, and she went by the way of the horses’ entry to the
king’s house, and there she was slain (2 Kings 11:16).
ote that in ‘a’ Athaliah destroyed all the seed royal, apart from one, and in the
parallel she herself was slain. In ‘b’ Joash was hidden so that he was not slain, and
in the parallel Athaliah was to be slain. but not in the house of YHWH. In ‘c’ the
king’s son was hidden and Athaliah ruled over the land, and in the parallel the
king’s son was revealed and Athaliah tore her clothes and cried ‘treason’. In ‘d’ the
king’s son was shown to the reliable king’s bodyguard, and in the parallel the king’s
son was protected by the bodyguard in order to be shown to the people. In ‘e’
Jehoiada gave his instructions to the bodyguard, and in the parallel those
instructions were carried out. Centrally in ‘f’ the king’s son was to be protected at
all times.

24. 2 Kings 11:1
‘ ow when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose
and destroyed all the royal seed.’
When Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab, Ahaziah’s mother, learned that Ahaziah had
been slain by Jehu, she determined to usurp the throne of Judah, and set about
destroying all the seed royal. Had she succeeded the house of David would have been
no more. It is clear from this that she had her own band of loyal supporters in
Judah, many of whom would have come with her from Israel, certainly sufficient to
subdue all opposition with no rival contender appearing to challenge her. As the
queen mother she held a respected position, and there appeared to be no one who
could claim to oppose her.
Athaliah was a worshipper of Baal and had set up a Temple of Baal in Jerusalem.
Her usurpation of the throne was thus a momentous occasion for Judah, for it
continued and extended the influence of Ahaziah who had promoted Baal worship
(2 Kings 8:27). With the house of David having apparently ceased things were
looking black for Yahwism. That she was not, however popular comes out in the
sequel. Her most fervent opponents would be the priests and Levites of YHWH and
the landed gentry of Judah who had been largely unaffected by the trend towards
Baalism in Jerusalem and other ‘Canaanite’ cities.
The prophetic author’s derisory view of Athaliah is brought out by the fact that she
has no opening or closing formula applied to her. She is seen as a blip in the
succession rather than as an integral part of it. She was, of course, not of the house
of David.
PETT, "Verses 1-21
The Reign In Judah Of Athaliah The Usurper c. 841-835 BC, Or The Remarkable
Preservation And Restoration Of The Davidic Heir And The Refutation Of The
Worship Of The Foreign Baal (2 Kings 11:1-21).
On hearing of the death of Ahaziah, king of Judah, at the hands of Jehu, and the
overthrowing of the dynasty of Omri in Israel, Ahaziah’s mother Athaliah, a
daughter of Ahab and the influential ‘queen mother’, seized the throne of Judah
and sought to destroy all the seed royal, seeking to salvage something for the house
of Ahab. The result appeared to be that the house of David was about to be
exterminated, and it was all due to their association with the house of Ahab. The
fact that according to the Chronicler her son had previously slain all his brothers,
along with a number of prominent aristocrats, once his reign was established (2
Chronicles 21:4), presumably because of opposition to his support for Baal, brings
out how evil that house really was. They would brook no opposition in their
determination to establish the worship of Baal.
But YHWH had not forgotten His promises to David (2 Samuel 7) and Ahaziah’s

25. half-sister Jehosheba (presumably by another wife of Jehoram) hid one of Ahaziah’s
infant sons, Joash, so that he survived the massacre, after which he was kept in
hiding for many years in the Temple, until the time came for his revealing to Judah.
Then when the appropriate time came Jehoiada, the faithful Priest who, with
Jehosheba his wife had watched over him, presented him before the commanders of
the Temple guards whom he knew that he could rely on, taking from them suitable
oaths of secrecy and loyalty.
The result was that, after carefully putting in place certain safeguards, Joash was
crowned, anointed and acclaimed in the Temple by both the guards and a gathering
of the people. The noise of the acclamation was such that it brought the
unsuspecting Athaliah hurrying to the scene, presumably accompanied by a number
of attendants, and when she realised what was happening she cried out ‘treason’.
But she had little popular support, and with her own main bodyguard and
supporters (as worshippers of Baal) presumably largely elsewhere she was at the
mercy of the Temple guards. She was therefore led out of the Temple and slain. Her
rebellion was at an end. This was then followed by the renewal of the covenants of
YHWH and the destruction of the sanctuary of Baal.
We should note that we do not strictly have a record of the reign of Athaliah. She is
seen rather as a brief and unpleasant interlude leading up to the restoration of the
Davidic monarchy and of the covenants of YHWH, and the account of her reign
simply deals with her failure to extirpate the house of David, and her death.
The passage divides into two subsections:
1) The Usurping Of The Throne By Athaliah And The Preservation And
Eventual Crowning Of The Davidic Heir Resulting In Her Execution (2 Kings 11:1-
16).
2) The Renewing Of The Covenants of YHWH, The Destruction Of The
Sanctuary Of Baal, And The Final Official Enthronement Of The Davidic Heir (2
Kings 11:17-21).
PULPIT, "2 Kings 11:1-3
On learning the death of Ahaziah (2 Kings 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. o 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 (2 Kings 8:27), is
maintained by her (2 Kings 11:18).
2 Kings 11:1
And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead. (On Athaliah,
see the comment upon 2 Kings 8:18.) She was married to Jehoram, son of

26. Jehoshaphat, probably in the lifetime of his father, to cement the alliance concluded
between Ahab and Jehoshaphat against the Syrians (1 Kings 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 (2 Kings 8:18; 2 Chronicles 2:5, 2 Chronicles
2:11), and Ahaziah prevailed upon to maintain it (2 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 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 (2 Chronicles
21:4), by Arab marauders (2 Chronicles 21:17), and by Jehu's murder of the
"brethren of Ahaziah" (2 Kings 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.
MACLARE , "JEHOIADA AND JOASH
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

27. 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_23:1-21, 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

28. 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_17:18-19) 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.
BI 1-21, "And when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead.
The history of Athaliah
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. In this woman’s life, as here

29. 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 children’s 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
woman’s 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
Joseph’s 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 woman’s 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

30. 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 wolf’s 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 Athaliah’s old trick,
and will have Athaliah’s 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 man’s
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.)