2 Chronicles 23:1–21

23:8–11 Jehoiada’s plan was implemented. Davidic legitimacy was affirmed further by Jehoiada’s distributing the weaponry “that had been King David’s, which were in the house of God” (cf. 12:9–10; 1 Chron. 18:7). The coronation account is brief, including a presentation of the “testimony.” Hebrew ʻedut (also translated “witness”) is used of various formal written statements, including the stipulations of the Sinai covenant (e.g., Ex. 25:16, 21). Here it may refer narrowly to the “covenant” made between people and king (2 Chron. 23:3), or more generally to the stipulations of the Davidic covenant (prerogatives and requirements), which could also include the Sinai covenant (cf. Deut. 17:14–20).

The action of making Joash king was supported by the people, but the anointing was solely in the hands of “Jehoiada and his sons.” (Unexpected is the reversal when Joash later orders the killing of one of those priestly sons, Zechariah, in the very court where Joash was anointed king; 2 Chron. 24:20–22.) The cry “Long live the king” may have been a standard acclamation (cf. 1 Sam. 10:24; 2 Sam. 16:16; 1 Kings 1:25, 34, 39) but had added weight here as it acclaimed the resumption of the Davidic kingship after a seven-year hiatus.

23:12–15 The coronation was met with two contrasting responses. “All the people of the land” and “the captains and the trumpeters and the singers” were exuberant. As elsewhere, the Chronicler adds details of “singers . . . leading in the celebration” (or “hymns”). Athaliah, however, shouted out, “Treason! Treason!” (The word is used later of other acts of “conspiring” that led to a killing; 24:21, 25–26; 25:27; 33:24–25.) She “tore her clothes,” an action linked elsewhere with mourning, submission and repentance, and despair; here it was possibly an expression of powerlessness.² Her death followed, after Jehoiada made sure it did not violate the sacred temple precincts. The palace’s “horse gate” was likely oriented in the same direction as the “Horse Gate” in the city wall, appropriately leading to the place for dead bodies (Jer. 31:40). She had no royal burial! Her “reign” (2 Chron. 22:12) had been illegitimate.

23:16–21 While the event could be seen simply as a coup d’état, the central activity was covenant renewal, with restoration of temple worship of the Lord alone. At the beginning of the process to crown Joash there had been a covenant between people and king (v. 3), but now that was subsumed under an all-embracing covenant (cf. 15:12–13). More was at stake than allegiance to a king. The Chronicler focuses on the way priest, king, and “all the people” bound themselves to each other in mutual accountability to be “the Lord’s people” (cf. 2 Kings 11:17: “a covenant between the Lord and the king and people”). The key role of priests alongside kings would be illustrated negatively by the religious decline after Jehoiada’s death (2 Chronicles 24) and highlighted in Zechariah’s prophecy (Zech. 3:1–10; 6:9–15).

Being the Lord’s people meant there could be no worship of Baal, and so the “house of Baal” and its contents were destroyed and the priest killed “before the altars.” (The building of the Baal temple was probably linked with Athaliah’s becoming Jehoram’s wife and bringing with her the worship of the Tyrian Baal; cf. Solomon’s building of worship places for his foreign wives, 1 Kings 11:7–8.)

Essential also was the positive reestablishment of worship arrangements for the “house of the Lord” as “David had organized . . . according to the order of David” and “as it is written in the Law of Moses.” The Chronicler thus expands 2 Kings 11:18b, where “watchmen for the house of the Lord” were part of the overall security as Joash was led to the palace; now the role was related to ongoing temple worship and security. By his additions, the Chronicler places more emphasis on religious renewal (two-thirds of 2 Chron. 23:16–21) than on the installation of Joash on the throne (vv. 20–21 follow closely 2 Kings 11:19–20). While the words are as in Kings, “rejoiced” and “quiet” are common motifs in Chronicles.³ “Quiet” (Hb. shaqat, sometimes translated “rest”) is often a sign of God’s blessing (2 Chron. 14:1, 5–6; 20:30; 1 Chron. 4:40; 22:9).

With the reigns of Jehoram and Ahaziah, along with Athaliah’s actions, the very future of the Davidic line and worship of the Lord alone in his temple had been threatened. Due initially to a royal daughter, Jehoshabeath, and then her husband, the priest Jehoiada, the crisis had been averted, true worship restored, a Davidic king set on the throne, and “quiet” won in the land. Throughout the narrative of Athaliah’s interregnum (2 Chron. 22:10–23:21) there was no word or explicit action from God; rather, we are to see him as working through the actions of faithful people. The subsequent chapters 24–28 will tell of initial continuing renewal, but after Jehoiada’s death there was decline until another time of renewal almost a hundred years later under Hezekiah. Godly priestly leadership, supported by the “people of the land,” is an ongoing necessity.