1. Seven years old. In the King James Version this appears as verse 21 of chapter 11.

3. as Jehoiada the priest had taught him. This clause is an addition to the recurrent formula about the behavior of the virtuous kings. It surely reflects a political reality in which Jehoiada the high priest served as regent while the child-king was growing up.

4. But the high places were not removed. This repeated formula registers the view of the editor of the Book of Kings that worship on the high places constituted actual or at least potential paganism and violated the principles of the exclusive legitimacy of the cult in the Jerusalem temple. In point of historical fact, Jehoiada as regent could certainly have taken steps to eliminate the local altars on the high places if he regarded them as sinful, so we may infer that he, his priestly colleagues, and the king did not think worship on the high places was forbidden.

5. All the silver. Though many translations represent kesef as “money” (its later sense), in the ninth century B.C.E. there were no coins in Israelite society, and probably still not in the period when this narrative was composed. What the writer has in mind are small weights of silver.

silver currency for each person the value in silver. The exact meaning of the entire formulation about silver, persons, and sacred gifts is somewhat obscure, and widely different interpretations have been proposed.

6. let the priests take, every man from his acquaintance. The gist of this royal order is that the gifts in silver brought to the Temple are no longer to be passed on to the priests for their personal use but are to be dedicated to repairs of the temple building. These new instructions may reflect a power struggle between the king and the priests, with the adult Joash seeking to break loose from the domination of his guardian and uncle, Jehoiada, as his direct challenge to the high priest in verse 8 seems to suggest.

9. and not to repair the . . . house. This is only an ostensible contradiction. The idea is that Joash doesn’t trust the priests to use the funds for the repair of the Temple. Instead, he will have all the collected silver placed in a chest, to be duly counted and paid out to the workers by a committee of two, one being the king’s scribe and personal representative and the other the high priest. They in turn pass the silver on to an appointed group (verse 12) that pays it out to the work crews.

11. they wrapped it in bundles and counted the silver. There would probably be bundles of like weights of silver. One sees that all precautions are taken that none of the donated silver be diverted for any use except the repair of the Temple.

17. It would be for the priests. This verse indicates a compromise with the priests. They no longer have access to general donations, but silver given for guilt offerings and offense offerings still goes to them.

19. And Joash king of Judah took all the consecrated things. This amounts to the payment of a high ransom to Hazael in order that he abandon his siege of Jerusalem. The title “king of Judah” is perhaps added here to make an ironic point, for Joash is scarcely behaving in a kingly fashion in emptying out the royal and temple treasuries in order to persuade a hostile king to relinquish his attack.

21. his servants. As elsewhere in royal contexts, these are court officials.

hatched a plot and struck down Joash. No explanation is given here for the conspiracy and regicide. In the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 24:25, the killing of Joash is said to be an act of revenge for his killing the son of the now deceased Jehoiada. It is hard to know whether the report in Chronicles has a historical basis, but it does suggest a tradition in which the conspiracy was motivated by a conflict between king and priests, and it is possible that the two assassins were priests. Joash’s surrendering of the temple treasures and not just the royal treasures to the king of Aram could easily have alienated priestly circles.