2 Kingschapter 11
21 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to annihilate all the royal heirs.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter tells the one time the line of David almost ended, and the six years it survived in hiding. It was written for readers in exile who needed to know the promise to David had held through a worse night than theirs. Its first hearers knew the temple precinct as a place where priests lived and worked, and they knew the sabbath change of the guard. Listen for the careful planning of a priest and for the weapons kept since David's day. Listen also for the covenant made at the close. A queen's power ends without a battle.
Context
- Who
- Judeans who nearly lost the line of David altogether
- What
- An account of Athaliah seizing Judah's throne, the hidden rescue of the child Joash, and his crowning in the temple.
- Where
- The temple precinct in Jerusalem and the royal palace beside it.
- When
- 841 to 835 BC, the six years of Athaliah's rule and the seventh, when it ended.
- Why
- To show the promise of a lasting house for David kept when it hung on a single child.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Athaliah, the queen mother of Judah and a daughter of Ahab, and to Jehoiada the high priest and his wife Jehosheba. The years are 841 to 835 BC, the six years of Athaliah's rule and the seventh in which it ended.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The place is the temple precinct in Jerusalem and the palace beside it. The occasion is the death of Athaliah's son Ahaziah in Jehu's purge, which left her without any other route to power.
A first hearer knew the precinct as a working compound. It held storerooms and priests' chambers with people living in them, and Athaliah had no reason to enter a temple she did not use, which is how a child stayed hidden for six years.
The coup is timed to the guard rotation. Temple security worked in shifts that changed on the sabbath, so at the changeover both the outgoing and the incoming companies were present, twice the men, armed and assembled for a legitimate reason.
The Carites named in the chapter were the foreign professional bodyguard, the same kind of unit David had used. The spears and shields Jehoiada hands out had been kept in the temple since David's day.
Every element of the coronation is traditional and public. The boy stands by the pillar, which was the king's designated standing place. He receives the crown and the testimony, most likely the copy of the covenant document a king was required to keep and read. Then comes the anointing, the clapping and the trumpets.
Significance
The first hearers knew how close it came. For six years the promise of a lasting house of David rested on one child in a temple storeroom, and a handful of people knew he existed.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The chapter also shows the priesthood doing what the monarchy could not. A high priest hid the heir, armed the guard, crowned the boy, and bound king and people to God by covenant in one afternoon.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus keeps fourteen notes on this chapter, all of them Rashi in the Metsudah Tanach translation of Lakewood, New Jersey, under a CC-BY licence, and they are the most concentrated body of classical material in this half of the book, because the chapter turns on the layout of the Temple and on the order of the priestly watches. Two of them reach beyond the history into the liturgy and into a tradition about the crown, and those two are the ones a reader looking for traditional insight should take first.
The room the infant was hidden in Rashi places inside the sanctuary. He reads the chamber as the attic above the Holy of Holies, noting from Chronicles that the woman who hid him was the wife of the chief priest and so had access to the chambers, and he reads the next verse as saying the child stayed hidden with her in the house of the LORD. He then sets two verses beside it, David's line about being hidden in the tabernacle and concealed in the shelter of the tent, and a line of the Song where the beloved lodges between the breasts, which is how he accounts for the word the text uses for the room. The Metsudah footnote explains the second of those by the two staves of the Ark, which pressed into the curtain of the Holy of Holies. Rashi then names a line of synagogue poetry built on the same word, instituted by Rabbi Elazar HaKalir, which asks that the destruction of the chamber atone (Rashi on II Kings 11:2:1). A Christian reader meeting this chapter as a palace coup should know that the tradition hears in one of its words a line the congregation sings.
The crown and the testimony given to the boy king draw the chapter's other reaching note. Rashi reads the testimony as the Torah scroll, on the strength of the law in Deuteronomy that a king keeps the book with him and reads in it all his days, and the footnote adds Metzudat David's account of why a scroll is called a testimony and Radak's alternative that the word means the royal robes. Rashi then reports a further tradition, that our Rabbis said the crown itself was the testimony, because it would fit anyone fit for the throne and would fit no one unfit for it, citing the tractate Avodah Zarah (Rashi on II Kings 11:12:1). That is a traditional insight rather than a claim the text makes, and the tradition gives it as the rabbis' own.
The rest of the kept notes are the working of the plan. The officers Jehoiada sent for Rashi identifies as the officers of the hundreds of the mighty men and of the runners, and he explains why the Hebrew word for the company stands in the singular, giving an Old French word for it (Rashi on II Kings 11:4:1), and he states what the covenant with them was for, that they help him crown the king's son (Rashi on II Kings 11:4:2). The division into three he sets inside the priestly rota. The watches were renewed on the sabbath, one entering and one leaving, and he reads the order as given to the entering watch, one third of it posted at the king's house so that no one should rise against the boy (Rashi on II Kings 11:5:1). He then identifies each gate in turn, the Sur Gate as the eastern gate of the Temple court, the gate behind the runners as another gate of the court, and he notes that Chronicles calls that same gate by a different name, and that the way from the palace to the house of the LORD ran through the Gate of the Runners (Rashi on II Kings 11:6:1). The two companies of the seventh verse he identifies as the two he has just placed, together with all the men of the departing watch (Rashi on II Kings 11:7:1).
The order about anyone breaking the ranks Rashi reads as a guard on the passage between the palace and the house of the LORD, and he says plainly that he does not know the origin of the Hebrew word for it, giving the Targum's rendering and describing it as a kind of passage, with the Metsudah footnote adding Metzudat David's reason that any stranger entering it was suspected of being the queen's ally (Rashi on II Kings 11:8:1). That admission of ignorance is worth noting, because it shows the classical commentary reporting the limit of its own knowledge on a matter of Temple topography. The pillar the king stood by Rashi identifies as the king's platform in the house of the LORD (Rashi on II Kings 11:14:1). The order to take the queen out he reads as a route rather than as a sentence, out by the passage to the palace and away from the exit through the city where she might find allies (Rashi on II Kings 11:15:1), and the place where she was killed he glosses through a word used in Deuteronomy for a place, with an Old French word beside it (Rashi on II Kings 11:16:1).
The covenant and the restoration close the chapter. Rashi divides the covenant into two, one that the king and the people follow the LORD and one after it that the people be subject to the king, with the footnote adding Metzudat David's note that the king in turn wages the people's wars (Rashi on II Kings 11:17:1). The appointments over the house of the LORD Rashi explains by what had been undone, that the queen had abolished the order of the watches, citing Chronicles (Rashi on II Kings 11:18:1), and the procession home he reads as going by that same gate to the palace, with the Targum's alternative in the footnote (Rashi on II Kings 11:19:1).
Ten further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Radak on II Kings 11:1:1, 11:2:1, 11:5:1, 11:9:1, 11:10:1, 11:13:1 and 11:20:1, and Metzudat David on II Kings 11:1:1, 11:3:1 and 11:11:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries fourteen rabbinic locators on this chapter, eight Midrash and six Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. This is the smallest count of the thirteen chapters, and it sits almost entirely on the opening scene and on the crowning. The queen's destruction of the royal seed draws six, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:32, Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 3:2:24, Sanhedrin 95b:4 and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Zuta 3:1 at the first verse, with Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 6:1:9 and Keritot 5b:4 standing over verses 1 to 3 together. Two of those are the tractates that treat the anointing oil and the anointing of a king, which is how the tradition reads the survival of one heir.
The hiding of the child draws Seder Olam Rabbah 18:2 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:16:2, and the second of those is the Midrash on the Song, which is where the phrase the kept note above works from is expounded. The gates of the Temple court draw Jerusalem Talmud Eruvin 5:1:15, which is the tractate about boundaries and the carrying of things across them.
The crowning draws Bereshit Rabbah 71:5, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Avodah Zarah 3:1 and Ein Yaakov, Avodah Zarah 3:1, and those last two are the tractate the kept note above names for the tradition that the crown fitted only a man fit to wear it. The covenant draws Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 4:5:7, and the appointments over the house of the LORD draw Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 47:22:1, which expounds the standing of the priests of Egypt under Joseph. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 11:2:1 to 11:19:1, fourteen notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Kings 11:1:1, 11:2:1, 11:5:1, 11:9:1, 11:10:1, 11:13:1 and 11:20:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 11:12:1; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 11:1:1, 11:3:1 and 11:11:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnotes at 11:8:1, 11:12:1 and 11:17:1; Rabbi Elazar HaKalir, the line of synagogue poetry on the destruction of the chamber, named inside Rashi on II Kings 11:2:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/11.json, the 14 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 8 Midrash and 6 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A baby hidden six years in the house of Jehovah
annihilate all the royal heirs: Athaliah's massacre reduces thread one, the covenant tested king by king, to its thinnest point in either book. The promise of 2 Samuel 7:12-15, a house and a throne forever, now hangs on whichever child of David's line has not yet been found. She is Ahab's daughter and Jezebel's.
2 Kings 11:1
“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.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Kings 11:1
“She destroyed - 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 upon him and his, to shew how much he abhors all such affinities.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 11:1
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 11:2-3
stole him away from among the sons of the king: Jehosheba daughter of King Joram, by 2 Chronicles 22:11 the wife of Jehoiada the priest, hides the one surviving infant. The covenant promised to David narrows to a nurse, a bedroom and a silence of six years. Wesley places the chamber among the rooms used only by priests and Levites.
2 Kings 11:2
“Daughter of - Joram, sister of Ahaziah - It is not likely that Jehosheba was the daughter of Athaliah; she was sister, we find, to Ahaziah the son of Athaliah, but probably by a different mother. The mother of Jehoash was Zibiah of Beer-sheba; see 2Ki 12:1.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 11:2
“Bed-chamber - Which was in the house of the Lord. So that it was one of those chambers adjoining to the temple, that were for the uses of the priests and Levites only: which made it more proper for this purpose. Now was the promise made to David bound up in one life.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 11:2
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 11:2
“While Jehu was extirpating the worship of Baal in Israel, she was establishing it in Judah, as appears, 2 Chron. xxiv. The court and kingdom of Judah had been debauched by their alliance with the house of Ahab, and now one of that house is a curse and a plague to both: sinful friendships speed no better.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
while Athaliah ruled the land: From the temple repairs of the next chapter, Barnes gathered that she used her power to make Baal the only worship of Judah. Matthew Henry set the timing side by side: Jehu was rooting Baal out of Israel while she planted him in Judah.
2 Kings 11:3
“And Athaliah did reign over the land - In these words the writer dismisses the entire reign of Athaliah, whereof he scorns to speak. We gather incidentally from 2Ki 12:5-12, compared with 2Ch 24:7, that Athaliah used her power to establish the exclusive worship of BaaI through the kingdom of Judah, and to crush that of Yahweh.”
Jehoiada arms the guard and crowns a seven-year-old
2 Kings 11:4-6
made a covenant with them: Jehoiada strikes at the Sabbath change of watch, when both courses are present and the guard is doubled without raising suspicion, as Barnes explains. In the house of the LORD he made a covenant with them and put them under oath, and he showed them the king’s son.
2 Kings 11:4
“And the seventh year Jehoiada sent - He had certainly sounded them all, and brought them into the interests of the young king, before this time; the plot having been laid, and now ripe for execution, he brings the chief officers of the army and those of the body guard into the temple, and there binds them by an oath of secrecy, and shows them the king’s son, in whose behalf they are to rise.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 11:4
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
who come on duty on the Sabbath: Albert Barnes counted five divisions of the guard under five commanders. Three came on duty on the Sabbath, and he took their post as the guard at the royal palace, where Athaliah then was. The two going off duty normally escorted the sovereign outside the palace grounds.
2 Kings 11:5
“Five divisions of the guard under their five captains are distinguished here. Three of the five divisions “enter in” on the Sabbath; the other two “go forth” on the Sabbath 2Ki 11:7. By the former phrase seems to be meant the mounting guard at the royal palace (the “king’s house,” where Athaliah then was); by the latter the serving of escort to the sovereign beyond the palace bounds.”
the gate behind the guards: John Wesley took the guards here as either the king's own guard or the temple guard, and placed this gate on the south side. In his reading every entrance to the temple was held so that neither Athaliah nor any of her soldiers could break in.
2 Kings 11:6
“The guard - Either, 1. the king's guard. Or, 2. the guard of the temple; this gate was in the south-side. So, &c. - So you shall guard all the gates or entrances into the temple that neither Athaliah nor any of her soldiers may break in.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 11:7-9
guard the house of the LORD for the king: The other two-thirds, who would ordinarily go off duty, stay instead to ring the king himself, with orders to kill anyone who breaks the ranks. Every captain does exactly as Jehoiada commanded, and the narrator gives the plot's execution in one sentence of compliance, no hesitation recorded on either side.
with weapons in hand: John Gill held that the men had come into the temple unarmed, so as to raise no suspicion, and were armed there from David's store. The guard is to ring the king with those weapons. The arms are handed out at verse 10.
Matthew Henry traced the rotation to David, who divided the priests into courses that served by turns. The new course arrived on the Sabbath morning and the old one stayed until evening, for the Sabbath's double service needed a double number. Jehoiada gathered both to himself.
2 Kings 11:9
“David had divided the priests into courses, which waited by turns. Every sabbath-day morning a new company came into waiting, but the company of the foregoing week did not go out of waiting till the sabbath evening, so that on the sabbath day, when double service was to be done, there was a double number to do it, both those that were to come in and those that were to go out.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 11:10-11
the spears and shields of King David: Jehoiada arms the guard with the spears and shields of King David, kept in the house of the LORD as trophies of David's wars. The coup that restores David's throne is fought with David's own arms, a detail Spurgeon preached in a sermon titled New Uses for Old Trophies.
2 Kings 11:10
“And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give King David's spears and shields, that were in the temple of the Lord. Such as he had taken in war from his enemies, and had dedicated for the service of the temple, to defend it on occasion, and laid up there; those the priests gave to the captains, to arm their men with, who came unarmed, and so unsuspected, and in this way might be armed without being seen and known.”
3 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 11:10
“King David’s spears and shields - Josephus expressly says that David had provided an arsenal for the temple, out of which Jehoiada took those arms.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 11:10
“WHEN DAVID HAD FOUGHT with an adversary, and overcome him, he took away his armor and his weapons, and as other victorious heroes were wont to do, he bore them home as mementoes of his prowess, the trophies of the battle. These were placed in the house of the Lord. Perhaps David at the same time dedicated in like manner the shield and the sword which he had himself used in battle. After Solomon had built the temple, these trophies, which seem to have been very numerous, were hung up there. So they adorned the walls.”
2 Kings 11:10
“If they were old and unfashionable, yet those that used them might, by their being David's, be reminded of God's covenant with him, which they were now acting in the defence of.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
by the altar and the temple: Albert Barnes placed the king at the altar of burnt offering, which stood just in front of the temple porch. The soldiers were drawn up several ranks deep before him and behind him, across the whole court. The boy stood between the altar and the house of the LORD.
2 Kings 11:11
“From the right corner ... - Rather, “from the right side of the temple buildings to the left side” - i. e., right across the temple court from the one side to the other, by the altar of burnt offerings, etc. This altar stood exactly in front of the temple-porch. Here the king was stationed; and before him and behind him, (“round about” him) stood the soldiers, drawn up several ranks deep across the entire court, just in front of the sacred building.”
presented him with the Testimony: The crown and the testimony, the book of the law, are given together. Judah's kingship begins bound to a written standard rather than to naked power. Clarke calls the people's clapping of hands the first instance on record of that gesture used as an expression of joy in Scripture.
2 Kings 11:12
“Put the crown upon him - This was a diadem or golden band that went round the head. And - the testimony - Probably the book of the law, written on a roll of vellum. This was his scepter. Some think that it was placed upon his head, as well as the diadem. The diadem, the testimony, and the anointing oil, were essential to his consecration. They clapped their hands - This I believe is the first instance on record of clapping the hands as a testimony of joy.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 11:12
“Testimony - The book of the law, which he put into the king's hand, to mind him of his duty at his entrance upon his kingdom, which was to read and write out that holy book, Deut. xvii, 18, and to govern himself and his kingdom by it: the law of God being frequently and most properly called a testimony, because it is a witness of God's will, and man's duty.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Treason! Treason!: Athaliah taken out by the horse gate
2 Kings 11:13-14
she went out to the people in the house of the LORD: Athaliah comes to find the throne she thought empty claimed by the boy she meant to kill. Then Athaliah tore her clothes and screamed “Treason” twice, a word for conspiracy turned back on the one whose own reign began in conspiracy. Clarke names the Hebrew word as kesher.
2 Kings 11:13
“It seems, Athaliah was little regarded, else she would have had intelligence brought her of this daring attempt before with her own ears she heard the noise; had the design been discovered before it was perfected, it might have been quashed, but now it was too late.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
standing by the pillar: Adam Clarke read the king as standing on the pillar, a raised platform where the kings were set when they were proclaimed. Matthew Henry named three counts on which Jehoiada ordered Athaliah's death: idolater, usurper and enemy of the public peace. She tears her clothes at the sight.
2 Kings 11:14
“The king stood by a pillar - Stood On a pillar or tribunal; the place or throne on which they were accustomed to put the kings when they proclaimed them. Treason, Treason - קשר קשר kesher, kasher; A conspiracy, A conspiracy! from kashar, to bind, unite together.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 11:14
“Jehoiada gave orders to put her to death as an idolater, a usurper, and an enemy to the public peace. Care was taken, (1.) That she should not be killed in the temple, or any of the courts of it, in reverence to that holy place, which must not be stained with the blood of any human sacrifice, though ever so justly offered.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 11:15-16
Jehoiada orders her brought out between the ranks. He guards the sanctuary even while executing a usurper he has every cause to kill on sight. So they seized Athaliah as she reached the horses’ entrance to the palace grounds, and there she was put to death.
2 Kings 11:15
“Have her forth without the ranges - Rather, “Conduct her out between your ranks.” Guard her, i. e., on all sides, that the people may not fall upon her and kill her as she passes through the court, thereby polluting the temple.”
the horses’ entrance to the palace grounds: Adam Clarke placed the spot near the king's stables. He linked it to the horse gate in the city wall at Jeremiah 31:40, through which the royal horses went out from their stables. Clarke noted that 2 Chronicles 23:15 calls it the horse gate toward the king's house.
2 Kings 11:16
“By the way - which the horses came - They probably brought her out near the king’s stables. It has been supposed, from Eze 46:1, Eze 46:2, that the east gate of the inner court was that by which the king entered on the Sabbath day, whereas on all other days he entered by the south gate. And there was another gate, called the horse gate, in the wall of the city, (Jer 31:40), for the king’s horses to go out at from the stables at Millo, which is therefore called, 2Ch 23:15, the horse gate toward the king’s house.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A covenant made, and the house of Baal broken down
made a covenant between the LORD: Jehoiada makes two covenants, the first between the LORD and the king and the people that they would be the LORD’s people. The second, between the king and the people, keeps loyalty to God distinct from political obligation. Josiah's reform repeats the shape of national renewal at 2 Kings 23:3.
2 Kings 11:17
“God had already, on his part, promised to be their God (Jehoiada could show them that in the book of the testimony); now the king and people on their part must covenant and agree that they will be the Lord's people: in this covenant, the king stands upon the same level with his subjects and is as much bound as any of them to serve the Lord.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 11:17
“A covenant - Rather, “the covenant,” which either was already an established part of a coronation (marginal reference “k”), or at least became such afterward.”
2 Kings 11:18-20
went to the temple of Baal: The people went to the temple of Baal and tore it down, smashing the altars and idols and killing Mattan the priest of Baal. The worship Athaliah and her mother Jezebel had planted in two kingdoms is uprooted in Judah. The king takes the throne, and the city was quiet.
2 Kings 11:18
“His altars and images brake they in pieces - It is probable that Athaliah had set up the worship of Baal in Judah, as Jezebel had done in Israel; or probably it had never been removed since the days of Solomon. It was no wonder that Jehoiada began his reform with this act, when we learn from 2Ch 24:7, that the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up the house of God; and also all the dedicated things of the house of the Lord did they bestow upon Baalim.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 11:18
“All his worshippers, it should seem, deserted him; only his priest Mattan stuck to his altar. Though all men forsook Baal, he would not, and there he was slain, the best sacrifice that ever was offered upon that altar.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
by way of the Gate of the Guards: Albert Barnes traced the procession down from the temple hill, across the Tyropoeon valley to the palace. The king entered by the Gate of the Guards, which Barnes took for the palace's main gate on the east side. The horse entrance, where Athaliah had just died, was left behind.
2 Kings 11:19
“They conducted the king down from the temple hill, across the valley of the Tyropoeum, and up the opposite hill to the royal palace, entering it not by the “horse-gate” 2Ki 11:16, where Athaliah had just been slain, but by the “gate of the guard” 2Ki 11:6, which was probably the main gate of the palace on the eastern side (see 2Ch 23:20).”
the city was quiet: Adam Clarke read the people's joy as relief at the end of Athaliah's tyranny. The quiet of the city told him she had left no party behind to rise against the new king. Her death at the palace closes the account the chapter opened at verse 1.
2 Kings 11:20
“The people - rejoiced - They were glad to get rid of the tyranny of Athaliah. And the city was in quiet - She had no partisans to rise up and disturb the king’s reign.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Joash was seven years old: The boy hidden at verse 2 now sits on David's throne. The lamp promised at 2 Samuel 7 still burns in Jerusalem. Gill notes the boy was a year old when his father was killed and spent six of his seven years hidden in the temple.
2 Kings 11:21
“Seven years old was Jehoash - The first instance on record of making a child seven years old the king of any nation, and especially of such a nation as the Jews, who were at all times very difficult to be governed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 11:21
“Seven years old was Jehoash when he began to reign. Being a year old when his father was killed and having been hid six years in the temple.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Historical narrative, a palace massacre answered by a coup planned inside the temple, as Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Hidden, and then shown | Jehosheba hides the child at verse 2 and Jehoiada shows him to the captains at verse 4, and the two verbs frame the six silent years. John Wesley notes that the chamber used only by priests and Levites is what makes the hiding work. The chapter tells six years in one verse and the seventh in seventeen.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Kings 11:2. | 2 Kings 11:2, 2 Kings 11:4, 2 Kings 11:12 |
| A third, a third, a third | Jehoiada divides the guard three ways at verses 5 and 6, a third at the king's house, a third at the gate of Sur and a third at the gate behind the guard. Albert Barnes reads the sabbath change of watch as ordinary priestly rotation turned to a plotter's use, since both courses are present at once. The two-thirds who would have gone off duty stay to ring the boy instead.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Kings 11:5. | 2 Kings 11:5, 2 Kings 11:6, 2 Kings 11:7 |
| Treason, treason | Athaliah's cry at verse 14 uses the Hebrew word for conspiracy, which Adam Clarke names as kesher. The charge is turned back on the one whose own reign began in exactly that. She stands in her own temple court and sees the throne she emptied occupied by the boy she meant to kill.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Kings 11:14. | 2 Kings 11:14 |
| The covenant made twice | Verse 17 carries two covenants in one sentence, first between the LORD and the king and the people, then between the king and the people. Matthew Henry reads the king as standing under the first on the same level as his own subjects. The same shape of national renewal returns under Josiah at 2 Kings 23:3.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 11:17. | 2 Kings 11:4, 2 Kings 11:17, 2 Kings 23:3 |
The debated concept
7 more paragraphs on the patterns
The first question is who Jehosheba was. The chapter calls her the daughter of King Joram and the sister of Ahaziah. The account at 2 Chronicles 22:11 adds that she was the wife of Jehoiada the priest, which explains her access to the temple chambers. John Wesley and Matthew Henry both read the two accounts together, and the estate follows them.
The second is whether Athaliah's six years count as a reign. The guide's ledger enters her among the rulers of Judah with the verdict evil and the note that she destroyed the royal seed and reigned six years. The text gives her no accession formula and no regnal summary, which is the form used for every other ruler in the book. Both facts stand, and the estate states no verdict beyond what the ledger records.
The third is why Jehoiada took Athaliah outside before killing her. Albert Barnes and Adam Clarke both read verse 15 as care for the sanctuary's holiness. The order for her removal and the order against her blood in the house of the LORD stand in the same sentence. She is killed at the palace gate, at the entrance the horses use, rather than at the altar the royal seed never reached.
Where the chapter reaches
The covenant of verse 17 is the shape Josiah's reform repeats at 2 Kings 23:3, and the chapter is the first of the two national renewals in this book. Jehoiada's version is made for a seven-year-old king and works through a priesthood, and Josiah's is made by a grown king who has just heard the law read.
The lamp of 2 Samuel 7 and 2 Kings 8:19 is what this chapter preserves. The dossier states the pattern directly, that the survival of David's line through the downward run of the book rests on a covenant word rather than on the conduct of the kings it preserves (src/components/book/dossier-content/2-kings.ts). In this chapter the word is carried by a nurse and a priest's wife.
Baal's altar in Jerusalem falls in the same afternoon as Athaliah, which matches what Jehu had already done in Samaria in chapter 10. The worship Jezebel planted in two kingdoms is uprooted in both within a few years.
Keep studying
Studies1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 2 Kings 11:1; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 11:1 and the guide's ledger for this book, `src/components/book/guides/2-kings/Book2KingsGuide.tsx`, the kings ledger, Athaliah at 11:1 to 3.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 972, New Uses for Old Trophies; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.