2 Chronicles 22:10

2Chr 22:5-9. Athaliah destroys all the seed royal of Judah, except Joash, who is hidden by his nurse in the temple six years, 2Chr 22:10-12. Verse 1 Made Ahaziah his youngest son king - All the others had been slain by the Arabians, etc.; see the preceding chapter, 2Chr 21:17 (note). Verse 2 Forty and two years old was Ahaziah - See the note on 2Kgs 8:26. Ahaziah might have been twenty-two years old, according to 2Kgs 8:26 (note), but he could not have been forty-two, as stated here, without being two years older than his own father! See the note there. The Syriac and Arabic have twenty-two, and the Septuagint, in some copies, twenty. And it is very probable that the Hebrew text read so originally; for when numbers were expressed by single letters, it was easy to mistake מ mem, Forty, for כ caph, Twenty. And if this book was written by a scribe who used the ancient Hebrew letters, now called the Samaritan, the mistake was still more easy and probable, as the difference between caph and mem is very small, and can in many instances be discerned only by an accustomed eye. The reading in 2Kgs 8:26 is right, and any attempt to reconcile this in Chronicles with that is equally futile and absurd. Both readings cannot be true; is that therefore likely to be genuine that makes the son two years older than the father who begat him? Apage hae nugae! Verse 3 His mother was his counsellor - Athaliah, the wicked daughter of a wicked parent, and the wicked spouse of an unprincipled king. Verse 5 Went with Jehoram - See on 2Kgs 8:28 (note). Verse 9 He sought Ahaziah - See a different account 2Kgs 9:27 (note), and the note there, where the accounts are reconciled. Verse 10 All the seed royal of the house of Judah - Nothing but the miraculous intervention of the Divine providence could have saved the line of David at this time, and preserved the prophecy relative to the Messiah. The whole truth of that prophecy, and the salvation of the world, appeared to be now suspended on the brittle thread of the life of an infant of a year old, (see 2Chr 24:1 ), to destroy whom was the interest of the reigning power! But God can save by few as well as by many. He had purposed, and vain were the counter-exertions of earth and hell. Verse 12 Hid in the house of God - "In the house of the sanctuary of God." - Targum. Or, as he says on 2Chr 22:11, בקודש קודשיא bekudash kudeshaiya "in the holy of holies." To this place Athaliah had no access, therefore Joash lay concealed, he and his affectionate aunt-nurse. - See on 2Kgs 11:1 (note). Introduction Jehoiada the priest, after having taken counsel with the captains, Levites, etc., proclaims Joash, and anoints him king, 2Chr

Athaliah Usurps the Throne. ( b. c. 884.) 10 But when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah. 11 But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse in a bedchamber. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest, (for she was the sister of Ahaziah,) hid him from Athaliah, so that she slew him not. 12 And he was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land. We have here what we had before, 2 Kings xi. 1 , &c. 1. A wicked woman endeavouring to destroy the house of David, that she might set up a throne for herself upon the ruins of it. Athaliah barbarously cut off all the seed-royal ( v. 10 ), perhaps intending to transmit the crown of Judah after herself to some of her own relations, that though her family was cut off in Israel by Jehu it might be planted in Judah. 2. A good woman effectually preserving it from being wholly extirpated. One of the late king's sons, a child of a year old, was rescued from among the dead, and saved alive by the care of Jehoiada's wife ( v. 11, 12 ), that a lamp might be ordained for God's anointed; for no word of God shall fall to the ground.