2 Chronicles 24:25 - Exposition

They left him in great diseases . See note above, and observe further that this parenthetic clause, as treated in both Authorized Version and Revised Version, prepares the way for what follows, and especially for the fact that it was on his bed that they slew him . Render thus, And after they had betaken themselves away, whereas they left him sorely ill, his own servants conspired … and slew him in his bed. His own servants . These had the opportunity the rather at hand, in that he was so ill and in bed. That he died by the conspiring together of a couple of servants, whose foreign and heathen maternity is particularly recorded, was the more ignominious end for him, who had commanded Zechariah to be openly stoned—a death highly honourable in comparison. The parallel ( 2 Kings 12:20 ) adds that it was in "the house of Mille, which goeth down to Silla" (for the explanation of which passage, see note ad loc. ) , that the servants' conspiracy to kill Joash took effect. The sons of Jehoiada. We know of only one son, Zechariah; there may have been other sons, or other lineal relations of Jehoiada may be covered by the word "sons." We are not obliged to interpret the avenging act of the servants as one to which their own pious and patriotic zeal led them, which, considering their maternal pedigree, is perhaps something unlikely, though of course not impossible, but one to which they were incited by the retributive providence of him who held their hearts also in his hand. In a word, it was a deed done for the bleed—required (see note and references under verse 22). Not in the sepulchres of the kings . See note on verse 16, and references there quoted; as also the ambiguous expression of the parallel (verse 21), "They buried him with his fathers in the city of David."