2 Kingschapter 12
21 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Nevertheless, the high places were not removed; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter follows a king crowned as a child through a long reign that leaned on the man who raised him. Its first hearers paid money into the temple and wanted to know where it went. They knew the kinds of temple gifts by name and the difference between a promise to repair and a repair. Listen for the simple method that finally gets the work done. Listen also for the careful limit the narrator sets on the king's goodness. The chapter closes with treasure paid to an enemy and a king killed by his own servants.
Context
- Who
- Judeans who paid for temple repairs and wanted to know where the money went
- What
- An account of the reign of Joash of Judah, his repair of the temple, and the treasure he paid to Hazael.
- Where
- The temple in Jerusalem, and the road to the city where Hazael's army turned back.
- When
- The reign of Joash of Judah, 835 to 796 BC, with the repair in his twenty-third year.
- Why
- To show that a king's goodness leaned on the priest who taught him, and that God's house is kept by honest and practical means.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Joash, crowned at seven and reigning forty years, and to Jehoiada the priest who instructed him. The years are 835 to 796 BC, and the repair itself begins in the king's twenty-third year.
Show the rest of the historical context, 5 more paragraphs
The place is the temple in Jerusalem, and at the end of the chapter the road where Hazael's army turned aside from the city. The occasion is a house of God left in disrepair while money for it was being collected.
A first hearer knew the three streams of temple money by name. There was the fixed amount assessed on each person in a census, the payment made when someone vowed the value of a person to God, and the freewill gift. The king's order was that all of it go to the repairs.
The fix is one of the earliest recorded accounting reforms. A chest with a hole bored in its lid stood beside the altar, on the right as a worshipper came in. The doorkeepers put every gift straight into a locked box in public view.
When it filled, the royal secretary and the high priest came together, two officials from different institutions, neither able to act alone, counted the silver and tied it in bags. The money then went to the foremen, who paid carpenters, builders, masons and stonecutters and bought timber and dressed stone.
The line that no reckoning was required of them because they dealt honestly is a comment on what the earlier arrangement had lacked, which was honest men rather than audits. Guilt and sin offerings continued to go to the priests, so the reform left their income in place.
Significance
The first hearers heard the verdict carefully qualified. Joash did what was right all the days that Jehoiada the priest instructed him, and the goodness lasted as long as the man behind it.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The chest with the hole in its lid is the other memory. A practical change, counted in public with two officers present and the workers paid directly, did in one year what twenty-three years of good intentions had not.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus keeps seventeen 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 fullest body of classical material on any chapter of 1 to 13 after chapter 4. Two of them carry traditional material a reader will find nowhere in the text itself, and both of them explain how a king who began well ended as he did.
The first stands on the verse that praises the king for doing right all his days. Rashi reads the clause as bounded by the priest's lifetime, and he gives the tradition of what happened when that life ended. After Jehoiada died the officers of Judah came and prostrated themselves before the king and made a god of him, saying that one who enters the Holy of Holies for a moment is in danger of dying, and he had been hidden there six years, so he was fit to be a deity, and the king listened to them. He names Shemot Rabbah for it. The Metsudah footnote adds Radak's reading of the same clause and the rest of the sequence, that the king then worshipped idols, that he killed Zechariah for prophesying against him, and that Syria attacked Jerusalem the following year (Rashi on II Kings 12:3:1). The hiding place that saved the child in chapter 11 becomes, on this reading, the argument that ruined the man in chapter 12, and Rashi ties the Syrian campaign later in this chapter back to it in one line, that Hazael came up after Jehoiada died and the king had made himself a god (Rashi on II Kings 12:18:1).
The second stands at the assassination. Rashi sets the names of the two servants here against the different names Chronicles gives, where they are called the son of an Ammonite woman and the son of a Moabite woman, and he asks why Scripture specified. He answers from the Sifrei that God requited the king through people whose trait matched his own. The Ammonites and Moabites ignored the kindness Abraham did for Lot when he fought the kings to rescue him, and they hired Balaam to curse his descendants, so let them requite a king who ignored the kindness of Jehoiada and killed his son (Rashi on II Kings 12:22:1). That is a reading about measure for measure rather than about politics, and the tradition gives it as a Midrash.
The rest of the chapter is the money for the repairs, and the classical commentary reads it as a matter of law. Rashi separates the kinds of money the verse names, the annual half shekel paid by everyone who passes the numbering, and the donation a person makes of his own valuation, pointing at the passages in Exodus and Leviticus that govern each (Rashi on II Kings 12:5:1), and he gives an example of the third kind, a man who obligates himself to donate a fixed sum for the repairs (Rashi on II Kings 12:5:2). The first arrangement he reads as a contract, that the money became the priests' own and they undertook the repairs from their own funds in return (Rashi on II Kings 12:6:1), and the acquaintance each was to take from he glosses as one who visits him often (Rashi on II Kings 12:6:2). The change of arrangement he reads as the ending of that contract, with the Metsudah footnote carrying Radak's explanation of why a house only a hundred and fifty-five years old needed so much work, that the queen and her sons had made breaches in its wall, citing Chronicles (Rashi on II Kings 12:8:1). The new terms Rashi states as a pooling of risk, that if the money falls short it falls short and if it runs over it is left over (Rashi on II Kings 12:8:2).
The handling of the chest is read step by step. Its place beside the altar Rashi puts in the Temple court (Rashi on II Kings 12:10:1). The emptying of it he reads as a regular event, with Radak's note in the footnote that they acted when they saw the boxes were full (Rashi on II Kings 12:11:1). The counted money Rashi describes as taken out, weighed and counted before it passed to the treasurers over the workers, with Metzudat David's alternative in the footnote that unstamped coin was minted so that it could be spent (Rashi on II Kings 12:12:1). The masons he identifies as builders of the wall and apprentices of the architects (Rashi on II Kings 12:13:1). The vessels the money was withheld from Rashi reads as musical instruments, with the footnote carrying Radak's harmonisation with Chronicles from the tractate Ketubot, that the primary purpose of the money was repair and a surplus could go to vessels, and Ralbag's alternative that they are vessels for receiving blood or wine (Rashi on II Kings 12:14:1). The absence of an audit Rashi explains by the standing of the men, that no account was demanded because they were not suspect in the eyes of those who paid them, for they worked with integrity (Rashi on II Kings 12:16:1). The guilt and sin offering money he explains as the remainder left when a man set money aside for an offering and bought the animal (Rashi on II Kings 12:17:1). The place of the killing he glosses as that place (Rashi on II Kings 12:21:1).
Seven further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Radak on II Kings 12:3:1, 12:9:1 and 12:19:1, Metzudat David on II Kings 12:2:1 and 12:4:1, and Malbim on II Kings 12:7:1 and 12:20:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries thirty-one rabbinic locators on this chapter, twenty Midrash and eleven Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. One of them, Megillah 30a:24, stands over the chapter as a whole, and the tractate it sits in is the one that governs which passages are read in public and when, which is why it is worth a reader's notice on a chapter that carries no reading of its own.
The king's accession draws Aggadat Bereshit 49:4 and Seder Olam Rabbah 18:2. The verse about his doing right draws four, Bamidbar Rabbah 23:13, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Masei 9:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayetzei 14:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Masei 12:1, which is where the tradition works out how long the praise of a king holds. The kinds of money draw Megillah 29b:16, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Nezikin 10:31 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 341:1, and the priests' undertaking draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 49:5:3. The failure to repair draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 34:15:1.
The chest beside the altar draws the heaviest run in the chapter, six locators, and they show the tradition working out the law of a Temple collection. They are Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 11:11, Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 6:4:7, Menachot 34a:7, Sanhedrin 56a:7, Sanhedrin 92a:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 844:2. The counting of the money draws Bava Batra 9a:5, and the withholding of the money from vessels draws Ketubot 106b:3, which is the locator the kept note above names for that harmonisation.
The delivery of the money to the workmen draws Shemot Rabbah 51:1, and the absence of an audit draws five, Bava Batra 9a:4, Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 1:11, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Pekudei 2:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 5:3 and Shemot Rabbah 51:2. Four of those expound the accounting Moses gave of the tabernacle's materials, so the tradition reads a Temple audit beside the first one ever made. The money of the guilt and sin offerings draws the last five, Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introduction to Halakhic Midrashim, Halakhic Midrash 16, Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 6:4:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 5:19:1, Sifra, Vayikra Dibbura DeChovah, Chapter 21 6 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 479:5. 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 12:3:1 to 12:22:1, seventeen notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Kings 12:3:1, 12:9:1 and 12:19:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnotes at 12:3:1, 12:8:1, 12:11:1 and 12:14:1; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 12:2:1 and 12:4:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 12:12:1; Malbim, Malbim on II Kings 12:7:1 and 12:20:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Ralbag, Ralbag reported inside the Metsudah footnote at Rashi on II Kings 12:14:1, on the vessels the repair money was withheld from; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/12.json, the 31 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 20 Midrash and 11 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Joash does right all the days of Jehoiada the priest
2 Kings 12:1-3
His mother’s name was Zibiah: Joash begins a forty-year reign, the same span the text gives David and Solomon. The verdict carries its own limit: he did right “all the days he was instructed by Jehoiada the priest.” The high places still stand, and “the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.”
2 Kings 12:1
“In the seventh year of Jehu Jehoash began to reign,.... So that he reigned twenty one or twenty two years contemporary with Jehu's reign, for Jehu reigned twenty eight years: and forty years reigned he in Jerusalem; the same number of years David and Solomon reigned: and his mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba; a city in the tribe of Simeon, in the extreme part of the land of Canaan southward; her name in the Chaldee dialect is Tabitha, the same with Dorcas in Greek, Act 9:36.”
all the days he was instructed: John Gill limited all the days to the lifetime of Jehoiada, citing 2 Chronicles 24:2. Adam Clarke traced what followed from 2 Chronicles 24:17 and 18: after the priest died, Joash left the worship of God for idols. Clarke thought him a party to the murder of Zechariah.
2 Kings 12:2
“And Jehoash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all his days,.... Worshipping the only true God, and ruling and walking according to the law of God: wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him; and so long as he observed his instructions, and as long as that priest lived, he reigned well; for to that period "all his days must be limited"; for after his death he was seduced by the princes of Judah to idolatry, and lived scandalously, and died ignominiously; see 2Ch 24:2.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 12:2
“Jehoash did - right in the sight of the Lord - While Jehoiada the priest, who was a pious, holy man, lived, Jehoash walked uprightly; but it appears from 2Ch 24:17, 2Ch 24:18, that he departed from the worship of the true God after the death of this eminent high priest, lapsed into idolatry, and seems to have had a share in the murder of Zechariah, who testified against his transgressions, and those of the princes of Judah. See above, 2Ki 11:20-21 (note). O how few of the few who begin to live to God continue unto the end!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the high places were not removed: Albert Barnes traced worship at the high places without a break down to Hezekiah, and Manasseh set it up again at 2 Kings 21:3. Barnes held that the priests of this time did not count it idolatry. Jehoiada as regent left it standing.
2 Kings 12:3
“The worship on the “high places” seems to have continued uninterruptedly to the time of Hezekiah, who abolished it 2Ki 18:4. It was, however, again established by Manasseh, his son 2Ki 21:3. The priests at this time cannot have regarded it as idolatrous, or Jehoiada would have put it during his regency.”
2 Kings 12:4-6
the money brought voluntarily: Joash names three streams of temple money. Each priest was to receive it “from his constituency” and use it “to repair any damage found in the temple.” The plan rested on personal trust, yet by “the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash” the work was not done.
2 Kings 12:4
“The money - The half shekel, which was paid for every one that was numbered from twenty years old and upward. Is set at - Hebrew. the money of souls, or persons according to his taxing, the money which every man that had vowed his person to God, paid according to the rate which the priest put upon him.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 12:4
"The money of every one that passeth the account," namely, half a shekel, as "an offering to the Lord" (Ex 30:13). "The money that every man is set at," that is, the redemption price of every one who had devoted himself or any thing belonging to him to the Lord, and the amount of which was estimated according to certain rules (Le 27:1-8).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Let every priest receive it: Albert Barnes drew from 2 Chronicles 24:5 that the collection ran through all the cities of Judah, with priests and Levites gathering in their neighborhoods. The Berean's damage renders a word that Barnes says covers every kind and degree of ruin. The fund was to meet whatever needed repair.
2 Kings 12:5
“The collection was not to be made in Jerusalem only, but in all “the cities of Judah” 2Ch 24:5; the various priests and Levites being collectors in their own neighborhoods. Breaches - The word in the original includes every kind and degree of ruin or dilapidation.”
A chest with a hole bored in the lid: repairs at last
By the twenty-third year: Adam Clarke noted that the text leaves the king's order undated, though it had stood a long time. The people had brought money in plenty, in his reading, and Jehoiada was over the priests, yet nothing was done. Clarke laid the delay on the priests' negligence, citing 2 Chronicles 24:6.
2 Kings 12:6
“But it was so, that in the twenty and third year of King Jehoash, the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house. Either the people being backward to pay in the money, or the priests converted it to their own use: or, however, were negligent of doing the work enjoined them by the king, either in collecting the money, or in using it as they were directed.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 12:6
“In the three and twentieth year - In what year Jehoash gave the orders for these repairs, we cannot tell; but the account here plainly intimates that they had been long given, and that nothing was done, merely through the inactivity and negligence of the priests; see 2Ch 24:6. It seems that the people had brought money in abundance, and the pious Jehoiada was over the priests, and yet nothing was done!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 12:7-8
The king who has reigned under Jehoiada's tutelage corrects him, asking why the damage to the temple remains. The rebuke names its own remedy: “take no more money from your constituency, but hand it over for the repair of the temple”. The priests consent, an office surrendered without a defense.
2 Kings 12:7
“Why repair ye not the breaches of the house?--This mode of collection not proving so productive as was expected (the dilatoriness of the priests was the chief cause of the failure), a new arrangement was proposed.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the priests agreed: John Gill named three possible causes of the delay: the people slow to pay, the priests keeping the money, or plain neglect of the work. Under the new order the priests handle neither the money nor the building. The next verse sets up the chest.
2 Kings 12:8
“And the priests consented to receive no more money of the people,.... And delivered up what they had: neither to repair the breaches of the house; being very willing to be stop both services, and especially since they seemed to be suspected.”
2 Kings 12:9-10
bored a hole in its lid: Money dropped in could not be taken out, and no one man handled it. The design answers the failure just before it. When the chest was full, the royal scribe and the high priest came together, a civil officer beside the priesthood, to count and bag it.
2 Kings 12:9
“The priests that kept the door - The north door into the priests’ court Eze 40:35-43 seems to be intended, not the door of the temple building. The chest must have been placed a little to the right of this north door, between it and the altar of burnt-offering, so that the people could see it from the doorway. The people were not ordinarily allowed to go within the doorway into this court, which belonged to the priests and Levites only.”
the royal scribe and the high priest: Adam Clarke explained why the scribe stands beside the high priest: civil authority had to be joined to the priesthood to get the work done. The two officers count the money together and tie it in bags. Neither handles it alone.
2 Kings 12:10
“The king’s scribe and the high priest - It was necessary to associate with the high priest some civil authority and activity, in order to get the neglected work performed.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 12:11-12
The counted money passes into the hands of “those who supervised the work on the house of the LORD”. From them it goes to carpenters and builders, masons and stonecutters, and to timber bought for the repair. Every trade named draws its own wage from the same fund.
2 Kings 12:11
“And they gave the money, being told, into the hands of them that did the work, that had the oversight of the house of the Lord,....”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 12:11
“Those were fittest to be entrusted with this business whose employment lay that way. Tractant fabrilia fabri -- Every artist has his trade assigned; but let not those who are called to war the holy warfare entangle themselves in the affairs of this life.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
purchased timber and dressed stone: John Gill held that the stone was cut from the mountain and the timber felled in Lebanon. The other expenses, in his reading, went for iron and brass to mend the house, as 2 Chronicles 24:12 records. Every payment in the verse served the repair.
2 Kings 12:12
“And to masons, and hewers of stone,.... Which they cut out of the mountain, and the masons repaired the stone walls with: and to buy timber; felled in Lebanon: and hewed stone; fitted for building with: to repair the breaches of the house of the Lord; where both timber and stone were wanting: and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it; in whatsoever else it needed, as iron and brass to mend it, 2Ch 24:12.”
2 Kings 12:13-14
silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls: No “silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, or any articles of gold or silver” came out of this money. Every shekel was “paid to those doing the work,” and to the house, repair before adornment, until the walls stood before any vessel was replaced.
2 Kings 12:13
“Comparing this verse with the marginal reference, it will be seen that the author of Kings desires to point out, that the repairs were not delayed by any deductions from the money that flowed in. The writer of Chronicles describes what became of the surplus in the chest after the last repairs were completed. The need of supplying fresh bowls, snuffers, etc., arose from the pollution of those previously used in the temple service by their application to the Baal worship during the reigns of Ahaziah and Athaliah (see 2Ch 24:7).”
paid to those doing the work: Albert Barnes read the verse as the writer's point that no deduction from the money slowed the repairs. Chronicles adds what became of the surplus. Barnes tied the need for new vessels to the use of the old ones in Baal worship under Ahaziah and Athaliah, citing 2 Chronicles 24:7.
2 Kings 12:14
“But they gave that to the workmen, and repaired therewith the house of the Lord. They took care that the workmen should first be paid for the repairs of the temple.”
2 Kings 12:15-16
No accounting was required from the men: The men who received the money were never called to account, “because they acted with integrity,” so the whole audit rested on proven trust. A separate stream, the “money from the guilt offerings and sin offerings” owed under the law, stayed with the priests.
2 Kings 12:15
“Moreover, they reckoned not with the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be bestowed on the workmen,.... That is, the king's secretary and the high priest, or his officer, never called to account the overseers of the workmen, to whom they committed the money to pay them with; never examined how they laid it out, and for what: for they dealt faithfully; they saw they acted such an honest and upright part, and such an high opinion had they of them, that they never examined their accounts, or called for their bills.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 12:15
“They reckoned not with the men - They placed great confidence in them, and were not disappointed, for they dealt faithfully.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 12:15
“Faithfully - For they perceived by many experiments that they were faithful.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the guilt offerings and sin offerings: Albert Barnes explained part of this money from Numbers 5:8: when a wronged man died with no kinsman, the restitution went to the priest. The rest came from gifts brought by those seeking atonement. Matthew Henry drew the lesson that the servants of the temple were not to be starved.
2 Kings 12:16
“The trespass-money and the sin-money (which were given to them by that law, Lev. v. 15, 16 ) were reserved to them. Let not the servants of the temple be starved under colour of repairing the breaches of it. For laying out the money that was raised.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Temple gold sent to Hazael; servants strike the king in his bed
2 Kings 12:17-18
he decided to attack Jerusalem: Hazael's army takes Gath, and then “he decided to attack Jerusalem.” Joash empties two treasuries, sending “all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers,” and all the gold of the temple and the palace. The wealth the repaired temple had lately received now pays to end a siege.
2 Kings 12:17
“There was probably a considerable interval between the conclusion of the arrangement for the repairs and the Syrian expedition related in these verses. For the events which had happened, see 2Ch 24:15-22. 2Ki 12:17 This is the first and last time that we hear of the Damascene Syrians undertaking so distant an expedition. Gath (see Jos 13:3 note) could only be reached from Syria through Israel or Judah. It was not more than 25 or 30 miles from Jerusalem. It is uncertain whether the city belonged at this time to Judah or to the Philistines.”
he sent them to Hazael: Adam Clarke called it a peace dearly bought and briefly kept. Drawing on 2 Chronicles 24:23, he reported that Hazael came back the next year and Joash, his treasuries now empty, had to risk a battle. Joash lost it along with most of his nobles.
2 Kings 12:18
“Took all the hallowed things - He dearly bought a peace which was of short duration, for the next year Hazael returned, and Jehoash, having no more treasures, was obliged to hazard a battle, which he lost, with the principal part of his nobility, so that Judah was totally ruined, and Jehoash shortly after slain in his bed by his own servants; 2Ch 24:23.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 12:19-21
the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings: The formula gives way at once to conspiracy, as his servants kill Joash “at Beth-millo, on the road down to Silla.” Millo was the royal building David had raised. The throne passes on, and the one dynasty promised for David's sake outlives the king who had repaired its temple.
2 Kings 12:19
“The rest of the acts of Joash - We have already seen that this man, so promising in the beginning of his reign, apostatized, became an idolater, encouraged idolatry among his subjects, and put the high priest Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada his benefactor, to death; and now God visited that blood upon him by the hands of the tyrannous king of Syria, and by his own servants.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
formed a conspiracy and killed him: Ephrem the Syrian set the conspiracy after the death of Jehoiada at 130 years, when the king followed the counsel of his princes. John Wesley took the provocation from Chronicles: Joash had murdered the prophet, Jehoiada's son. Wesley judged the killers unrighteous and the LORD righteous in the same act.
2 Kings 12:20
“The house of Millo - Was a royal palace, built by David; (see 2Sa 5:9); and Silla is supposed to be the name of the road or causeway that led to it. Millo was situated between the old city of Jerusalem, and the city of David.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 12:20
“And slew Joash - We are told, in the Chronicles, that his murdering the prophet, Jehoiada's son, was the provocation. In this, how unrighteous so ever they were, yet the Lord was righteous.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 12:20
“In this, how unrighteous soever they were (vengeance was not theirs, nor did it belong to them to repay), God was righteous; and this was not the only time that he let even kings know that it was at their peril if they touched his anointed and did his prophets any harm, and that, when he comes to make inquisition for blood, the blood of prophets will run the account very high.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jozabad son of Shimeath: The first assassin is Zabad at 2 Chronicles 24:26, and Adam Clarke notes that Chronicles makes his mother Shimeath an Ammonite. The second is there the son of Shimrith, a Moabite. Clarke adds that Joash lay outside the tombs of the kings, taken as a mark of the people's disapproval.
2 Kings 12:21
“For Jozachar - This person is called Zabad in 2Ch 24:26; and Shimeath his mother is said to be an Ammonitess, as Jehozabad is said to be the son, not of Shomer, but of Shimrith, a Moabitess. They buried him with his fathers in the city of David - But they did not bury him in the sepulchres of the kings; this is supposed to express the popular disapprobation of his conduct. Thus ended a reign full of promise and hope in the beginning, but profligate, cruel, and ruinous in the end.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Historical narrative, a regnal record built around one administrative reform, as Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| All his days wherein Jehoiada instructed him | The verdict at verse 2 carries its own limit inside it, and the sequel bears the limit out once the tutor is gone. Matthew Henry reads the clause as the measure of the whole reign rather than a passing remark. The chapter ends with the king murdered by his own servants at the house of Millo.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 12:2. | 2 Kings 12:2, 2 Kings 12:20 |
| The money of every one that passeth the account | Jehoash names three streams of temple money in one breath at verses 4 and 5. The assessed price of every soul numbered, the valuation price set on a vow, and whatever a man's own heart moves him to bring. John Wesley marks the three as the shape the Law gave census money and vow redemption, so the king's order rests on the Law rather than on a new tax.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Kings 12:4. | 2 Kings 12:4 |
| The chest with a hole in its lid | The plan of verses 4 to 6 and the chest of verses 9 to 10 are the same problem answered twice. Albert Barnes reads the bored lid beside the altar as money dropped in past retrieving rather than handled by any one man's account. What twenty-three years of personal collection failed to do, a public box and a joint count by the king's scribe and the high priest did.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Kings 12:9. | 2 Kings 12:5, 2 Kings 12:6, 2 Kings 12:9, 2 Kings 12:10 |
| For they dealt faithfully | Verse 15 gives the reason the overseers were never audited, and the reason is the men themselves. Bede reads the verse as a standing pattern for how a house of God ought to treat honest stewards. The same verse keeps the trespass money and the sin money outside the fund, so the chapter separates two revenues while trusting one set of hands.Bede, Thirty Questions on the Book of Kings, about AD 715. | 2 Kings 12:15, 2 Kings 12:16 |
The debated concept
7 more paragraphs on the patterns
The first question is why the first plan failed. The text records the fact at verse 6 and gives no cause. Matthew Henry reads the king's rebuke as the plain remedy, that a collection gathered by personal acquaintance left the work undone. The priests consent at verse 8 and give up both the collecting and the repairing at once, an office surrendered rather than defended, and the chapter records no charge against them.
The second is the scope of the verdict at verse 2. The guide's ledger gives Joash good and quotes the limiting clause in the same row. The chapter itself never records what happened after Jehoiada died, and 2 Chronicles 24:15 to 22 carries that account. Albert Barnes points the reader there for the events between the repair and the Syrian expedition. A reader of Kings alone meets the conspiracy at verse 20 with no motive stated.
The third is the two revenues at verse 16. The trespass money and the sin money owed under the law stayed with the priests and never entered the building fund. The chapter keeps the streams distinct and says nothing about which use would have served better, and the estate states no verdict either.
Where the chapter reaches
The chest of verse 9 is the shape Josiah's repair takes twelve chapters later at 2 Kings 22:4 to 7. There the money gathered at the door is delivered to the workmen in the same way, and the overseers are again trusted without audit. The two repairs are the book's two good works on the house, and they use one method.
Bede reads verse 15 forward into the church's own handling of money, as a pattern for how a house of God treats stewards who have proved honest.
Hazael's march on Jerusalem at verse 17 belongs with 2 Kings 8:12, where Elisha wept over what this king would do, and with 2 Kings 10:32 and 13:7, where the same pressure falls on Israel. Judah buys him off and Israel is ground down.
Keep studying
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
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Kings 12:9; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 12:1 and the guide's ledger for this book, `src/components/book/guides/2-kings/Book2KingsGuide.tsx`, the kings ledger, Joash at 12:2, verdict good.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Bede, Thirty Questions on the Book of Kings; Ephrem the Syrian, On the Second Book of Kings; 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.