2 Kings 12:17-18 - Exposition

The war of Joash with Hazael . A considerable gap occurs between 2 Kings 12:16 and 2 Kings 12:17 . We learn from Chronicles some particulars of the interval. Not long after the completion of the repairs, Jehoiada, who had lived to a good old age in complete harmony with the monarch, expired. His piety, and his good services, as preserver of the house of David, as restorer of the temple-worship, and joint-repairer with Joash of the temple itself, were regarded as entitling him to extraordinary funeral honors; and by general consent he was interred within the city of Jerusalem, in the sepulchers of the kings ( 2 Chronicles 24:16 ). His removal led to a fresh religious revolution. "The Jewish aristocracy, who perhaps had never been free from the licentious and idolatrous taint introduced by Rehoboam and confirmed by Athaliah, and who may well have been galled by the new rise of the priestly order, presented themselves before Joash, and offered him the same obsequious homage that bad been paid by the young nobles to Rehoboam. He … feeling himself released from personal obligations by the death of his adopted father, threw himself into their hands. Athaliah was avenged almost upon the spot where she had been first seized by her enemies". Joash began by allowing the reintroduction of idolatry and grove-worship ( 2 Chronicles 24:18 ), and then, when remonstrated with by Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, who had succeeded his father in the office of high priest, had the remonstrant set upon by the people and slain. The writer of Chronicles closely connects this murderous deed with the Syrian war, which followed it within a year ( 2 Chronicles 24:23 ), and was generally regarded as a Divine judgment.