2 Kings 12)
1 In the seventh year of Jehu Jehoash (= given by the Lord) began to reign; and forty years reigned he in Jerusalem (#40 = probation). And his mother's name [was] Zibiah (= roe) of Beer-sheba.
2 And Jehoash did [that which was] right in the sight of the Lord all his days (ie. all the days of Jehoiada. Cp. 2 Chron.24:14-18) wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him (his uncle. See Jehosheba, 11:2).
3 But the high places were not taken away (they were first abolished by Hezikiah, and then [after their revival by Manasseh] by Josiah): the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.
p² q 4,5. Money. Command.
r 6. Neglect.
q 7-10. Money. Obedience.
r 11-16. Attention.
4 And Jehoash said to the priests (see note on Libnah, 8:22), “All the money of the sacred things (see Ex. 3:5) that is brought into the house of the Lord, [even] the money of every one (Heb. ’îsh) that passes the account, the money that every man is set at (Heb. "of the souls [=persons. Heb. nephesh] of his [the priest's] valuation" [Lev. 27:2-8), [and] all the money that comes into any man's (Heb. ’îsh) heart to bring into the house of the Lord,
5 Let the priests take [it] to them, every man of his acquaintance: and let them repair the breaches of the house, wheresoever any breach shall be found.”
6 But it was [so, that] in the twenty-third year of king Jehoash the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house.
7 Then king Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest, and the [other] priests, and said to them, “Why repair you all not the breaches of the house? now therefore receive no [more] money of your acquaintance, but deliver it for the breaches of the house.”
8 And the priests aquiesced (Heb. ’õth, a rare word, occuring only here and Gen.34:15,22,23) to receive no [more] money of the people, neither to repair the breaches of the house.
9 But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it (there were two chest made on account of the slackness of the priests. The first by Jehoiada named here [in Kings], beside the altar of burnt-offering in the court. The other at the king's commandment without a hole bored [in 2 Chron. 24:8,14], outside "at the gate". In the former there was not room enough for the vessel of houses; in the latter there was abundance for all), and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of the Lord: and the priests that kept the door put therein all the money [that was] brought into the house of the Lord.
10 And it was [so], when they saw that [there was] much money in the chest, that the king's scribe and the high priest came up, and they put up in bags, and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord.
11 And they gave the money, being weighed (or balanced), into the hands of them that did the work, that had the oversight of the house of the Lord: and they laid it out to the carpenters and builders, that wrought upon the house of the Lord,
12 And to masons, and hewers of stone, and to buy timber and hewed stone to repair the breaches of the house of the Lord, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair [it].
13 However there were not made for the house of the Lord bowls of silver, snuffers, basons, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver, of the money [that was] brought into the house of Yehovah:
14 But they gave that to the workmen, and repaired therewith the house of the Lord.
15 Moreover they reckoned not with the men (Heb. ’enõsh), into whose hand they delivered the money to be bestowed on workmen: for they dealt faithfully.
16 The trespass money and sin money was not brought into the house of the Lord: it was the priests'.
782 B.C.
17 Then Hazael king of Syria went up, and fought against Gath (one of the 5 Philistine cities, to reach Hazael must have passed through Israel. Probably connected with his attacks on Jehu and Jehoahaz [10:32; 13:3,4]), and took it: and Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem.
18 And Jehoash king of Judah took all the set apart things (see Ex.3:5) that Jehoshaphat, and Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own set apart things, and all the gold [that was] found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord, and in the king's house, and sent [it] to Hazael king of Syria: and he went away from Jerusalem.
19 And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, [are] they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? (His punishment is recorded in Kings; the causes of it are found in Chronicles. See note on "king" in intro to 1 & 2 Kings. See the esoteric causes in 2 Chron. 24:25)
20 And his servants arose, and made a conspiracy, and slew Joash (see 8:26) in the house of Millo (= a rampart, mound. See 1 Kings 9:15. "The house" would be in connection with it), which goes down to Silla.
742 B.C.
21 For Jozachar (= whom Yahaveh has remembered) the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad (= whom Yahaveh gave) the son of Shomer, his servants, smote him, and he died; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David: and Amaziah (= the strength of the Lord) his son reigned in his stead.