2 Chronicles 25

Notes on the verses

He was born in the reign of Solomon, and lived through six successive reigns; and must, on any computation, have been upwards of 100 years old when Joash began to reign. See ver. Ver. 6. Collection.—[This was the poll-tax fixed by Moses, of half a shekel, which was levied on every man of twenty years old and upwards, as “a ransom for their souls that there might be no plague among them.”]—Bagster. Ver. 13. The work was perfected.—(See Margin.) A peculiar idiom, comparing the dilapidated state of the temple to a person deeply wounded, and its repairs to the process of healing, in which, first the flesh is made sound, and then skinned over gradually. Ver. 14. And when they had finished.—The parallel passage states, that in the first instance they made no “vessels of gold or silver, only the house itself was substantially repaired;”

but when these repairs were finished, this chapter informs us there was a surplus of money, and then were vessels made of gold and silver for the temple service, as already remarked in (1 Kings 22:13). The melancholy fact of the murder of Zechariah is also there introduced and remarked upon, which makes repetition here unnecessary. Ver. 15. Full of days.—| Wyyisha yamim, * satiated with days,’ which seems to be a metaphor taken from a guest regaled by a plentiful banquet, used to express the termination of life without reluctance. Statius uses abire paratum ac PLENUM VITA—“prepared to depart, being full of life,” in exactly the same sense; and Horace expresses the same image with strong ridicule: “Thou hast eaten, and drank, and played enough: it is time for thee to be gone.”’—Bagster.

Ver. 22. The Lord look.—{These words were prophetic, and not imprecatory; and should be rendered, as Houbigant proposes, in the future tense: “The Lord 2nd look upon it, and avenge it.” The event soon verified this prediction; for, before the year was expired, the Syrians came up against Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people, and Joash himself was slain in his bed by his own servants. Many circumstances served to aggravate this barbarous act. Zechariah was a high priest and a prophet, upright and unblameable in the discharge of his high offices; this murder was perpetrated within the very precincts of the courts of the Lord; and this truly good man was by blood the nearest relative of Joash, and the son of the man who had saved him from being murdered, and raised him to the throne [.]—Bagster.

(2 Chronicles 25)The history of this chapter is parallel to 2 Kings Chap. xiv, ver. 1—20. Ver. 3. Was established.—{No doubt those wicked men, Jozachar and Jehozabad, who murdered his father, had considerable power and influence; and, therefore, he found it dangerous to bring them to justice, till he was assured of the loyalty of his other officers: when this was clear, he called them to an account, and justly put them to death for treason and murder; for, if even these conspirators against Joash intended to avenge upon him the death of Zechariah, they acted without a commission from that God “to whom vengeance belongeth.”’}—Bagster. Ver. 12. Ten thousand—{No intimation is given on what account, or on what provocation, this most cruel conduct towards the prisoners of war was adopted.

‘The enmity between Israel and Edom seems to have been reciprocal, and deeply malignant. The victorious king and his army considered every individual of Edom as a traitor and rebel; and so adjudged them to death, and acted on this judgment. But their conduct was wholly inexcusable, and could only perpetuate rancour to future generations, and provoke the surviving Edomites to cruel retaliations whenever they had it in their power.’]—Bagster. Ver. 13. The soldiers of the army.—(These Israelites seem to have returned home, when discharged by Amaziah, whose powerful army deterred them from attempting revenge at that time: but when he was engaged in war with the Edomites, they marched from Samaria, and plundered all the cities till they came to Beth-horon, where they slew 3000 of the inhabitants.

] Ver. 21. Saw one another in the face.—(That is, ‘they fought against each other.’ To face an enemy, or to face one another, is still a common expression. The reason of this war was evidently the injury the army of Joash had done to the unoffending inhabitants of Judah. The ravages committed by them were totally unprovoked, base, and cowardly: they fell upon women, old men, and children, and butchered them in cold blood, when all the effective men were gone with their king against the Edomites. ‘The quarrel of Amaziah was certainly just, yet he was put to the rout: he fell, and Judah with him, as Joash had said; and the reason was, because “it came of God, that he might deliver them into the hands of their enemies, because they sought after the gods of Edom.”

This was the reason why the Israelites triumphed.’—Bagster. Ver. 24. All the vessels with Obed-edom.—To him was allotted the house of Asuppim, or collections for the sacred treasury. See (1 Chronicles 26:15).