Joash and Jehoiada: a Coronation in the Temple, a Chest for Repairs, and a Stoning in the Court
A seven-year-old boy is brought out of hiding, crowned and proclaimed king. He repairs the Temple, inventing a chest with a hole in its lid. And after the death of the man who saved him, he orders that man's son stoned — in the court of that same Temple.
In the seventh year Jehoiada the priest gathered the captains of hundreds, the guard and the runners, brought them into the House of the LORD, showed them the king's son, and posted armed men from the right side of the house to the left, by the altar. Then he brought out the boy, placed the crown and the testimony upon him, anointed him — and they all clapped their hands and shouted, "Long live the king!"
Athaliah heard the noise, came into the House of the LORD, saw the king by the pillar with the officers and the trumpeters, tore her clothes and cried, "Treason, treason!" Jehoiada ordered her taken outside the Temple precincts — "let her not be put to death in the House of the LORD" — and there she was killed. Then a covenant was made between the LORD, the king and the people; the temple of Baal was torn down, its altars smashed, and Mattan its priest killed before the altars.
Joash reigned forty years. His chief work was the repair of the Temple, by then in disrepair. The first arrangement failed: the priests collected the money and the work did not advance. So Jehoiada took a single chest, bored a hole in its lid and set it beside the altar on the right as one enters; the priests who guarded the threshold put into it all the silver brought to the House of the LORD. When it held a great deal, the king's scribe and the high priest came, emptied and counted it, and handed it straight to the workmen: carpenters, builders, masons. No accounting was demanded of them, "for they dealt honestly."
The last part of the story is the hardest. Jehoiada died at a hundred and thirty and was buried among the kings. After his death the officers of Judah came and bowed to the king, and he listened to them: they abandoned the House of the LORD and served the asherahs. The spirit of God clothed Zechariah son of Jehoiada, and he said to the people: why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD? You have forsaken Him, and He will forsake you. And he was stoned at the king's command in the court of the House of the LORD. As he died he said, "May the LORD see and require it."
Joash, badly wounded in the war with Aram, was killed in his bed by his own servants.
Sources
Tanakh
- Melachim II 11:4–16 — Yoash crowned in the seventh year, and the death of Atalya
- Melachim II 12:5–17 — the chest with a hole in its lid and the Temple repair without an accounting
- Divrei HaYamim II 24:20–22 — Zecharya ben Yehoyada stoned in the court of the Temple
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.
People and places
Joash · Athaliah · The Temple · Temple Mount · Jerusalem · Kings · Chronicles