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2 Kings 11

¹And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.

²But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain; and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain.

³And he was with her hid in the house of the LORD six years. And Athaliah did reign over the land.

⁴And the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers over hundreds, with the captains and the guard, and brought them to him into the house of the LORD, and made a covenant with them, and took an oath of them in the house of the LORD, and shewed them the king's son.

⁵And he commanded them, saying, This is the thing that ye shall do; A third part of you that enter in on the sabbath shall even be keepers of the watch of the king's house;

⁶And a third part shall be at the gate of Sur; and a third part at the gate behind the guard: so shall ye keep the watch of the house, that it be not broken down.

⁷And two parts of all you that go forth on the sabbath, even they shall keep the watch of the house of the LORD about the king.

⁸And ye shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand: and he that cometh within the ranges, let him be slain: and be ye with the king as he goeth out and as he cometh in.

⁹And the captains over the hundreds did according to all things that Jehoiada the priest commanded: and they took every man his men that were to come in on the sabbath, with them that should go out on the sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.

¹⁰And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give king David's spears and shields, that were in the temple of the LORD.

¹¹And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, from the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple, along by the altar and the temple.

¹²And he brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony; and they made him king, and anointed him; and they clapped their hands, and said, God save the king.

¹³And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people, she came to the people into the temple of the LORD.

¹⁴And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king, and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew with trumpets: and Athaliah rent her clothes, and cried, Treason, Treason.

¹⁵But Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth without the ranges: and him that followeth her kill with the sword. For the priest had said, Let her not be slain in the house of the LORD.

¹⁶And they laid hands on her; and she went by the way by the which the horses came into the king's house: and there was she slain.

¹⁷And Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD and the king and the people, that they should be the LORD'S people; between the king also and the people.

¹⁸And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD.

¹⁹And he took the rulers over hundreds, and the captains, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from the house of the LORD, and came by the way of the gate of the guard to the king's house. And he sat on the throne of the kings.

²⁰And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was in quiet: and they slew Athaliah with the sword beside the king's house.

²¹Seven years old was Jehoash when he began to reign.

on 2 Kings 11

The Sword And The Crown

Studying these two chapters gives you the feeling that you’re reading the morning paper or watching the ten o’clock news on television. You meet two leaders—Jehu, former army commander and now ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel, and Jehoiada, high priest at the temple in Jerusalem in the Southern Kingdom. As you watch these two men, you recognize the fact that the same forces for good and for evil were at work in their world that are at work in our own world today.

You also recognize the difference between leaders who are motivated by selfish ambition and leaders who are motivated by spiritual dedication. Jehu was proud of his “zeal for the Lord” (10:16), but that “zeal” was a pious cloak that hid the egotism and anger that really motivated his service. God gave Jehu an important work to do, but the king went beyond the assigned boundaries and carried his mandate too far. The Lord commended Jehu for what he accomplished (10:30), but He also chastened him for his pride and compromise. Humanly speaking, were it not for the courageous service of the high priest, Jehoiada, and his wife Jehosheba, the Davidic dynasty would have come to an end. The future of God’s promises to David, that involved His great plan of salvation, was all wrapped up in a little baby boy named Joash.

Let’s identify the forces that were at work in that day, forces that are still at work in our world today,

Retaliation

We move now to the southern kingdom of Judah where the throne was empty because Jehu had killed King Ahaziah near Jezreel (9:27–28). The queen mother, Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab, saw her opportunity and seized the throne, reigning for six years. As the founder of Baal worship in Judah, she had no desire to see the Davidic dynasty succeed. She tried to kill all the royal princes, but one survived. David’s family was rapidly being destroyed. When Jehoram became king of Judah, he killed all his brothers and some of the princes of Israel to prevent them from dethroning him (2 Chron. 21:4), and the Arabian invaders had killed Jehoram’s older sons (22:1). Jehu had killed some of David’s descendants (22:8), and now Athaliah had ordered the “royal seed” to be wiped out. Satan certainly did his utmost to keep the promised Messiah from being born in David’s family in Bethlehem!

Athaliah was retaliating because of all that Jehu had done in eradicating Ahab’s family and Baal worship in Israel. To return evil for good is demonic; to return good for evil is godlike; and to return evil for evil and good for good is human. Wherever there is conflict in this world, you will usually find this spirit of revenge and retaliation. As individuals used to fight duels to uphold their personal honor, so nations sometimes fight wars to protect their national honor. But by killing the royal seed, Athaliah was rebelling against the Lord Jehovah who had promised David that he would have a descendant sitting on his throne in Jerusalem.

Most of us don’t go to that extreme in seeking to “pay back” our enemies, but revenge isn’t an unknown thing among God’s people. Moses in the law admonished his people not to practice revenge (Lev. 19:18), and Solomon gave the same counsel (Prov. 20:22; 24:29). Jesus taught against personal revenge (Matt. 5:38–48), as did the apostles Paul (Rom. 12:17–21) and Peter (1 Peter 3:8–9). Planning and executing revenge does far more harm to the perpetrator than to the victim. Many famous authors have written about “sweet revenge,” but experience shows that revenge is very bitter. A Jewish proverb says, “The smallest revenge will poison the soul.” If you are going to pay back an enemy, choose a good one, because paying back an enemy is a very expensive luxury.

Faith and courage

When wicked Athaliah killed the heirs to David’s throne, the faithful remnant in Judah must have wondered where God was and what He was doing. Why would He make a covenant promise to David and not keep it? How could He allow the queen mother to do such an evil deed and jeopardize the future of the messianic line? But God was still on the throne and had His servants prepared to act. In a world that seems to be controlled by deceit and selfish ambition, there are still people like Jehoiada and Jehosheba who have faith in God’s Word and courageously do His will.

Protection (vv. 2–3; 22:11–12). Jehoiada was the high priest and Jehosheba, his wife, was a princess, a daughter of King Jehoram and a sister to King Ahaziah, whom Jehu had slain. This made her an aunt to little Joash. That such a godly woman should come out of that family is a miracle of the grace of God. Knowing what Athaliah planned to do, the priest and the princess stole one-year-old Joash from the royal nursery and hid him with his nurse, first in a room where old bedding was stored and then in a room in the temple. As he grew older, he mingled and played with the other children in the temple area and wasn’t recognized as an heir to the throne.

Presentation (vv. 4–12; 23:1–11). Jehoiada and Jehosheba and the boy’s nurse had the patience to wait for God’s time, for faith and patience go together (Heb. 6:12). “Whoever believes will not act hastily” (Isa. 28: nkjv). In His gracious providence, the Lord watched over the child as well as the three people who knew who he was and where he was, for if Queen Athaliah had known what they were doing, she would have killed them along with the prince.

While waiting those six years, the high priest had thought and prayed, and the Lord told him how to take Athaliah off the throne and put Joash on the throne. First, he called together the five officers who were in charge of the temple guard, presented the king to them and had them take an oath to obey his orders and tell no one what was going to transpire. After outlining his plan, he sent them throughout the kingdom of Judah to order the Levites living away from Jerusalem and the heads of the Jewish families (clans) to come to Jerusalem on a specific Sabbath day. They were to assemble at the temple as though they were there to worship the Lord.

Jehoiada’s plan was simple but effective. The five officers each commanded one hundred men. Two companies would ordinarily be on duty daily and be replaced on the Sabbath Day, but on this particular Sabbath they would remain on duty and guard the king. A third company would guard the palace where Athaliah lived, and this would give her a false sense of security. A fourth company was assigned to the gate Sur (or “the foundation gate”—23:5), which may have led from the nearby palace to the temple area. The fifth company assembled at the gate behind the guardhouse, a normal place for the temple guards to gather. Anybody watching at the temple would have no reason to suspect that anything dramatic was about to occur. They would see the guards march in and take their usual places, and they might notice that the crowd of worshippers in the temple was larger than usual.

Even King David was involved in the plan! The high priest distributed to the men the weapons that David had confiscated in his many battles, and the guards protected David’s own heir with those weapons. It was David who purchased the property on which the temple stood (2 Sam. 24:18ff.), and it was David who provided the wealth that enabled Solomon to build the temple. Some of it came from his own personal treasury and the rest from the spoils of the battles he had fought for the Lord (1 Chron. 28—29). He wrote many of the songs the Levites sang in the temple services, and now he was providing the weapons to defend his own dynasty. David not only served his own generation (Acts 13:36) but every generation that followed. What an example for us to follow!

When everybody was in place, Jehoiada brought out the seven-year-old king and presented him to the people. Jehoiada put the crown on Joash’s head and gave him a copy of the law of God that he was to obey (Deut. 17:14–12; 31:26). The high priest anointed him and the people joyfully welcomed him as their ruler. “God save the king” is literally “Let the king live!” (See 1 Sam. 10:24; 2 Sam. 16:16; 1 Kings 1:25, 39.) God had kept His covenant promise and put one of David’s descendants on the throne of Judah!

Obedience

God had protected the young king and had enabled Jehoiada and the officers to present him to the people, but the work wasn’t over yet.

The execution of Athaliah (vv. 13–16; 23:12–15). The repeated shout “God save the king!” startled Athaliah and she hastened out of the palace to see what was happening. The first thing she discovered was that she was trapped. There were guards around the palace and between the palace and the temple courts, so there was no opportunity for her to escape or for her own soldiers to come to her rescue. She hurried to the temple court where she saw the young king standing by the pillar (1 Kings 7:21), protected by the captains. She also saw that the assembly was made up not only of priests, Levites and military personnel, but also “the people of the land,” that is, the land-holding citizens whose work, wealth, and influence were important to the nation.

How paradoxical that she should shout “Treason! Treason!” when she was the real traitor. Joash was a descendant of David and had every right to the throne, while Athaliah had seized the throne and had no claim to it. Jehoiada ordered the five military captains to escort her out of the temple area and told the guards to slay anybody who followed her. Once they were back on the palace grounds, near the Horse Gate, they killed her with the sword.

The dedication of the people (v. 17; 23:16). Jehoiada had already given the holy covenant to the king (v. 12), but it was necessary that both the people and the king affirm their allegiance to one another and to the Lord. Israel was a theocracy and God was their King. The king ruled as God’s chosen representative, and the people obeyed the king as they would obey the Lord, for the law of Israel was the law of the Lord. Israel was a covenant nation, for at Mount Sinai their ancestors had sworn allegiance to the Lord and His Word (Ex. 18—19). No other nation on earth has this same covenant relationship to the Lord (Ps. 147:19–20).

The elimination of Baal worship (vv. 18–21; 23:17). As Jehu had done in Samaria, so Jehoiada did in Jerusalem: he and the people destroyed the temple of Baal and killed the chief priest of Baal before the altar of Baal. No doubt they also executed the other people who were leaders in Baal worship. They also destroyed the temple of Baal and the altar and images that it contained. Because of Athaliah and her compromising husband Jehoram and their son Ahaziah, the kingdom of Judah had been infected with idolatry for at least fifteen years, and now the infection was exposed and removed.

The restoration of the Davidic dynasty (11:19–21; 23:20–21). What a joyful crowd it was that escorted the king from the temple to the palace, where they placed him on the throne! Satan’s attempt to end the Davidic line had failed, and the messianic promise was still in force. The people had done the will of God and obeyed His Word, and for the first time in many years, righteousness and peace reigned in the land.

The organization of the temple ministry (11:18b; 2 Chron. 23:18–19). We learn from 2 Kings 12 that the temple of the Lord had been grossly neglected and abused during the time that Athaliah was the power behind the throne. Jehoiada immediately took steps to remedy this situation by following David’s orders (1 Chron. 23—26) and putting the proper priests and Levites into places of ministry. It was important that they offer the daily sacrifices to the Lord and sing praises to Him. It was also essential that the doors of the temple be guarded so that no unclean person might enter and defile the other worshippers. Revival is simply obeying God’s Word and doing what He commanded our fathers to do. We don’t need the novelties of the present; we need the realities of the past.

When God began to restore true worship in Jerusalem and Judah, He started with one dedicated couple—Jehoiada the high priest and his wife, Jehosheba. They enlisted the nurse who cared for Joash, and God protected all four of them for six years. Then Jehoiada enlisted the five military captains, who in turn assembled their five hundred soldiers. The scattered priests, Levites, and people of the land came together as one to honor the Lord and obey His Word. Sin was purged, God’s will was accomplished and the name of the Lord was glorified!

God could do it then, and He can do it today—but we must trust Him to have His way.