Chapter Twenty-Four

1–2. The pious character of Joash’s reign before the death of the high priest Jehoiada. 4–14. The repair of the temple damage. 15–18. The death of Jehoiada and the appearance of paganism in Judah. 19–22. Prophetic rebukes and the stoning for them of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada. 23–27. The Syrian invasion; the illness and violent death of Joash.

2 Chronicles 24:1. Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Zibiah from Beersheba. 2 Chronicles 24:2. And Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of the priest Jehoiada. The narrative of 2 Chronicles on the reign of Joash, namely the main events of that reign: the restoration of the temple (v. 4–14), the king’s marriage (v. 3), the corruption of the people and the king’s transgression after Jehoiada’s death (v. 15–22), finally, the attack of the Syrians on Judah (v. 23–24) and the details of his death (v. 25–27), differs considerably in content and presentation from the parallel narrative (2 Kgs 12). Only verses 1–2 show word-for-word similarity with (2 Kgs 12:1-2). In the subsequent narrative the advantage in detail, completeness, and documentary character of the chronicle clearly lies with 2 Chronicles.

2 Chronicles 24:3. And Jehoiada found two wives for him, and he had sons and daughters by them. The information about Joash’s marriage, at the instigation of Jehoiada, to two wives is found only in 2 Chronicles. The accepted text of the LXX (and also the Alexandrian codex and some others, together with the Arabic translation and some Hebrew rabbis) express the thought that Jehoiada himself took two wives. But such an idea, already inconsistent with the context of the chapter (the whole of chapter 24 relates the story of Joash, while Jehoiada’s life and activities are introduced into the narrative only episodically), contains an obvious impropriety in view of Jehoiada’s advanced age. Therefore, in other LXX manuscripts, for example, in codices 71, 93, 108 in Holmes, the Complutensian, and also in the Vulgate, Syriac, Slavonic, and Russian texts, we read of Joash’s marriage.

2 Chronicles 24:4. And after this it came into Joash’s heart to restore the house of the Lord, 2 Chronicles 24:5. and he gathered the priests and Levites and said to them: “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect from all Israel money to repair the house of your God year by year; and see that you do the work quickly.” But the Levites did not hurry. 2 Chronicles 24:6. And the king summoned Jehoiada, their chief, and said to him: “Why have you not required the Levites to bring in from Judah and from Jerusalem the tax levied by Moses, the servant of the Lord, on the congregation of Israel for the tent of meeting? 2 Chronicles 24:7. For the wicked Athaliah and her sons broke up the house of God, and also used all the dedicated things of the house of the Lord for the Baals. 2 Chronicles 24:8. So the king commanded, and they made a chest and set it outside the gate of the house of the Lord. 2 Chronicles 24:9. And proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem to bring in to the Lord the tax that Moses the servant of God laid on Israel in the wilderness. 2 Chronicles 24:10. And all the officials and all the people rejoiced and brought their tax and dropped it into the chest until it was full. 2 Chronicles 24:11. And whenever the chest was brought to the king’s officers by the hand of the Levites, and when they saw that there was much money in it, the king’s secretary and the officer of the chief priest would come and empty the chest and take it and return it to its place. Thus they did day by day, and collected money in abundance. 2 Chronicles 24:12. And the king and Jehoiada gave it to those who did the work of service on the house of the Lord, and they hired masons and carpenters to restore the house of the Lord, and also workers in iron and bronze to repair the house of the Lord. 2 Chronicles 24:13. And the workmen labored, and the repair work progressed under their hands, and they restored the house of God to its proper condition and strengthened it. 2 Chronicles 24:14. And when they had finished, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Jehoiada, and from it were made articles for the service of the house of the Lord, vessels for making offerings and pouring libations, and vessels of gold and silver. And burnt offerings were continuously offered in the house of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada. Cf. (2 Kgs 12:5-16). In this section there are several additional details beyond the facts presented in the chapter (2 Kgs 12) about the organization of the work of repair and improvement of the temple. From these details we see how the moral level of the priests had declined, in whose hands the temple contributions of silver were concentrated and squandered by them. (Vlastov, “Sacred Chronicle,” vol. IV, pt. III, p. 189). The money for temple restoration, according to the king’s words, was to come from the regular collection of the “tax levied by Moses for the tent of meeting” (v. 5–6, 9), that is, the half-shekel redemption, compulsory for every male who had reached twenty years of age and who entered the people’s census, the so-called “redemption of souls” according to the law (Exod 30:13-16) (see “Expository Bible,” vol. I, p. 380). Under Moses “every one who paid this tax participated in the construction of the tabernacle, in that common work which created the religious and political unity of the nation” (Vlastov, “Sacred Chronicle,” vol. II, 1878, p. 211). And although the book of Exodus does not state that this was an annual tax, it is evident that it was considered such (cf. (Neh 10:32-33; Matt 17:24); Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” III, 8,2; Vlastov, “Sacred Chronicle,” vol. IV, p. 189, note 15). To the money from the poll tax could be added redemption money from persons who had dedicated themselves to temple service in place of actual service there (Lev 27:1-7), and also offerings for the temple (cf. (Exod 25:2; Exod 35:5); see “Expository Bible,” vol. I, p. 354,396, vol. II, p. 516). Moreover, according to (2 Chr 24:5) the priests and Levites were obliged not only at the temple to receive all these monetary contributions (2 Kgs 12:5), but also to go throughout not just Jerusalem but all Judah for this purpose. Furthermore, in view of the insufficient energy of the priests and Levites in this matter (2 Kgs 12:6-7) a special collection box was set up at the temple gate (at the northern gate of the inner court) to receive offerings (v. 8), the inflow of which then quickly began (v. 10). This was “the first historical collection, which subsequently had great development in the Second Temple” (Prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, “The Old Testament Temple,” p. 355). The report in verse 14 that the workmen, after completing all the repair work on the temple, made various temple vessels from the remaining silver, appears to contradict (2 Kgs 12:13-14), where it is stated that no vessels were made from the donated silver. But the seeming contradiction is easily explained by the fact that the king and high priest did not make the vessels by their command; the workmen, however, at the completion of the repair work, contributed from their own zeal some of the silver, from which, at their desire, some things were made (Prof. Gulyaev, “Historical Books of the Old Testament,” p. 553). Thus, the negation in 4 Kings and the assertion in Chronicles refer to different moments of one and the same fact, and both are entirely correct.

2 Chronicles 24:15. And Jehoiada grew old and full of days and died; he was one hundred thirty years old when he died. 2 Chronicles 24:16. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel and for God and his house. 2 Chronicles 24:17. But after the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came and paid homage to the king; and the king listened to them. 2 Chronicles 24:18. And they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And the anger of the Lord came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of this guilt of theirs. 2 Chronicles 24:19. Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord; they testified against them, but they would not listen. 2 Chronicles 24:20. And the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of the priest Jehoiada, and he stood above the people and said to them: “Thus says the Lord: Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have abandoned the Lord, he has abandoned you. 2 Chronicles 24:21. And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the command of the king [Joash] in the court of the house of the Lord. 2 Chronicles 24:22. And King Joash did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, his father, had shown him, but killed his son. And as he was dying, he said: “May the Lord see and avenge! Here we find very important information, substantially supplementing and explaining the fragmentary account in the chapter (2 Kgs 12) of the second half and end of Joash’s reign. The burial of Jehoiada with the kings (v. 16), that is, in the royal tombs of Jerusalem, is motivated by the services rendered to Judah (“Israel” in verse 16, as also in (2 Chr 23:2) – in a general sense: God’s people) for both state and religious good by the high priest Jehoiada. As is evident from verses 17–18, Jehoiada held true worship in Judah, and with his death, open idolatry began in the Judahite kingdom under the influence of officials devoted to paganism. To rebuke the latter, the Lord now raised up many prophets (verses 19–20, 27), among whom (cf. above (2 Chr 20:14)) was the son and successor of Jehoiada, the high priest Zechariah, who rebuked the king and people in the temple before all for their apostasy and foretold their punishment. For this, at the king’s command, not remembering the kindnesses of Jehoiada, he was stoned in the court of the house of the Lord (v. 19–21). Concerning the killing of “Zechariah son of Berachiah” (Matt 23:35), between the altar and the temple (Luke 11:51), the Lord Jesus Christ also spoke in his rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees, who concealed in their hearts their plan to murder him. “The killing of a high priest who spoke the words of admonition to that people by the command of God’s Spirit, the very people among whom the Messiah was to be born, and to that king, who was a descendant of David and in the flesh the Son of God, certainly has high prophetic and prefigurative significance regarding the coming sacred events of the killing of Christ the Savior by that same people for speaking words of grace and truth” (Vlastov, “Sacred Chronicle,” vol. IV, pt. II, p. 192). Therefore many, both ancient and modern, commentators have believed and continue to believe that the Lord in (Matt 23:35; Luke 11:51) speaks precisely of Zechariah (2 Chr 24:20-22) – the Old Testament martyr and confessor of Iehova. From of old, however, two differences in the passages being compared have raised doubt. 1) In (Matt 23:35) Zechariah is called “son of Berachiah” (not of Jehoiada). 2) According to (Matt 23:35; Luke 11:51) Zechariah was killed “between the temple and the altar” – a place considered the most important and most sacred after the temple (cf. Olesnitsky, “The Old Testament Temple,” p. 321) – whereas according to (2 Chr 24:21) the killing of Zechariah occurred “in the court of the house of the Lord.” True, these differences are not so significant as to hinder the identification of the Gospel Zechariah with Zechariah of 2 Chronicles. The words “son of Berachiah” are not present at all in Luke’s Gospel; nor are they in some ancient manuscripts of Matthew’s Gospel, for example, according to Tischendorf, in the Sinai codex of Matthew’s Gospel (Novum Testamentum Graece. Revised by Constantine de Tischendorf. Leipzig. 1869, p. 44). According to the testimony of the blessed Jerome (regarding (Matt 23:35)) in Matthew’s Gospel which the Nazoreans used, instead of the words: “son of Berachiah” stood the words “son of Jehoiada.” Much less significant is the difference in the specification of the place of killing: it is quite possible that the Lord more precisely and closely defines and clarifies the general and indefinite indication of 2 Chronicles. Nevertheless, from of old, in the Gospel Zechariah, scholars attempted to see other persons bearing this name, such as one of the minor twelve prophets (Zech 1:1) or the father of John the Baptist (see “Works of the Blessed Jerome,” Russian translation, part 16: Four Books of Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Kyiv. 1901, p. 244–245).

2 Chronicles 24:23. And at the end of the year an army of the Syrians came up against him, and invaded Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the officials of the people from among the people, and sent all their plunder to the king in Damascus. 2 Chronicles 24:24. Though the army of the Syrians came with few men, the Lord delivered into their hand a very great army, because Judah had abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers. And they executed judgment on Joash. 2 Chronicles 24:25. And when they had withdrawn from him, leaving him in severe illness, his servants conspired against him because of the blood of the son of the priest Jehoiada, and killed him on his bed. So he died; and they buried him in the city of David, but they did not bury him in the tombs of the kings. 2 Chronicles 24:26. Those who conspired against him were Zabad son of Shimeath the Ammonite, and Jehozabad son of Shimrith the Moabite. The punishment for Joash’s transgressions consisted of: partly the invasion of the Syrians on Judah and Jerusalem (v. 23–24, cf. (2 Kgs 12:18-19)), and then the severe illness of Joash and his violent death at the hands of conspirators (v. 25–26, cf. (2 Kgs 12:20-21)). In 2 Chronicles the causal connection of these misfortunes with the king’s impiety and transgressions is evident; therefore the narrative itself is fuller and more intelligible than in (2 Kgs 12), which makes no mention of Joash’s impiety. In this case, as in many others, the book of Chronicles supplements the bare outline of events in 4 Kings with living substance and pragmatic connection. Joash was buried, like Joram (2 Chr 21:20), outside the royal tombs.

2 Chronicles 24:27. Concerning his sons and the great number of prophecies against him and the repair of the house of God it is written in the book of the kings. And his son Amaziah reigned in his place. The details about Joash and his reign were contained in the “book of the kings,” Hebrew: bemidrashamalekhaim, LXX ἐπὶ τὴν γραφὴν τῶν βασιλέων, Vulgate: in libro regum, Slavonic: “in the chronicle of kings.” The Hebrew “midrash” (cf. (2 Chr 13:22)) in the language of postexilic Judaism meant commentary or exposition of some biblical book or part of it (e.g., “Midrash Mekhilta” – commentary on part of the book of Exodus, “Midrash Sifra” – on the book of Leviticus, etc.), often with predominance of allegorical interpretations (cf. Cleric to 2 Paral. XIII, 22). In this case we may understand a prophetic postexilic or even earlier reworking of the history of the Jewish kings, which served together with the canonical books of Kings as a source in the composition of Chronicles (Stade, “History of the People Israel,” I, p. 84; cf. in Prof. P.A. Yungerov, “Origin and Historical Nature of the Book of Chronicles,” p. 16–17).