2 Kings 11:12 Komentář

The revolution in the kingdom of Israel was soon perfected in Jehu's settlement; we must now enquire into the affairs of the kingdom of Judah, which lost its head (such as it was) at the same time, and by the same hand, as Israel lost its head; but things continued longer there in distraction than in Israel, yet, after some years, they were brought into a good posture, as we find in this chapter. I. Athaliah usurps the government and destroys all the seed-royal (Kg2 11:1). II. Joash, a child of a year old, is wonderfully preserved (Kg2 11:2, Kg2 11:3). III. At six years' end he is produced, and, by the agency of Jehoiada, made king (Kg2 11:4-12). IV. Athaliah is slain (Kg2 11:13-16). V. Both the civil and religious interests of the kingdom are well settled in the hands of Joash (Kg2 11:17-21). And thus, after some interruption, things returned with advantage into the old channel.

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 11 This chapter relates how that Joash the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, being hid and preserved, when his grandmother murdered all the seed royal, after six years was produced, Kg2 11:1, when Jehoiada the priest set a sufficient guard about him, and the king's house, and anointed him king, Kg2 11:4, and Athaliah his grandmother, who had reigned six years, was put to death by the order of the priest, Kg2 10:13, and then a covenant was made between the Lord, and the king, and the people, and between the king and the people; and he was placed on the throne, to the satisfaction of the people, and the quiet thereof, Kg2 10:17.

And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard, and of the people,.... Their acclamations and shouts at the coronation of the king; for by this time the people had some knowledge of the affair, and ran, and came flocking to see the new king, and express their joy on this occasion, and whom they greatly praised, Ch2 23:12. she came to the people into the temple of the Lord; the outward court, where the people were assembled; and she seems to come alone, unattended, in great surprise and consternation, and was admitted to pass the guards, being the queen, and alone, and perhaps by the particular order of Jehoiada, though contrary to the general orders he gave, Kg2 11:8.

"And he brought out the king's son, and put the diadem and the testimony upon him." [2 Kings 11:12] What follows about the same: He brought out the king's son, and put the diadem and the testimony upon him, signifies the kingly insignia on the head in the diadem, and the decrees of God's law, by which it is declared what the king should do and how he is commanded to live, in the testimony. Finally, more openly in the book of Chronicles: And they put the diadem on him, and gave him the law to hold in his hand (2 Chronicles 23); and it was indeed of great and salutary wisdom, that after the death of the tyrannical and impious queen, to the succeeding son of the legitimate king, simultaneously with the state of kingship, the discipline of God's law should also be entrusted, so that he who saw himself set over the people in rule should remember that he himself was to be subject to divine laws in rule.

Athaliah destroys all that remain of the seed royal of Judah, Kg2 11:1. Jehosheba hides Joash the son of Ahaziah, and he remains hidden in the house of the Lord six years; and Athaliah reigns over the land, Kg2 11:2, Kg2 11:3. Jehoiada, the high priest, calls the nobles privately together into the temple, shows them the kings son, takes an oath of them, arms them, places guards around the temple, and around the young king's person; they anoint and proclaim him, Kg2 11:4-12. Athaliah is alarmed, comes into the temple, is seized, carried forth, and slain, Kg2 11:13-16. Jehoiada causes the people to enter into a covenant with the Lord; they destroy Baal's house, priest, and images, Kg2 11:17, Kg2 11:18. Joash is brought to the king's house, reigns, and all the land rejoices, Kg2 11:19-21.

Put the crown upon him - This was a diadem or golden band that went round the head. And - the testimony - Probably the book of the law, written on a roll of vellum. This was his scepter. Some think that it was placed upon his head, as well as the diadem. The diadem, the testimony, and the anointing oil, were essential to his consecration. They clapped their hands - This I believe is the first instance on record of clapping the hands as a testimony of joy. God save the king - יחי המלך yechi hannmelech; May the king live! So the words should be translated wherever they occur.

JEHOASH SAVED FROM ATHALIAH'S MASSACRE. (Kg2 11:1-3) Athaliah--(See on Ch2 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 (Ch2 21:2-4; Ch2 22:1; Kg2 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 (Kg2 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.

The Government of Athaliah (cf. Ch2 22:10-12). After the death of Ahaziah of Judah, his mother Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (see at Kg2 8:18 and Kg2 8:26), seized upon the government, by putting to death all the king's descendants with the exception of Joash, a son of Ahaziah of only a year old, who had been secretly carried off from the midst of the royal children, who were put to death, by Jehosheba, his father's sister, the wife of the high priest Jehoiada, and was first of all hidden with his nurse in the bed-chamber, and afterwards kept concealed from Athaliah for six years in the high priest's house. The ו before ראתה is no doubt original, the subject, Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah, being placed at the head absolutely, and a circumstantial clause introduced with וראתה: "Athaliah, when she saw that, etc., rose up." המּמלכה כּל־זרע, all the royal seed, i.e., all the sons and relations of Ahaziah, who could put in any claim to succeed to the throne. At the same time there were hardly any other direct descendants of the royal family in existence beside the sons of Ahaziah, since the elder brothers of Ahaziah had been carried away by the Arabs and put to death, and the rest of the closer blood-relations of the male sex had been slain by Jehu (see at Kg2 10:13). - Jehosheba (יהושׁבע, in the Chronicles יהושׁבעת), the wife of the high priest Jehoiada (Ch2 22:11), was a daughter of king Joram and a sister of Ahaziah, but she was most likely not a daughter of Athaliah, as this worshipper of Baal would hardly have allowed her own daughter to marry the high priest, but had been born to Joram by a wife of the second rank. ממותים (Chethb), generally a substantive, mortes (Jer 16:4; Eze 28:8), here an adjective: slain or set apart for death. The Keri מוּמתים is the participle Hophal, as in Ch2 22:11. הם בּחדר is to be taken in connection with תּגנב: she stole him (took him away secretly) from the rest of the king's sons, who were about to be put to death, into the chamber of the beds, i.e., not the children's bed-room, but a room in the palace where the beds (mattresses and counterpanes) were kept, for which in the East there is a special room that is not used as a dwelling-room (see Chardin in Harm. Beobb. iii. p. 357). This was the place in which at first it was easiest to conceal the child and its nurse. ויּסתּרוּ, "they (Jehosheba and the nurse) concealed him," is not to be altered into ותּסתּירהוּ after the Chronicles, as Thenius maintains. The masculine is used in the place of the feminine, as is frequently the case. Afterwards he was concealed with her (with Jehosheba) in the house of Jehovah, i.e., in the home of the high-priest in one of the buildings of the court of the temple.