Lesson 12 – Joash the Boy-King

¹Young Joash (sometimes also called Jehoash) was saved by Jehosheba, Ahaziah’s half-sister. She worked with Joash’s nurse to hide him away when Athaliah killed all his brothers. Eventually Jehosheba spirited him away to the temple where the priest Jehoiada kept him hidden for six years. Interestingly 2 Chronicles 22:11 reveals that Jehosheba was married to Jehoiada.

²It seems quite ironic that young Joash was hidden in the temple for so long and his grandmother, who would have wanted to kill him, never found him. The royal housing was not far away from the temple, so physically they were close. From this we can conclude at least one of the following:

• Athaliah did not go to the temple to worship very often. We know that spiritually she was wicked. 2 Chronicles says that her sons broke into the temple to steal the precious metal utensils and use them in Baal worship. So it is possible that she never found him because she had so few opportunities.
• The temple was actually a fairly large complex, and there were spaces where the young king could be hidden easily. It seems reasonable to think that Joash was taken to the home of Jehoiada and Jehosheba and blended in with all the other children of the priests.

³After six years of hiding the king, Jehoiada decided it was time to make a move. We aren’t given any reason why he chose this timing. But he worked with the temple guards to arrange protection, then brought Joash out to present to the people. Jehoiada arranged a traditional coronation summary where they anointed the young king and placed the crown on his head. All the people who saw this happened cheered and shouted “Long live the king!”

With the guards and the people celebrating, they made enough noise that Athaliah heard the commotion. She came down to the temple to see what was going on. This is where we learn that in addition to shouting, the people were also blowing trumpets as part of their celebration. At this point she was captured by the temple guards, taken out of the temple and executed.

After dealing with Athaliah, Jehoiada called the people to make a covenant with God. They promised to be God’s people and to follow Him. After this, Joash went into the king’s house and sat on the throne of Judah.

Across the land of Judah the people celebrated. Athaliah must have been a harsh ruler, because it is clear that the people were happy that she was gone. W also learn that the city of Jerusalem was quiet after Joash took the throne. There were no protests, revolts or uprisings in the capital now that a descendant of David was on the throne again.

⁴In Joash’s life, he followed God. In the places where he had direct control, such as Jerusalem, we will see that he implemented policies and programs to honor God. However across the rest of Judah, the people continued on similarly to what they had been doing before. The law of Moses called for them to come to the tent of meeting, or later the temple, to make their sacrifices. But the people chose to find the “high places” – sacred sites they thought were appropriate to worship. The text doesn’t say that they worshiped idols, so it’s possible they just used these locations to worship God and save themselves the trip to Jerusalem. Either way, this indicated a level of disobedience on the part of the people.

⁵As a king, Joash followed God. This makes complete sense while he was a young boy and Jehoiada served as his advisor. This extended into his adult years as well. So long as Jehoiada lived Joash followed God. This suggests that as long as the priest was alive, he advised Joash and had influence over how he ruled.

2 Chronicles relates that Jehoiada obtained wives for Joash. This suggests that Jehoiada served in a fatherly role to the king. Indeed for six years, Joash lived in Jehoiada’s house, almost as his son. It makes sense that Jehoiada would have this kind of relationship with the king.

⁶Joash wanted to repair the temple. After years of neglect and abuse from Athaliah and her sons, it had become run down and needed attention. When Joash first issued the command, the priests were responsible for collecting the money Moses had ordered to be given to the temple. This was consistent with the role of the priests and Levites as the keepers of the place of worship.They should have had people who could work on the temple and return it to it’s former beauty.

⁷Despite Jehoiada leading the priests, they did not follow through and use the collected money for repairs of the temple.The implication is that this went on for several years. 2 Kings reports that it was the 23rd year of Joash’s reign when this came to a head. Joash called Jehoiada and the leaders of the priests to give an account for why they had not made any progress on the repairs that he wanted to see done.

⁸The passages suggest that they priests had collected money, but had used it for other purposes. Under Joash’s criticism, they agreed that they would no longer collect (and spend) the money that the people brought in. Instead, Jehoash made a big “piggy bank” by drilling a hole in the top of a locked chest. People would put their donations in the chest. When it got full, the king’s secretary and the High Priest would empty it out and give the money to the workmen who were charged with the repairs.

From the description of the work that was and wasn’t done, it appears that the work that was needed related to the physical structure of the temple. 2 Kings specifically says that the money wasn’t used to replace any of the ceremonial times, such as basins or bowls. Instead they employed carpenters and masons. These workmen were honest because the passages say that they did not have to give an account of how they spent the money.

Only after the repairs to the temple were complete, and the temple was restored to its former glory did attention shift to the ceremonial items. The people of Judah had responded well to the call to bring their tithes and offerings, and there was still a lot of money left over to spend on creating the beautiful items used in the worship processes. This led to proper worship practices all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

⁹However, Jehoiada the priest was an old man and the time came for him to die. In keeping with his role as the king’s surrogate father and advisor, he was buried with great honor. But this left a power vacuum. Joash needed a new advisor. With Jehoiada gone, Joash turned to his friends. He had grown up with the scions of other rich and noble families. At this time he turned to them for advice, and partially turned his back on godly wisdom. Scripture says that they abandoned the house of God – which is a shame given all the work Joash had expended to repair it and refurbish it. They also ran after idols and worshiped false gods.

¹⁰Even though Joash turned his back on God, that does not mean God wrote him off. The spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada came to Joash with the words from God. It seems obvious that Joash would have listened to the son of the man who had raised him and advised him so well all his life. But Joash did not. It sounds like God picked the ideal man for the job to get through to Joash and turn him back onto the right path.

¹¹God’s message to Joash was, “Why have you turned your back on Me?” Zechariah came straight to the point and put the question to Joash. Then he went further to say, “Because you’ve turned your back on Me, I will turn my back on you.” Apparently after delivering the first question, God recognized that Joash’s heart was hardened and would not respond correctly to the challenge. Therefore, God went on to deliver a judgment against Joash. It was a terrible judgment, given that most of his life, Joash had honored God. But here in his older age, he had thrown away all the benefits he had built up.

¹²When Joash heard the message from Zechariah, he was not happy. He turned on God’s spokesman, even though they had probably grown up together and looked to Jehoiada as a common father. Joash gave the order and his noble friends stoned Zechariah.

As he was dying, Zechariah laid his plea before God to see what had happened to him, and he asked God to avenge his unjust death. It didn’t happen right away, but God did grant his request.

¹³Some time after the murder of Zechariah, Hazael, king of Aram (Syria), attacked down the coast, all the way to the cities of the Philistines. On his way back home after a victorious campaign, he stopped off and besieged Jerusalem. Flush with success in the military campaign, it seemed a good time to impose himself on Judah. Joash responded in the only two ways that he could:

1. He fought against Hazael. If he could have defeated the Syrians, they would have gone away and left him alone. But he did not defeat them. And in fighting, he became wounded.
2. He bought off Hazael. Since military might wouldn’t work, Joash took the gold and silver from the temple and from his own house and paid a tribute to be left alone.

After all the work he had done to repair and restore the temple, Joash was chose to abandon the worship of God and had to give up all the treasure he had invested in the temple. God used the Syrians to execute His judgment on Joash and Judah – just as Zechariah had said.

¹⁴When the Syrians finally left, and Joash was recuperating to regain his health, some of his own people assassinated him. On the one hand he had just shown two-fold weakness by losing the fight with Hazael and was then forced to empty out his treasures. On the other hand, it did not sit well with them that Joash had treated Zechariah so badly and ordered his murder. In this way, God answered Zechariah’s plea for vengeance.

For a story that began with such joy and hope as Joash overthrew the murderous Athaliah and then restored the Temple, it certainly ended badly. Joash turned from the Lord and God took away His favor and Joash ended his life miserably in defeat and assassination. This doesn’t seem to be a happy ending for a king who spent so much of his life serving God. But clearly the wicked choices he made overtook the good that he had done.