2 Kings 11:1

ATHALIAH; THE QUEEN MOTHER USURPED; THE THRONE OF JUDAH

The reign of this wicked woman must be accounted as the low point in the history of Israel thus far. Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, the daughter of a king, the mother of King Ahaziah whom Jehu had slain, the wife of still another king Jehoram king of Judah; but in this chapter we have the record of how she murdered all of her own grandchildren and everyone else whom she recognized as a possible threat to her authority; and although she was not recognized by Judah as a legitimate ruler, she nevertheless exercised tyrannical authority for over six years.

"Athaliah was a true daughter of Jezebel. She saw to it that all of her husband's (Jehoram's) brothers were murdered so that his authority might not be challenged (2 Chronicles 21:4). She made the worship of Baal the national religion of Judah; the High Priest Jehoiada was degraded; and all the cruelties, immoralities and irreligion of the house of Ahab were reenacted in the Southern Kingdom, which now fell to the lowest level in its history."[1]

The true people of Judah never recognized Athaliah as a legitimate ruler of their kingdom. "The sacred author did not speak of her as a valid ruler at all, gave no date of her usurpation, nor of her death or burial; and when her successor Jehoash (Joash) was named, it was not written that he reigned `in her stead' (as in the usual records), but merely that, `he began to reign' (2 Kings 11:21)."[2]

The purpose of Athaliah's six-year rule is evident in what she did. Her purpose, as stated by Josephus, was to "See that the entire house of David might be exterminated."[3] And it was only the providence of God that prevented Athaliah's success in that endeavor. However, there was another purpose. She fully intended to establish the worship of the pagan Canaanite deity Baal as the official and exclusive religion of Judah. In line with that, she established and promoted the temple of Baal near Solomon's temple itself, and she degraded Jehoiada from his position of High Priest. The Bible does not fully speak of her cruel tyrannies and murderous deeds, focusing rather upon her murder by the very priest of Jehovah whom she hated and upon the installation of that remaining heir to the throne of David whom she happened to overlook the night when she perpetrated the massacre of David's descendants.

ATHALIAH'S MURDER OF ALL THE ROYAL SEED

"Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal. But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king's sons that were slain, even him and his nurse, and put them in the bedchamber; and they hid him from Athaliah, so that he was not slain; and he was with her hid in the house of Jehovah six years. And Athaliah reigned over the land."

"God had assured David of the continuation of his family; and this cannot appear but a great thing ... Here David's line was almost exterminated, and yet wonderfully preserved."[4] It was by no means all the posterity of David which was threatened with destruction by Athaliah, but only that portion of it that pertained to the dynastic kings. The near-total irrelevance of those wicked sons of David who sat on his earthly throne appears in the fact that the Messiah came through an absolutely independent line of David's posterity, through Nathan, not through Solomon and that parade of reprobate kings.

"Jehosheba, daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah" (2 Kings 11:2). From Josephus we learn that she was a half-sister of Ahaziah. Ahaziah was the son of Athaliah by Joram, and Jehosheba was the daughter of Joram by another woman, not by Athaliah. Still she was the aunt of the infant Joash; and her prompt and courageous action preserved the dynastic posterity of David

"She put him in the bedchamber, and they hid him from Athaliah, so that he was not slain" (2 Kings 11:2). The bedchamber mentioned here was a storage room where mattresses and such things were kept.[5] The problem of keeping him from being discovered by his evil grandmother Athaliah was easily solved. Jehosheba's husband was the High Priest Jehoiada, and they prepared an appropriate place and secreted him in the temple for a period of six years.

"And Athaliah reigned over the land" (2 Kings 11:3). Her six year rule deserved no further comment. Independently of this passage, we learn that, "She established the exclusive worship of Baal throughout Judah; she shut down all services in the temple, gave over the sacred vessels of the sanctuary to the priests of Baal, and used the temple itself as a quarry from which materials were robbed to embellish and build the temple of Baal."[6]