Synopsis of the Chapter
Athaliah, having destroyed the royal seed, reigns: Jehoiada the High Priest kills her and establishes Joash, the son of Ahaziah, as king.
Verse 1: Now Athaliah the Mother of Ahaziah, Seeing her Son Dead (Ahaziah Killed by Jehu, Ch ¶
1. Now Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah, seeing her son dead (Ahaziah killed by Jehu, ch. ix, verse 27) arose (raised herself up) and destroyed all the royal seed — namely all the sons of Ahaziah the king and of his son, that is, her own grandsons and the rest descended from kings. "Athaliah" was the impious daughter of the impious Ahab and Jezebel, married to Joram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and from him she bore Ahaziah: therefore seeing that Ahaziah her son had been killed by Jehu, she seized the kingdom and killed all the sons of the king, of whom she was the grandmother. Remarkable and barbarous was this ferocity and impiety of hers, by which, like another Medea (whose tragedy see in Seneca), she slaughtered her own sons, that is, grandsons. She did this partly from rage and fury, partly from ambition, so that she alone in her own name, not as grandmother and guardian of her grandsons, might freely reign; partly from envy, so that having overthrown the family of Ahab and Jezebel, whose daughter she was, she might equally overthrow the house of David, whose posterity and continuation of the kingdom she envied. So Josephus. Theodoret adds: "Athaliah," he says, "impious and tyrannical, wished to utterly destroy the entire line of David, as pious, so that having seized power she might teach her people impiety." Others add that she armed herself with all the forces of the kingdom against Jehu, who had overthrown the house of Ahab, and might avenge its overthrow by waging war against or killing Jehu. Similar to Athaliah was Drahomira, the impious and idolatrous mother of St. Wenceslaus king of Bohemia and martyr, who drove his brother Boleslaus to murder Wenceslaus; but God punished her: for the earth swallowed her alive, as I have related more fully from Æneas Sylvius and others, Genesis ch. iv. Under Athaliah flourished Lycurgus, who shortly afterwards, from the laws of Minos which he had given to the Cretans, and others, gave laws to the Lacedæmonians; for Lycurgus flourished before Solon and Draco, around the year 290 after the capture of Troy, 450 years before the founding of Rome, 425 years before the Olympiads, 900 years before Christ, says Salianus from Clement and Eusebius, in the year of the world 3153.
Verse 2: But Jehosheba the Daughter of King Joram, Sister of Ahaziah, Took Joash the Son of Ahaziah, and ¶
2. But Jehosheba the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him, etc., and hid him from the face of Athaliah, so that he would not be killed. — Josephus, book IX Antiquities, ch. vii, asserts that Jehosheba was the wife of Jehoiada the High Priest, and therefore Jehoiada, as uncle of Joash, and as High Priest, restored him to the kingdom. Therefore Philo, or rather Pseudo-Philo, errs in his summary of the times, whom John Annius and John Lucidus followed, saying that in Ahaziah the line of Solomon failed, since all who follow him descend from Nathan, not from Solomon; for Joash is expressly called here the son of Ahaziah, who descended from Solomon, not from Nathan. Therefore it is frivolous what the same add, that Joash, Amaziah, and Ahaziah are omitted from the genealogy of Christ, Matthew i, because in Ahaziah the line of Solomon had failed.
Verse 6: A Third Part of You Shall Enter on the Sabbath (the House of the Lord, that Is, the Temple), and ¶
6. A third part of you shall enter on the sabbath (the house of the Lord, that is, the temple), and keep watch over the king's house — that is, guard the gate of the temple facing the royal palace. So Abulensis, Cajetan, and others. Jehoiada divided his soldiers into three parts, to guard three places necessary for the protection of the new king and for the capture of Athaliah. Moreover, the greater part of these soldiers Jehoiada took from the Levites, over whom he presided as High Priest, so that the conspiracy might be more secret and secure; for if he had taken secular soldiers, Athaliah would certainly have learned of it immediately and crushed them. Hence on the sabbath he also detained the Levites who, having completed their weekly service, were customarily about to return home, so that he might assemble a greater number of soldiers from them. Hence also he appointed five centurions from the Levites, who would gather the remaining Levites scattered throughout the cities of Judah to himself, namely Azariah the son of Jeroham, Ishmael the son of Johanan, Azariah the son of Obed, Maaseiah the son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat the son of Zichri, as is said II Paralipomenon xxiii, 4. Moreover, these Levites came to the temple without arms, as if to minister there: but Jehoiada the High Priest gave them spears, lances, shields, and bucklers there, as is said in verse 9 and here in verse 10.
And a third part shall be at the gate which is behind the dwelling of the shield-bearers. — This is the gate by which one descended from the house of the Lord, that is, from the temple, into the royal palace, as is clear from verse 3, which in II Paralipomenon xxiii, 20, is called the "upper" gate.
Verse 7: And Two Divisions of You, All who Go Out on the Sabbath, Shall Keep Watch Over the House of the Lord Around the King ¶
7. And two divisions of you, all who go out on the sabbath, shall keep watch over the house of the Lord around the king. — Note that on each sabbath the ministers, namely the priests and Levites, were customarily rotated in the temple for service, so that each in succession would serve his weekly turn, according to the order prescribed by David in I Paralipomenon xxiv, 3 and following. Therefore Jehoiada detained both groups, that is, the ministers of both weeks — the one ending and the other beginning — and divided the new ones entering temple service into three parts or divisions, assigning to each one gate to guard, while the old ones, those going out, he distributed into two parts, which would guard the new king, the boy Joash, as is said in this verse. So Abulensis.
Verse 8: If Anyone Enters the Enclosure of the Temple ¶
8. And if anyone enters the enclosure of the temple, let him be killed. — For the strictest military guard discipline had to be maintained here, lest either the ranks be disrupted by the inflowing crowd, or Athaliah send in her soldiers or servants to seize or kill the boy king.
Verse 12: And he Brought Out the King's Son and Placed Upon him the Diadem (for he Crowned him as King) and the Testimony ¶
12. And he brought out the king's son and placed upon him the diadem (for he crowned him as king) and the testimony. — For "diadem" the Hebrew has nezer, for which the Septuagint translates hagiasma, that is, sanctification, by which Theodoret understands the chrism; but concerning the chrism and anointing of Joash, that follows shortly after, and nezer signifies the diadem or royal crown, which the Septuagint calls "sanctification" because it was kept in the holy temple, to be placed upon the faithful king of Israel, as one elected and sanctified by God. So Abulensis. By "testimony" Pagninus and Vatablus understand the royal garment, namely the purple robe or purple military cloak. Better, others understand the Deuteronomy: for God had commanded this to be given to the new king in Deuteronomy xvii, 18 and 19, so that the king might learn from it that his duty was both to worship God devoutly and to govern his subjects benevolently like a father. So Abulensis, Cajetan, and others, as St. Jerome says on II Paralipomenon. That this is so is evident from II Paralipomenon xxiii, 11, where it is clearly explained thus: "They gave," it says, "the law into his hand to hold." For this ceremony at the inauguration of the king was prescribed by God in Deuteronomy xvii. For the law, or Deuteronomy (that is, the second law, meaning the repetition of the law made by Moses in Deuteronomy), is called the "testimony," namely of the divine will, because in it God declared and attested what He wished to be done by the Hebrews. All these things Jehoiada did by right, both because he was the uncle of the boy Joash to whom the kingdom was due, and therefore as his guardian he was bound to see that it be taken from Athaliah, who had seized it, and be restored to King Joash, and in place of Joash his ward he was bound to administer it; and because he was the High Priest, to whom, in the absence of a king or prince, belonged the care of both the Synagogue and the commonwealth. And so it was his responsibility to see that Athaliah, the enemy of Israel, who was overthrowing both the commonwealth and religion, be removed from the kingdom, and that another prince or king, to whom it rightfully belonged, be appointed, who would preserve and promote both.
Verse 14: The People of the Land ¶
14. The people of the land — that is, the common people, for these are lowly, and cast down "to the earth" as it were, and thrown upon earthly things.
Verse 16: They Drove Her Out ¶
16. And they drove her — that is, with forceful hands they violently dragged her out of the temple, to kill her outside, lest they pollute the temple with the slaughter and blood of so impious a woman.
Verse 19: The Cherethites and Pelethites ¶
19. The Cherethites and Pelethites — who these were I have explained in book II, ch. viii. In Hebrew it is "captains and runners," that is, swift soldiers, such as skirmishers. Our translator named them Cherethites and Pelethites, because these were the praetorian and bravest soldiers, who were most necessary in this undertaking.
Verse 20: She Was Slain With the Sword in the House of the King ¶
20. She was slain with the sword in the house of the king — that is, near the house or palace of the king, as was said in verse 16. Fittingly she is slain where she had sinned; for she had seized the palace and the kingdom. Therefore it is not true what Josephus says, book IX, ch. vii, that Athaliah was dragged to the torrent of Kedron and killed there; yet it could have happened that the corpse of the slain woman was cast into the torrent of Kedron. Similar to Athaliah and Jezebel in impiety as well as in divine vengeance, in the time of St. Gregory the Great, was Brunhilda, the mother and grandmother of many kings of France. For in order to reign perpetually and die as queen, she kept King Theodoric, whose grandmother she was, entangled in the love of concubines, and therefore expelled St. Columban from Gaul when he rebuked him, and killed Desiderius bishop of Vienne and Delphinus bishop of Lyon, and by her machinations and counsel destroyed ten kings; but finally, captured by King Clothaire, she was first placed upon a camel and led around as a mockery to the entire people, then tied by her hair to the tail of an unbroken horse, and dragged along, her brains were scattered by the horse's hooves, and the rest of her limbs, dragged over rough stones, thorns, and rocks, were torn apart, as Baronius relates from Aimoin, in the year of Christ 614.