Jehoash of Judah
| Kings of Judah |
|---|
|
Jehoash (יהואש המלך) ("Jehovah-given"), sometimes written Joash, was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and sole surviving son of Ahaziah. William F. Albright has dated his reign to 837 B.C.E.-800 B.C.E., while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 835 B.C.E.-796 B.C.E.
While still an infant, Jehoash was saved from a massacre commanded by by his grandmother Athaliah in retaliation against a bloody coup organized by the northern prophets of the Kingdom of Israel against her side of the family. Hidden by the high priest Jehoiada in the Temple of Jerusalem, at the age of seven he was brought forth and proclaimed as king, while Athaliah and her supporters were put to death.
Under Jehoiada's influence, the young Jehoash strictly enforced the exclusive worship of the Hebrew God Yahweh but later criticized Jehoida's stewardship of Temple funds and liberalized his religious policy. For these deeds, the biblical writers denounce Jehoash as bringing God's judgment on the land, which suffered under a Syrian invasion. Jehoash was later assassinated by critics of his policies. He was succeeded by his son Amaziah.
As one of the Davidic kings, Jehoash is one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ in Christian tradition, although he is omitted from the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
Background
Jehoash was born during a period of peace and cooperation between the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel. His mother, Athaliah, was the daughter of the northern king Ahab and his Phoenician wife Jezebel, and his father was......., the son of King Jehoshapat of Judah.
Israel and Judah had been at war in earlier generations, but during the time of King Jehoshaphat, the two nations formed a strong alliance. This resulted in Ahab contracting a marriage between Athaliah and Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram.
After Jehoshaphat's death, Athaliah rose to the position of queen consort as Jehoram became Judah's king. Meanwhile, Athaliah's brother, also called Jehoram (Joram), had become king of Israel following Ahab's death. In terms of his religious policy, Jehoram tolerated Baal worship as well as the worship of Yahweh, no doubt in part due to Athaliah's influence, since her own mother was a devotee of the Phoenician Baal Melqart.
Athaliah gave birth to Ahaziah and possibly other sons and daughters, but according to 2 Chronicles 21:12-16 on Ahaziah survived, as the result of raids by surrounding nations. After Jehoram's death, their son Ahaziah thus became Judah's king at the age of 22. He formed a military alliance with Joram of Israel against the threat of the Syrian empire, a policy which troubled the biblical writers. Indeed, the prophet Elisha supported Syria's king Hazael's usurpation of the throne, believing that he would punish Israel for its sins. Elisha also engineered one of history's bloodiest coups against Joram of Israel, centering on the ardent Yahwist military commander Jehu.
At this very time, Ahaziah was visiting Joram, who had been wounded in battle against the common Syrian foe. Ahaziah was assassinated along with Joram at Jehu's orders. Thus, Athaliah lost both her brother and her son, both of them kings, as a result of the Yahwist coup. Her mother, Jezebel, also soon died at Jehu's hands, as did many others members of her extended family, both northerners and southerners.
Jehoash in the Temple
Not content to allow the Yahwist faction in Jerusalem follow Jehu's example, Athaliah ordered the assassination of any member of the royal family with a claim to the southern kingship, and seized the throne of Judah for herself. However, Ahaziah's sister Jehosheba—who may have been either Athaliah's daughter or the child of a rival wife—succeeded in getting control of the infant Jehoash, the son of Ahaziah. She placed him in hiding under the protection of of her husband, the high priest Jehoiada, at the Temple of Jerusalem.[1]
Athaliah reigned for six years, the only ruling queen of either Judah or Israel prior to the post-exile period. The Bible says little of Athaliah's reign, but it is clear that she followed her husband Jehoram's policy of tolerating both the worship of Yahweh and of Baal. A temple of Baal existed in Jerusalem during her time, but it is not clear whether it was built before her reign or during it.
During this time, little Jehoash was being fostered in secret under Jehoiada's tutelage, no doubt with Jehosheba's supervision as well. Whether Athaliah was totally unaware of this situation is debatable. In Athaliah's seventh year Jehoiada carefully mustered his military allies and brought the seven-year-old Jehoash from his hiding place and declared him to be the rightful ruler. "Station yourselves around the king," he ordered the assembled guards, "each man with his weapon in his hand. Anyone who approaches your ranks must be put to death. Stay close to the king wherever he goes." (2 Kings 11:8)
In a carefully organized ceremony Jehoiada then brought Jehoash into the Temple coutyard and crowned him before an assembled crowd, and anointed him with holy oil, to shouts of "Long live the king!" Athaliah, being apprised of the attempt to usurp her throne, rushed into the Temple area, apparently unattended by her own guard. As soon as she saw the newly crowned king, she rent her clothes in despair, and cried defiantly, "Treason! Treason!" Jehoash must have watched as his grandmother was seized by his uncle's guard and hustled away from the Temple, where she was immediately put to death.
Now the de facto ruler of Judah, Jehoiada immediately engineered an attack on the Jerusalem's Temple of Baal. A crowd of Yahwist zealots smashed its altars, destroyed its icons and artifacts, and murdered the priest Mattan in front of the altar.
The young king Jehoash then took his place on the royal throne.
King Jehoash
The biblical writers praise Jehoash's early reign under Jehoida's regency. "Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him." (2 Kings 12:1) However, even though Ba'al worship was no longer officially practiced in Jerusalem itself, the Bible admits that even under Jehoida's policy "the high places were not removed" and "the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there." The text is not clear as to whether these sacrifices were offered to Yahweh only, or also to other deities.
Sometime during this period Jehoash ordered a collection of money for the restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem. However, the young king grew dissatisfied with Johoida's stewardship of these funds, for "by the twenty-third year of King Joash the priests still had not repaired the temple." Thus, at the age of 30, Jehoash took control of the repairs out of the hands of the apparently corrupt priesthood, and the repairs soon began in earnest. Jehoash was now clearly in charge in his own right.
Meanwhile, the Book of Chronicles reports that support for Athaliah had not completely died out, complaining that: "The sons of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into the temple of God and had used even its sacred objects for the Baals." (2 Chronicles 24:7)
The venerable Jehoida soon died, leaving Jehoash freer than before to pursue his own religious policy, which allowed a more pluralistic tradition. This seems to have been welcomed by the people and officials of Judah, a fact reported with disdain in 2 Chronicles 24:17-19) As a result of Jehoash's liberalized policy Jehoida's son Zechariah, Jehoash's own cousin, now spoke out against the king publicly in prophetic fashion: "This is what God says: 'Why do you disobey the Lord's commands? You will not prosper. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.'" (2 Chronicles 24:20) Zechariah was immediately stoned to death by Jehoash's supporters, and Jehoash added his own denunciation of Zechariah's treason, declaring his cousin lay dying: "May the Lord see this and call you to account."
At the same time, since the alliance between Judah and Israel had fallen apart after the northern coup of Elisha and Jehu, King Hazael of Syria had become a major threat. After successfully attacking the Philistine city of Gath, Hazael turned toward Jerusalem. The price Jehoash paid to bribe Hazael to withdraw included a rich storehouse of booty that had been dedicated to Yahweh, as well as a great deal of gold from both the Temple a royal treasuries.
These and other troubles put Jehoash on shaky ground politically, as 2 Kings reports that "His officials conspired against him and assassinated him at Beth Millo, on the road down to Silla."[2] Unlike his grandmother Athaliah, however, he was buried with honor "with his fathers in the City of David." His son Amaziah succeeded him as king.
Legacy
The intrigues which surrounded Jehoash's reign—from his coming to power to his death—did not stop when his son Amaziah ascended the throne. Amaziah is considered by the biblical writers to be one of the good kings, but his history presents a much more checkered picture. He began his reign by avenging his father's murder by assassins. He then moved to regain the territory of Edom, which had reasserted its independence from Judah two generations earlier. However, pressure from Judah's prophetic party forced him to break his renewed with the Kingdom of Israel, leading eventually to war against the north. This resulted in disaster as Jerusalem was sacked. Like Jehoash, Amaziah too died as a result of a conspiracy which placed his son, Azariah (Uzziah) on the throne in Jerusalem.
Jehoash is one of the four kings omitted by Matthew (1:8) in the genealogy of Jesus, the other three being his father Ahaziah, his son Amaziah, and the later king Jehoiakim.
In 2003, an unprovenanced inscription was published, known as the Temple Inscription, which appears to be a record of repairs made to Solomon's Temple during Jehoash's reign. Following extensive scientific tests the Israeli archaeological authorities declared it to be a forgery initiated a prosecution of its "discoverer," Oded Golan.
See also
| House of David Cadet Branch of the Tribe of Judah | ||
|---|---|---|
| Regnal Titles
| ||
| Preceded by: Athaliah |
King of Judah Albright: 837 B.C.E. – 800 B.C.E. Thiele: 835 B.C.E. – 796 B.C.E. Galil: 842 B.C.E. – 802 B.C.E. |
Succeeded by: Amaziah |
Notes
- ↑ Whether Athaliah intended to kill her own grandson is debatable. 2 Chronicles 24:7 refers to other "sons" of Athaliah who supported her, and since Jehoash was just a toddler at the time of his "rescue," it may well be that he was kidnapped by Jehosheba and Jehoiada, rather than saved by them. However, there is no reason to doubt that Athaliah would have ordered the murders of the royal sons who were not of her own lineage, given the bloodbath carried out by Jehu against the line of Ahab in the north.
- ↑ The account in Chronicles tells this story differently, indicating that the Syrians succeeded in attacking Jerusalem and severely wounding Jehoash, who was soon murdered in his bed for allowing the murder of Zechariah.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Albright, William F. The Archaeology of Palestine, second ed. Peter Smith Pub Inc, 1985. ISBN 0844600032
- Brenner, A. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies. Routledge, 2001. ISBN 978-1579583507
- Bright, John. A History of Israel, fourth ed. Westminster John Knox Press, 2000. ISBN 0664220681
- Dever, William G. Did God Have A Wife? Archaeology And Folk Religion In Ancient Israel. William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005. ISBN 0802828523
- Keller, Werner. The Bible as History. Bantam, 1983. ISBN 0553279432
- Galil, Gershon. The Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah. Brill Academic Publishers, 1996. ISBN 9004106111
- Miller, J. Maxwell. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Westminster John Knox Press, 1986. ISBN 066421262X
- Rosenbaum, Mary Helene. Jezebel's Daughter. Lexington, Ky: Blue Grape Press, LLC., 2007. ISBN 9780978606121
- Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002. ISBN 080283972X
- Thiele, Edwin R. The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings. Kregel Academic & Professional, 1994. ISBN 082543825X
External links
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
