Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Chronicles 24:2
And Joash did [that which was] right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.
Jehoiada lived after the accession of Joash at least 23 years 2Ki 12:6. Thus the idolatries of Joash 2Ch 24:18 were confined to his last 10 or 15 years.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Ch 24:2
And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord an the days of Jehoiada the priest.
Goodness as a morning cloud
There are certain characters that are great curiosities. There are also other characters that are great monstrosities. The ease of Joash is s very extraordinary one. From his history learn–
I. That it is a great blessing when people yield to godly influences.
1. The first six years of Joashs life were spent in the temple.
2. He was started in lifes business in a very admirable way.
3. He was outwardly obedient to the law of the Lord in the days of Jehoiada.
4. He was zealous for the externals of religion.
5. He influenced others for good.
II. Good as all this is, it is not all that is needed.
1. This is not yielding the heart to God.
2. All this yielding to godly influences may exist without any personal, vital godliness whatever.
3. An externally pious character may even prevent men from being saved at all. It may lead a man to take for granted that he is saved.
4. To be under godly influences year after year, without any great trial or temptation, may leave the personal character altogether undeveloped.
We must have some kind of test, or else we cannot be sure of the character. You cannot be sure about principle being in any young man if he has been kept under a glass case, and if his principles have never been tried. The real character of Joash had never come out at all, because Jehoiada, as it were, covered him. His own disposition was only waiting the opportunity of developing itself. I have heard of an officer in India who had brought up a young leopard. It was apparently as tame as a cat. One afternoon, while asleep in his chair, the leopard licked his hand in all tenderness as a cat might have done; but after licking awhile it licked too hard and a little blood began to flow. It no sooner tasted blood than the old leopard spirit was up, and his master was his master no more. So does it happen to many that being shut in, and tamed, as it were, but not changed, subdued but not renewed, kept in check but not converted, there has come a time afterwards when the taste of blood has called out the old nature, and away the man has gone.
III. This yielding character may even prove a source of mischief. The princes of Judah came and made obeisance to the king. What followed?
1. Joash went off to sin.
2. He refused reproof.
3. He slew his friends son.
4. Having no faith in God, he robbed the temple, and gave all the gold and treasures unto Hazael the Syrian. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The goodness of King Joash
1. The history of Joash enforces the duty of training ourselves, and those who are under our guidance, to stand alone, and not to rest upon the support of others.
2. Not that we should make small account of the counsel of wise and religious friends. The perfect use of a wise adviser is not to determine for us what we shall do in every particular case that day by day arises; but to help us to store our minds with sound principles, such as we may call up for our own direction when any emergency requires them.
3. There is a great difference in the natural constitution of mens minds. Some are like the creeping plant that grows up rapidly, but must always hang for support upon some external prop. Others are like the oak, slowly developing itself from among the meaner underwood, until it rears its head alone above the trees of the forest. When the trellis or pole decays, the creeper must fall to the ground; the oak abides seemingly unmovable in its own strength. All the culture that man could bestow would never give to the creeper the sturdiness of the oak.
4. But though man cannot change nature God can. He can impart strength to the weakest character. Therefore the way to be firm in what is good, is to take God for your guide and support, and not man (Gal 6:4-5; Php 2:12-13).
5. There is no contradiction between the duty of seeking and in due measure following the counsel of our good instructors and the duty of standing fast for ourselves in the counsel of God. Just as the office of the moon is to transmit the reflected light of the sun to the dark side of the earth; but if the moon comes between the earth and the sun, it does but darken the earth, by intercepting from it the rays that beam from that great light which is the source of light and heat to both; so the parent, the teacher, or the priest, is to stand for God towards the child, the pupil, or the private Christian, so far as their imperfect knowledge or their spiritual needs require; but not so as to eclipse God, or to make them forget that to God and not to man they are answerable in the last resort for their deeds. (James Randall, M.A.)
Joash
Men may constrain us to a temporary amendment, but God alone can control us to a lasting change of character and heart. Circumstances can make any one of you religious for a time, and give you feelings and habits which will make you appear religious to others, and what is worse still, lead you to suppose that the outward appearance is the effect of inward principle. But nothing but the grace of God, and the love of His name and His truth, can produce that piety of heart which withstands temptation, and lives when all earthly agencies are gone which nursed it, because it lives in Him who was pleased to make those earthly agencies the means of grace to the soul. We have in this verse two characters for contemplation.
I. Jehoiada, as an example of influence exerted for good.
1. He had three elements of success with which to work.
(1) Power, arising from his priestly office and his marriage relationship.
(2) Piety, which gave him the principles on which to discharge his mission.
(3) Courage, arising from his faith in God.
2. Note here the relative influence of personal piety. Joash did that which is right. The nation prospered in every sense through the faithfulness of one man. Clear and consistent personal piety is always a persuasive thing. No treatises upon religion can rival for persuasive power the living epistles known and read of all men. Our calling as Christians is to win others, as Jehoiada did, to do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. We have received light that our faces may shine before men. The design of God in our salvation is not only our happiness but our usefulness.
II. Joash as an example for our warning. The religion which had its life and influence only from a man was soon forgotten when the source of that influence had passed away. There is a vital difference between the godliness which is the result of external circumstances and that which is the product of internal principle. It is the difference between the galvanised corpse and the living man; the star and the meteor; the flash of the lightning and the action of the sunbeam. There is a false godliness current among men.
1. With some piety is dependent upon policy.
2. With others it is a matter of periods.
3. With others it is a religion of place.
4. With others it is dependent upon the personal influence of some minister, or upon the advice and counsel of a friend. (C. J. Phipps Eyre, M.A.)
Life and character of Joash
I. The instability of his religion.
1. He was zealous for God under restraint.
2. He degenerated when that restraint was taken away.
II. The honour and the disgrace of his reign.
1. Honourable reforms.
2. Disgraceful crimes. Like Nero after the death of his teacher Seneca, the philosopher, he was stained with crimes.
III. The disastrous end of his life. Conclusion: Learn–
1. The responsibility of those to whom the care of young persons is entrusted.
2. Caution those yet under guardianship and tutors and friends.
3. The awful end of those who turn aside from hopeful beginnings. (J. Wolfendale.)
The Jehoiadas of society
It would seem to be about the last thing men do, to estimate properly the value of subtle and silent influences, the magic and wisardry of noble character. We may even be ashamed to do certain things in the presence of the Jehoiadas of society. We are not ashamed of the things themselves, nor are we unprepared to make experiments in regard to them; but whenever we would put forth our hand to begin the experiments we see the observing Jehoiada, and withdraw from the pernicious attempt. So it is that there are trustees of commercial and social honour, men who would never do the dishonourable deed, speak the calumnious word, or mislead the sentiment of the market-place in times of strong temptation and peril. We rely upon them as disinfectants, keeping the commercial atmosphere pure, and discouraging in the most positive and decisive manner the spirit and action of men who are low-minded and selfish. These Jehoiadas deliver no lectures upon commercial morality, nor do they in any manner that can be charged with conceit display their own virtues; they simply go on their straightforward course, doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, and the result of their presence and character is that even the worst men are restrained, weak men are confirmed in good resolutions, and men whose character needs inspiration receive it from their example. (J. Parker, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
[See comments on 2Ch 24:1].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(2) And Joash did.So 2Ki. 13:3.
All the days of Jehoiada the priest.Kings: all his days, while (or because) Jehoiada the priest instructed him. The expression all his days is of course relative to the clause which follows it; and the chronicler has accurately given the meaning.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
DISCOURSE: 413
THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOASH
2Ch 24:2. And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.
IN order to display more fully his own truth and faithfulness, God often permits events to arise, which seem to render the accomplishment of his promises almost, if not altogether, hopeless. This was particularly visible in his conduct towards the posterity of Abraham in Egypt, in that he forbore to rescue them from their captivity, till the period assigned for their deliverance was brought to the very last hour. We behold a striking interposition also in behalf of the descendants of David, to whom God had promised, that his seed should continue to sit upon the throne of Judah. More than once had they been in imminent danger of utter excision [Note: 2Ch 21:4; 2Ch 22:1.], before Athaliah usurped the throne: and she was bent upon destroying them all [Note: 2Ch 22:10.]: but God would not suffer his promise to fail [Note: 2Ch 21:7.]. It should seem that Joash, the youngest son of Ahaziah, was actually with his brethren when they all were slain, and by some means, being only an infant, was hid amongst them, so as to escape the general slaughter. From that state he was rescued by his aunt, and was hid, together with his nurse, in a bed-chamber [Note: 2Ki 11:2.], till he was seven years old: at which time Jehoiada the priest, who had married his aunt, put to death the usurper, and established Joash on his fathers throne.
One might have hoped, that a person so signally preserved, should, like Moses, have proved a great blessing to his age and nation: but, hopeful as his beginnings were, his reign was evil, and his end calamitous.
We propose,
I.
To take a brief view of his history
A sudden and total change having taken place in his conduct about the middle of his reign, it will be proper to consider his history,
1.
During the life of Jehoiada
[At first, as might be expected, he was under the entire management of Jehoiada, who was his instructor, and acted towards him as a father [Note: 2Ki 12:1. with 2Ch 24:22.]. But it was not only during his minority that he was thus observant of Jehoiada, but for many years after he had attained to manhood, even at loge as Jehoiada himself lived. Now in this we admire his humility; for he was a king, possessed of arbitrary power; and yet, because he was convinced of the skill, the integrity, and the piety of his instructor, he still continued to consult him on all occasions, and to follow his advice without reserve. In this conduct also he evinced his wisdom; in that he preferred the sage advice of an experienced counsellor, before the less matured dictates of his own mind, or the judgment of sycophants around his throne. Even piety itself seems to have possessed his mind at this period: for when he saw to what a dilapidated state the temple was reduced by the impious rage of Athaliah [Note: ver. 7.], he set himself to repair it; and even reproved Jehoiada himself, and all the Levites, for their tardiness in executing this important work [Note: ver. 5, 6.].
Who from such beginnings would not augur well of the remainder of his reign? From such a view of him we are ready to say, O that our princes, our nobility, our youth of every rank, were thus observant of pious instructors, thus intent on doing what was right in the sight of the Lord! ]
But our views of Joash will be greatly changed, if we consider his history
2.
After Jehoiadas decease
[Instantly did a mighty change appear in him. Having lost his pious counsellor, he began to listen to the advice of young unprincipled sycophants [Note: ver. 17.]. O what a misfortune is it to any man to connect himself with ungodly associates! How many are there, who, whilst under the care of pious parents or godly instructors, have promised well, who yet, by means of ungodly companions, have been drawn from every good way, and been led to disappoint all the hopes that have been formed concerning them! We cannot too earnestly caution all against the influence of bad advice, by whomsoever it be given, even though it be by their nearest friends or relatives [Note: 2Ch 22:3-4.]. Every counsel must be tried by the unerring word of God; and to those who would lead us in opposition to that, our answer must invariably be, Whether it be right to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.
Released, as it were, from the restraints of man, he soon cast off all fear of God, and abandoned his temple and service for the service of groves and idols [Note: ver. 18.]. Nor, when God sent him prophets to testify against his evil ways, would he regard them at all: yea, when Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada himself, was sent to him, instead of attending to his admonitions, he gave commandment to the people to stone him to death; which commandment they executed, even in the court of the temple itself.
To what excesses will not men run, when once they give ear to ungodly counsellors, and knowingly violate all the dictates of their own conscience! It not unfrequently happens, that backsliders and apostates become the bitterest persecutors; and that they who walk in the counsel of the ungodly, soon learn to stand in the way of sinners, and come at last to sit in the seat of the scornful [Note: Psa 1:1.].
We wonder not at the melancholy end to which these transgressions brought him. Within the short space of a year was he, notwithstanding his very great host, subdued by a small company of Syrians, who destroyed all the princes, his advisers, and sent the spoil of the city and temple to Damascus [Note: ver. 23, 24.]: and Joash himself, being seized with multiplied disorders, was assassinated in his bed by two of his own servants [Note: ver. 25.]. Unhappy man! yet more unhappy still, if we contemplate the fearful state to which he was driven from the presence of his offended God. But such is the end which, if not in this world, certainly in the world to come, awaits those who leave off to behave themselves wisely, and turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.]
Let us, from this brief view of his history, proceed,
II.
To make some reflections on his character
From his character in its commencement, we observe, How great is the benefit of a pious education!
[From what appeared in his latter days, we may judge what he would have been, if he had been left to himself in early life. What pernicious habits would he have contracted, and what multiplied evils would he have perpetrated! Instead of doing for several years what was right in the sight of the Lord, it is probable that he would have done evil from his youth. To be restrained from such enormities, was a mercy both to himself and to the whole nation. That he turned this blessing afterwards to a curse, is deeply to be lamented; though the proper tendency of a pious education is not a whit the less apparent. Let all be thankful for the advice given them, and the restraints imposed upon them in early life. Little do any of us know to what an extent of wickedness we might have been carried, if those admonitions or corrections, which were once irksome and painful to us, had not been administered. Indeed the more irksome such restraints appear to us, the more reason we have to be thankful for them; since the very impatience which we feel, demonstrates clearly our need of them. An aversion to them argues a disposition that is hateful and ruinous [Note: Pro 12:1; Pro 15:5; Pro 15:10; Pro 15:31-32.]: and those who, from an undue tenderness, neglect to reprove their children, lay up sorrow for themselves, as well as for the objects of their ill-judged lenity [Note: Pro 29:15.]. Let parents consider, that they are accountable to God for the authority vested in them, and for the talents committed to their care: and let them remember, that if it is not always found that a child trained in the way he should go will not in more advanced life depart from it, yet it is generally true; and that such a promise affords ample encouragement for their most strenuous exertions.]
From his character toward the close of life, we observe, How awful is the state of those, who, after hopeful beginnings, turn aside from the paths of piety and virtue!
[In one view, it is a blessing to have been kept from evil for a time; but in another view, the instructions that have been given us, the convictions we have felt, and the obedience we have rendered to the voice of God, will serve but to aggravate the guilt of our subsequent misconduct, and to bring upon us an accumulated weight of misery. As the instructions given by our Lord to the Jews served only to enhance their guilt, and render their state in the future world less tolerable than that of Sodom and Gomorrha, so all our advantages, professions, and attainments, will, if renounced, make our latter end worse than our beginning: for it were better never to have known the way of righteousness, than after we have known it to depart from it [Note: 2Pe 2:20-21.]. Whilst this thought primarily applies to those who, like Joash, have burst through the restraints of education, it speaks powerfully to those who have turned back from a religious course, and relapsed into a state of worldliness and sin. To what they will come at last, God alone knows: but the downward road is very precipitous; and they who provoke the Holy Spirit to depart from them, will most probably go on from bad to worse; till, having filled up the measure of their iniquities, they be made distinguished monuments of Gods righteous indignation.]
From his whole history in a collective view, we observe, How necessary divine grace is to produce any radical change of heart and life!
[Education may change the exterior conduct, but the heart will remain the same: and when the restraints that operated at first are removed, the dispositions of the mind will break forth into outward act. The lamp which is not supplied with oil, will go out at last; and, not uncommonly, the restraint which obstructed the stream of nature for a while, will, like a dam broke down, give occasion for the greater and more fatal inundation. Nothing but the grace of God can convert the soul: and every change, short of true conversion, will but deceive us to our eternal ruin. The redeeming love of Christ must be felt in the soul: nothing but that will have a constraining efficacy to renew and sanctify us after the divine image. Whatever therefore any may have done in compliance with the advice of others, know, that we must have a principle of life within ourselves, and be renewed in the spirit of our minds, and be new creatures in Christ Jesus: Old things must pass away, and all things become new. Nothing but this change will prove effectual for a consistent walk; nor without this can we ever behold the face of God in peace.]
Address,
1.
Those to whom the care of young persons is intrusted
[Whether you are parents, or instructors only, be not discouraged because you see not all the fruit that you could wish: but continue to sow in hope; for you know not which attempt shall prosper, or when the Angel at Bethesdas pool shall make your labours of love effectual.]
2.
Those who are yet under the authority or instruction of others
[Do not think hardly of the restraints imposed upon you: they are all salutary, and intended for your good; and the day is coming when you will see reason to bless your God for those very things which are now irksome to you. Your advancement in all that is good is the richest recompence your instructors can receive: and, in repaying them, you will greatly enrich yourselves.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
2Ch 24:2 And Joash did [that which was] right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.
Ver. 2. And Joash did that which was right all the days of Jehoiada. ] Education doth something, as the boat moveth some little time upon the water by virtue of the former stroke. Nero, for his first five years, while he hearkened to his two tutors, Seneca and Burrhus, was very fair conditioned. That speech of his, Quam vellem nescire literas, when he was to set his hand to a warrant for the execution of any condemned person, occasioned Seneca to write his book of clemency, in which he propounds him for a pattern. See 2Ki 12:2 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2 Chronicles
JOASH
2Ch 24:2
Here we have the tragedy of a soul. Joash begins life well and for the greater part of it remains faithful to his conscience and to his duty, and then, when outward circumstances change, he casts all behind him, forgets the past and commits moral suicide. It is the sad old story, a bright commencement, an early promise all scattered to the winds. It is a strange story, too. This seven-year-old king had been saved when his father had been killed, and that true daughter of Jezebel, as well by nature as by blood, Athaliah, had murdered all his brothers and sisters, and made herself queen. He had been saved by the courage of a woman who might worthily stand by the side of Deborah and other Jewish heroines. By this woman, who was his aunt, he was hidden and brought up in the Temple until, whilst yet a mere boy, he came to the throne, the High Priest Jehoiada, the husband of his aunt, being his guardian during his nonage. He reigns well till the lad of seven becomes a mature man of thirty or thereabouts, and then Jehoiada dies, full of years and honours, and they fitly lay him among the kings of Judah, a worthy resting-place for one who had ‘done good in Israel.’ And now the weakling on the throne is left alone without the strong arm to guide him and keep him right, and we read that ‘the princes of Judah came and made obeisance to him.’ They take him on his weak side, and I dare say Jehoiada had been too true and too noble to do that, and though we are not told what means they took to flatter and coax him, we see very plainly what they were conspiring to do, for we read that ‘they left the house of the Lord their God, the God of their fathers, and served groves and idols,’ the groves here mentioned being symbols of Ashtaroth the goddess of the Sidonians. And so all the past is wiped out and Joash takes his place amongst the apostates. The story has solemn lessons.
I. Note the change from loyal adhesion to apostasy.
The first point that I would insist upon is a well-worn and familiar one, as I am well aware, but I urge it upon you, and especially upon the younger portion of my audience. It is this, that there is no telling the amount of mischief that pure weakness of character may lead into. The worst men we come across in the Bible are not those who begin with a deliberate intention of doing evil. They are weak creatures, ‘reeds shaken by the wind,’ who have no power of resisting the force of circumstances. It is a truth which every one’s experience confirms, that the mother of all possible badness is weakness, and that, not only as Milton’s Satan puts it, ‘To be weak is to be miserable,’ but that weakness is wickedness sooner or later. The man who does not bar the doors and windows of his senses and his soul against temptation, is sure to make shipwreck of his life and in the end to become ‘a fool.’ There is so much wickedness lying round us in this world that any man who lets himself be shaped and coloured by that with which he comes in contact, is sure to go to the bad in the long run. Where a man lays himself open to the accidents of time and circumstances, the majority of these influences will be contrary to what is right and good. Therefore, he must gather himself together and learn to say ‘No!’ There is no foretelling the profound abysses into which a ‘good, easy’ nature, with plenty of high and pure impulses, perhaps, but which are written in water, may fall. ‘Thou, therefore, young man! be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.’ Learn to say No! or else you will be sure to say Yes! in the wrong place, and then down you will go, like this Joash whose goodness depended on Jehoiada, and when he died, all the virtue that had characterised this life hitherto was laid with him in the dust.
Let us learn from this story in the next place, how little power of continuance there is in a merely traditional religion. Many of you call yourselves Christian people mainly because other people do the same. It is customary to respect and regard Christianity. You have been brought up in the midst of it. Our country is always considered a Christian land, and so, naturally, you tacitly accept the truth of a religion which is so influential. The lowest phase of this attitude is that which seeks some advantage from a church connection, like the foolish man in the Old Testament who thought he would do well because he had a Levite for his priest. Religion is the most personal thing about a man. To become a Christian is the most personal act one can perform. It is a thing that a man has to do for himself, and however friends and guides may help us in other matters, in trials and perplexities and difficulties, by their sympathy and experience, they are useless here. A man has here to act as if there were no other beings in the universe but a solitary God and himself, and unless we have ourselves done that act in the depths of our own personality, we have not done it at all. If you young people are good, just because you have pious parents who make you go to church or chapel on a Sunday, and keep you out of mischief during the week, your goodness is a sham. One great result of personal Christianity is to make a minister, a teacher, a guide, superfluous, and when such an one becomes so, his work has been successful and not till then. Unless you put forth for yourself the hand of faith and for yourself yield up the devotion and love of your own heart, your religion is nought.
However much active effort about the outside of religion there may be, it is of itself useless. It is without bottom and without reality. Here we have Joash busy with the externals of worship and actually deceiving himself thereby. It was a great deal easier to make that chest for contributions to a Temple Repairing Fund, and to get it well filled, and to patch up the house of the Lord, than for him to get down on his knees and pray, and he may have thought that to be busy about the house of God was to be devout. So it may be with many Sunday-school teachers and Church workers. Their religion may be as merely superficial and as little personal as this man’s was. It is not for me to say so about A, B, or C. It is for you to ask of yourselves if it is so as to you. But I do say that there is nothing that masks his own soul from a man more than setting him to do something for Christianity and God’s Church, while in his inmost self he has not yet yielded himself to God.
I look around and I see the devil slaying his thousands by setting them to work in Christian associations and leaving them no time to think about their own Christianity. My brother! if the cap fits, go home and put it on.
We see in Joash’s life for how long a time a man may go on in this self-delusion of external and barren service and never know it. Joash came to the throne at the age of seven. Up till that age he had lived in the Temple in concealment. Until he was one and thirty he went on in a steady, upright course, never knowing that there was anything hollow in his life. Apparently, Jehoiada’s long life of one hundred and thirty years extended over the greater part of Joash’s reign, during most of which he had Jehoiada to direct him and keep him right, and all this tragedy comes at the tag end of it.
So he went on apparently all right, like a tree that has become quite hollow, till during some storm it is blown down and falls with a crash, and it is seen that for years it has been only the skin of a tree, bark outside, and inside-emptiness.
II. We come now to the second stage in the later life of Joash: His resistance to the divine pleading.
‘And they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols, and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for their trespass, yet He sent prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord.’ He sent with endless pity, with long-suffering patience. He would not be put away, and as they increased the distance between Him and them, He increased His energies to bring them back. But they lifted themselves up, Joash and his princes, and with that strange, awful power of resisting the attraction of the divine pleading, and hardening their hearts against the divine patience-’they would not.’ And then comes the affecting episode of the death of the high priest Zechariah, who had succeeded to his father’s place and likewise to his heroism, and who, with the Spirit of God upon him, stands up and pointing out his wickedness, rebukes the fallen monarch for his apostasy. Joash, doubtless stung to the quick by Zechariah’s just reproaches, allowed the truculent princes to slay him in the court of the Temple, even between the very shrine and the altar.
What a picture we have here of the divine love which follows every wanderer with its pleadings and beseechings! It came to this man through the lips of a prophet. It comes to us all in daily blessings, sometimes in messages, like these poor words of mine. God will not let us ruin ourselves without pleading with us and wooing us to love Him and cling to Him. ‘He rises up early’ and daily sends us His messages, sometimes rebukes and voices in our conscience, sometimes sunset glows and starry heavens lifting our thoughts above this low earth, sometimes sorrows that are meant to ‘drive us to His breast,’ and above all, the ‘Gospel of our salvation’ in Christ, ever, in such a land as ours, sounding in our ears.
Still further, we see in Joash what a strange, awful strength of obstinate resistance, a character weak as regards its resistance to man, can put forth against God. He never attempted to say ‘No!’ to the princes of Judah, but he could say it again and again to his Father in heaven. He could not but yield to the temptations which were level with his eyes, and this poor creature, easily swayed by human allurements and influences, could gather himself together, standing, as it were, on his little pin point, and say to God, ‘Thou dost call and I refuse.’ What a paradox, and yet repetitions of it are sitting in these pews, only half aware that it is about them that I am speaking!
The ever-deepening evil which began with forsaking the house of the Lord and serving Ashtaroth, ends with Joash steeping his hands in blood. The murder of Zechariah was beyond the common count of crimes, for it was a foul desecration of the Temple, an act of the blackest ingratitude to the man who had saved his infant life, and put him on the throne, an outrage on the claims of family connections, for Joash and Zechariah were probably blood relations. My brother! once get your foot upon that steep incline of evil, once forsake the path of what is good and right and true, and you are very much like a climber who misses his footing up among the mountain peaks, and down he slides till he reaches the edge of the precipice and then in an instant is dashed to pieces at the bottom. Once put your foot on that slippery slope and you know not where you may fall to.
III. Last comes the final scene: The retribution.
Now I am not going to dwell on this retribution, inflicted on Joash, or on that which comes to us if we are like him, through a loud-voiced conscience, and a memory which, though it may be dulled and hushed to sleep at present, is sure to wake some day here or yonder. But I beseech you to ask yourselves what your outlook is. ‘Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’ Is that all? Zechariah said, ‘The Lord look upon it and require it.’ The great doctrine of retribution is true for ever. Yes; but our Zechariah lifts up his eyes to heaven and he says, ‘Father! forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And so, dear brother! you and I, trusting to that dear Lord, may have all our apostasy forgiven, and be brought near by the blood of Christ. Let us say with the Apostle Peter, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go but to Thee? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
am 3126-3162, bc 878-842
Joash: 2Ch 25:2, 2Ch 26:4, 2Ch 26:5, 2Ki 12:2, Psa 78:36, Psa 78:37, Psa 106:12, Psa 106:13, Mar 4:16, Mar 4:17
all the days of Jehoiada: 2Ch 24:17-22, Isa 29:13
Reciprocal: Jos 24:31 – served Jdg 2:7 – the people 2Ki 14:3 – he did according 2Ch 24:14 – all the days Eze 3:20 – When Eze 18:24 – when Mat 13:20 – anon Mar 6:20 – feared
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
PARASITICAL PIETY
Joash did that which was right all the days of Jehoiada.
2Ch 24:2
I. He was dependent for his faithfulness and piety on the good influence of his human friends.There are many other children who have the same experience. While this incident of Joash and the good priest and his wife is before us, we may think a moment of the beautiful work they did for God in this training of the infant king. Perhaps they may sometimes have felt that it was not worth their while to be so burdened with caring for a baby. At least some women in these days think that nursing infants is rather dreary work, and they sigh that they cannot do something great for Christ because their hands are so full of nursery tasks. They forget that taking care of infants is work for Christ.
II. We should always have a care for Gods house.Joash was minded to repair the house of the Lord. This may show itself in many ways. There is also a spiritual temple, in which every one should be particularly interested. Our life is Gods temple, and we should be most careful that no marring shall occur in it, no breaches; that no blemishes may be allowed to remain.
III. Slack helpers.Howbeit the Levites hastened it not. No reason is given for their want of energy. But we see the effect of their indolence. The house of the Lord remained year after year in its condition of decay, a standing dishonour to God and a reproach to the priests and Levites who had been commanded to repair it. We get a lesson on the sin of slowness and indolence in doing Gods work.
Illustration
Mrs. Preston, in one of her story poems, tells of a weary sister who grieved sorely because she was not free to do any work for Christ. By her mothers dying bed she had promised to care for her little sister, and this had so filled her hands that she had not had time for anything elseanything for Christ. As she was once grieving thus the little sister sleeping beside her stirred, and awaking, told her of a sweet, strange dream that she had had. She thought that her sister had bidden each one bring Him a gift
And in my dream I saw you there
And heard you say, No hands can bear
A gift that are so filled with care.
What care? the king said, and he smiled,
To hear you answer, wailing wild,
I only toil to feed a child.
And then with such a look Divine
(Twas that awaked me with its shine)
He whispered, But the child is Mine.
There are many for whom this little story should have rich comfort. There are fathers and mothers who find it hard to provide for their children. It takes all their time and strength; and sometimes they say, I cannot do any work for Christ, because it takes every minute to earn bread and clothing for my little ones and to care for them. They do not remember that in providing for, watching over, and training their children, they are really doing the noblest work for Christ that their hands can find in all this world. Jesus whispers to them in their disheartenment, Your children are Mine, and what you do for them you do for Me.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
24:2 And Joash did [that which was] right in the sight of the LORD all the days of {a} Jehoiada the priest.
(a) Who was a faithful counsellor and governed him by the word of God.