5 And he gave them orders, saying, This is what you are to do: the third part of you, who come in on the Sabbath and keep the watch of the king's house,
And their brothers, in the country places where they were living, were to come in every seven days to be with them from time to time.
And the food at his table, and all his servants seated there, and those who were waiting on him in their places, and their robes, and his wine-servants, and the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.
Then he took the captains of hundreds, and the Carians, and the armed men, and all the people of the land; and they came down with the king from the house of the Lord, through the doorway of the armed men, to the king's house. And he took his place on the seat of the kings.
*** the house of the Lord, because of the king of Assyria.
And the Levites, all those of thirty years old and over, were numbered; and the number of them, by heads, man by man, was thirty-eight thousand. Of these, twenty-four thousand were to be overseers of the work of the house of the Lord, and six thousand were judges and men of authority; Four thousand were door-keepers; and four thousand gave praise to the Lord with the instruments which I made, said David, for giving praise. And David put them into divisions under the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
And David, with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, made distribution of them into their positions for their work. And there were more chiefs among the sons of Eleazar than among the sons of Ithamar; and this is how they were grouped: of the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen, all heads of families; and of the sons of Ithamar, heads of families, there were eight. So they were put into groups, by the Lord's decision, one with another; for there were rulers of the holy place and rulers of the house of God among the sons of Eleazar and the sons of Ithamar. And Shemaiah, the son of Nethanel the scribe, who was a Levite, put down their names in writing, the king being present with the rulers, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech, the son of Abiathar, and the heads of families of the priests and the Levites; one family being taken for Eleazar and then one for Ithamar, and so on.
And the rulers of Judah, hearing of these things, came up from the king's house to the house of the Lord, and took their seats by the new door of the Lord's house.
And the Lord said to me, This doorway is to be shut, it is not to be open, and no man is to go in by it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, has gone in by it; and it is to be shut. But the ruler will be seated there to take his food before the Lord; he will go in by the covered way to the door, and will come out by the same way.
And the ruler is to go in through the covered way of the outer doorway outside, and take his place by the pillar of the doorway, and the priests will make his burned offering and his peace-offerings and he will give worship at the doorstep of the doorway; then he will go out, and the door will not be shut till the evening. And the people of the land are to give worship at the door of that doorway before the Lord on the Sabbaths and at the new moons.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 2 Kings 11
Commentary on 2 Kings 11 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 11
2Ki 11:1-3. Jehoash Saved from Athaliah's Massacre.
1. Athaliah—(See on 2Ch 22:2). She had possessed great influence over her son, who, by her counsels, had ruled in the spirit of the house of Ahab.
destroyed all the seed royal—all connected with the royal family who might have urged a claim to the throne, and who had escaped the murderous hands of Jehu (2Ch 21:2-4; 22:1; 2Ki 10:13, 14). This massacre she was incited to perpetrate—partly from a determination not to let David's family outlive hers; partly as a measure of self-defense to secure herself against the violence of Jehu, who was bent on destroying the whole of Ahab's posterity to which she belonged (2Ki 8:18-26); but chiefly from personal ambition to rule, and a desire to establish the worship of Baal. Such was the sad fruit of the unequal alliance between the son of the pious Jehoshaphat and a daughter of the idolatrous and wicked house of Ahab.
2. Jehosheba—or Jehoshabeath (2Ch 22:11).
daughter of King Joram—not by Athaliah, but by a secondary wife.
stole him from among the king's sons which were slain—either from among the corpses, he being considered dead, or out of the palace nursery.
hid him … in the bedchamber—for the use of the priests, which was in some part of the temple (2Ki 11:3), and of which Jehoiada and his wife had the sole charge. What is called, however, the bedchamber in the East is not the kind of apartment that we understand by the name, but a small closet, into which are flung during the day the mattresses and other bedding materials spread on the floors or divans of the sitting-rooms by day. Such a slumber-room was well suited to be a convenient place for the recovery of his wounds, and a hiding-place for the royal infant and his nurse.
2Ki 11:4-12. He Is Made King.
4. the seventh year—namely, of the reign of Athaliah, and the rescue of Jehoash.
Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers, &c.—He could scarcely have obtained such a general convocation except at the time, or on pretext, of a public and solemn festival. Having revealed to them the secret of the young king's preservation and entered into a covenant with them for the overthrow of the tyrant, he then arranged with them the plan and time of carrying their plot into execution (see on 2Ch 22:10-23:21). The conduct of Jehoiada, who acted the leading and chief part in this conspiracy, admits of an easy and full justification; for, while Athaliah was a usurper, and belonged to a race destined by divine denunciation to destruction, even his own wife had a better and stronger claim to the throne; the sovereignty of Judah had been divinely appropriated to the family of David, and therefore the young prince on whom it was proposed to confer the crown, possessed an inherent right to it, of which a usurper could not deprive him. Moreover, Jehoiada was most probably the high priest, whose official duty it was to watch over the due execution of God's laws, and who in his present movement, was encouraged and aided by the countenance and support of the chief authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical, in the country. In addition to all these considerations, he seems to have been directed by an impulse of the Divine Spirit, through the counsels and exhortations of the prophets of the time.
2Ki 11:13-16. Athaliah Slain.
13. Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people—The profound secrecy with which the conspiracy had been conducted rendered the unusual acclamations of the vast assembled crowd the more startling and roused the suspicions of the tyrant.
she came … into the temple of the Lord—that is, the courts, which she was permitted to enter by Jehoiada's directions (2Ki 11:8) in order that she might be secured.
14. the king stood by a pillar—or on a platform, erected for that purpose (see on 2Ch 6:13).
15. without the ranges—that is, fences, that the sacred place might not be stained with human blood.
2Ki 11:17-20. Jehoiada Restores God's Worship.
17, 18. a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people—The covenant with the Lord was a renewal of the national covenant with Israel (Ex 19:1-24:18; "to be unto him a people of inheritance," De 4:6; 27:9). The covenant between the king and the people was the consequence of this, and by it the king bound himself to rule according to the divine law, while the people engaged to submit, to give him allegiance as the Lord's anointed. The immediate fruit of this renewal of the covenant was the destruction of the temple and the slaughter of the priests of Baal (see 2Ki 10:27); the restoration of the pure worship of God in all its ancient integrity; and the establishment of the young king on the hereditary throne of Judah [2Ki 11:19].