2nd Kings Chapter 12

From The Open Bible Project

12:1 In the seventh year of Jehu began Jehoash to reign; and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

12:2 Jehoash did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

• (a) As long as rulers give ear to the true ministers of God, they prosper.

12:3 However the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.

• (b) So hard a thing it is for them, that are in authority, to be brought to the perfect obedience of God.

12:4 Jehoash said to the priests, "All the money of the holy things that is brought into the house of Yahweh, in current money, the money of the persons for whom each man is rated, and all the money that it comes into any man's heart to bring into the house of Yahweh,

• (c) That is, the money of redemption (Exodus 30:12), also the money which the priest valued the vows at (Leviticus 27:2), and their free gift.

12:5 let the priests take it to them, every man from his acquaintance; and they shall repair the breaches of the house, wherever any breach shall be found."

• (d) For the temple which was built a hundred and fifty-five years before, had many things decayed in it, both by the negligence of the king’s predecessors, and also by the wickedness of the idolaters.

12:6 But it was so, that in the three and twentieth year of king Jehoash the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house.

12:7 Then king Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest, and for the [other] priests, and said to them, "Why don't you repair the breaches of the house? Now therefore take no more money from your treasurers, but deliver it for the breaches of the house."

• (e) He takes from them the ordering of the money, because of their negligence.

12:8 The priests consented that they should take no [more] money from the people, neither repair the breaches of the house.

12:9 But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of Yahweh: and the priests who kept the threshold put therein all the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh.

• (f) That is, on the south side.

12:10 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 Yahweh.

12:11 They gave the money that was weighed out into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of Yahweh: and they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders, who worked on the house of Yahweh,

• (g) For the king had appointed others who were fit for that purpose, (2 Kings 22:5).

12:12 and to the masons and the stone cutters, and for buying timber and cut stone to repair the breaches of the house of Yahweh, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.

12:13 But there were not made for the house of Yahweh cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver, of the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh;

• (h) For these men only had charge of the repairing of the temple, the rest of the money was brought to the king who caused these to be made later, (2 Chronicles 24:14).

12:14 for they gave that to those who did the work, and repaired therewith the house of Yahweh.

12:15 Moreover they didn't demand an accounting from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to give to those who did the work; for they dealt faithfully.

12:16 The money for the trespass offerings, and the money for the sin offerings, was not brought into the house of Yahweh: it was the priests'.

12:17 Then Hazael king of Syria went up, and fought against Gath, and took it; and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.

12:18 Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own holy things, and all the gold that was found in the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and of the king's house, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria: and he went away from Jerusalem.

• (i) After the death of Jehoiada, Joash fell to idolatry: therefore God rejected him, and stirred up his enemy against him, whom he pacified with the treasures of the temple: for God would not be served with those gifts, seeing the king’s heart was wicked.

12:19 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, aren't they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

12:20 His servants arose, and made a conspiracy, and struck Joash at the house of Millo, [on the way] that goes down to Silla.

• (k) Because he had put Zachariah the son of Jehoiada to death, (2 Chronicles 24:25).
• (l) Read (2 Samuel 5:9).

12:21 For Jozacar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, his servants, struck him, and he died; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David: and Amaziah his son reigned in his place.