2 Kings 11

2Ki 11:1-3.

JEHOASH

SAVED FROM

ATHALIAH'S

MASSACRE.

1. Athaliah--(See on

2Ch 22:2).

She had possessed great influence over her son, who, 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; 22:1;

2Ki 10:13, 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.

2. Jehosheba--or Jehoshabeath

(2Ch 22:11).

daughter of King Joram--not by Athaliah, but by a secondary wife.

stole him from among the king's sons which were slain--either from

among the corpses, he being considered dead, or out of the palace

nursery.

hid him . . . in the bedchamber--for the use of the priests, which

was in some part of the temple

(2Ki 11:3),

and of which Jehoiada and his wife had the sole charge. What is called,

however, the bedchamber in the East is not the kind of apartment that

we understand by the name, but a small closet, into which are flung

during the day the mattresses and other bedding materials spread on the

floors or divans of the sitting-rooms by day. Such a slumber-room was

well suited to be a convenient place for the recovery of his wounds,

and a hiding-place for the royal infant and his nurse.

2Ki 11:4-12.

HE

IS

MADE

KING.

4. the seventh year--namely, of the reign of Athaliah, and the rescue

of Jehoash.

Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers, &c.--He could scarcely have

obtained such a general convocation except at the time, or on pretext,

of a public and solemn festival. Having revealed to them the secret of

the young king's preservation and entered into a covenant with them for

the overthrow of the tyrant, he then arranged with them the plan and

time of carrying their plot into execution

(see on

2Ch 22:10-23:21).

The conduct of Jehoiada, who acted the leading and chief part in this

conspiracy, admits of an easy and full justification; for, while

Athaliah was a usurper, and belonged to a race destined by divine

denunciation to destruction, even his own wife had a better and

stronger claim to the throne; the sovereignty of Judah had been

divinely appropriated to the family of David, and therefore the young

prince on whom it was proposed to confer the crown, possessed an

inherent right to it, of which a usurper could not deprive him.

Moreover, Jehoiada was most probably the high priest, whose official

duty it was to watch over the due execution of God's laws, and who in

his present movement, was encouraged and aided by the countenance and

support of the chief authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical, in the

country. In addition to all these considerations, he seems to have been

directed by an impulse of the Divine Spirit, through the counsels and

exhortations of the prophets of the time.

2Ki 11:13-16.

ATHALIAH

SLAIN.

13. Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people--The

profound secrecy with which the conspiracy had been conducted rendered

the unusual acclamations of the vast assembled crowd the more startling

and roused the suspicions of the tyrant.

she came . . . into the temple of the Lord--that is, the courts, which

she was permitted to enter by Jehoiada's directions

(2Ki 11:8)

in order that she might be secured.

14. the king stood by a pillar--or on a platform, erected for that

purpose (see on

2Ch 6:13).

15. without the ranges--that is, fences, that the sacred place might

not be stained with human blood.

2Ki 11:17-20.

JEHOIADA

RESTORES

GOD'S

WORSHIP.

17, 18. a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people--The

covenant with the Lord was a renewal of the national covenant with

Israel

(Ex 19:1-24:18;

"to be unto him a people of inheritance,"

De 4:6; 27:9).

The covenant between the king and the people was the consequence of

this, and by it the king bound himself to rule according to the divine

law, while the people engaged to submit, to give him allegiance as the

Lord's anointed. The immediate fruit of this renewal of the covenant

was the destruction of the temple and the slaughter of the priests of

Baal (see

2Ki 10:27);

the restoration of the pure worship of God in all its ancient

integrity; and the establishment of the young king on the hereditary

throne of Judah

[2Ki 11:19].