Revolu- been gradually gaining head during the previous reigns, and all the means which his office placed at his disposal were freely employed. He placed himself first in direct communication with the five officers of the royal guard, now, as in David's time, consisting partly of foreigners, amongst whom the Carian mercenaries were conspicuous. These he 2 bound over to his cause by a solemn oath. The Chronicler adds that a body of armed Levites was also introduced into the Temple. They were encouraged by an ancient prediction: Behold the king's son shall reign.'3 The High Priest thus arranged the operations. It was on the Sabbath-day apparently that the stroke was to be struck. The guards (or the Levites) were divided into two great bodies. The first consisted of those who mounted guard on the Sabbath-day, as the Kings went to the Temple. These were to keep their usual position, in three detachments; the first at the porch of the palace, the second at one of the Temple gates, called the gate of the foundation; the third at another, called doubtless from its being the usual haltingplace of the guards, the gate of the runners.' These were to keep their places to avoid suspicion. The second division consisted of those who attended the Kings to the Temple. These, on the present occasion, were to place themselves on the right and left hand of the young King, inside the Temple, in order to protect his person, and to put to death any one who came within the circle of rails which enclosed the royal seat or stand. As soon as they had effected their entrance, they were furnished by Jehoiada with the spears and shields that, as relics of David's time, hung somewhere within the sacred precincts, just as his predecessor Abimelech had furnished to David himself the sword of Goliath. Equipped with these weapons, by which the throne was once more to be won back to David's house, they took up their position. 6 2 The little Prince then appeared on the royal platform, apparently raised on a pillar near the gate leading into the inner court. It is the first direct example of a coronation. The diadem, which was probably a band studded with jewels, was placed on his head by the High Priest, and upon it the sacred Testimony," which in the reign of Jehoshaphat had been raised into new importance. It seems like the intimation of a limitation in the King's despotic power-an indication that he was to be not, like David, above, but beneath the law of his country. He was then anointed with the sacred oil. The bystanders, whether guards or people, clapped their hands together and raised the national shout, 'Long live the king!' The sound reached Athaliah in her palace. She came at once into the Temple, as it would seem, with the same high spirit that had marked the last days of her mother, unguarded and alone. Both accounts give us, in almost the same words, the scene that burst upon her. 'Behold '-the little child-now no longer the King's son or the unknown foundling, but the 'King,'-stood on his platform, at the gate of the court. Beside him were the officers of the guard, the trumpeters 12 Kings xi. 14; 2 Chr. xxiii. 13; Joseph. Ant. ix. 7, §3; and comp. Ezek. xlvi. 2, 2 Kings xvi. 18, xxiii. 3. 22 Sam. i. 10; Ex. xxix. 16; Ps. lxxxix. 40, lxxxii. 18; Zech. ix. 16. It is a different word from the 'golden crown' of David and Solomon. 2 Kings xi. 12; 2 Chr. xxiii. 11. Whatever this was, it was probably the same as the 'Book of the Law' in 2 Chr. xxii. By whom, is not clearly expressed according to the present Hebrew text of Kings (xi. 12), by the people; according to the LXX. of the same, by Jehoiada; according to the Chronicler (2 Chr. xxiii. 11), by Jehoiada and his sons. whose office it was to announce the royal inauguration. The Temple court was crowded with spectators; they, too, took part in the celebration, and themselves prolonged the trumpet blast, blended with the musical instruments of the Temple service. She saw in a moment that the fatal hour was come. She rent her royal robes, and cried out, in the words always applied to treason: Conspiracy, conspiracy!' The voice of the High Priest was the first to be heard? ordering the officers to drag her out from the precincts. So strict was the reverence to the Temple, that she passed all through the long array of armed Levites and exulting multitudes, out through the eastern gate into the Kedron valley, before they fell upon her, and not till she reached a spot known as the road or gate of the horses,' or 'of the royal mules,' was the blow struck which ended her life. Then again took place one of the 'covenants' or 'pledges' of that age-a league, as it were, between King and people, between the King and the true religion, as a consecration for a crusade against the false worship. As in Samaria under Jehu, six years before, so here in Judæa, the Temple of Baal, with its altars and statues, was shattered to pieces by the popular fury. In front of the altars fell the Priest of Baal, Mattan. Guards were placed over the Temple, so as to prevent any rapine; and then in a long procession, formed of the officers, the guards, and the multitude who had taken part in the proceedings of the day, the boy was brought down from the Temple, by the causeway through which the guards usually preceded the King to and from the palace. He was brought into the palace, and seated on the golden throne within the high gateway'-' the throne ' of the Kings of Judah.5 And the city was in quiet,' and so ended the troubled 12 Kings xi. 14; 2 Chr. xxiii. 13. 2 2 Kings xi. 15, 16; 2 Chr. xxiii. 14, 15. Joseph. Ant. ix. 7, §4. • Ibid. * 2 Kings xi. 19. scenes of the first Sabbath of which any detailed account is preserved to us in the Sacred Records. 6 The restoration of the house of David after such a narrow escape of total destruction was in itself a marked epoch in the Jewish nation; and much in the same way as in the like period of English history, when there was so strong an anxiety to secure an undoubted heir to the throne, so now it Joash. is emphatically recorded that Jehoiada lost no time in securing a succession to the throne of Judah. Jehoiada took for Joash two wives, and he begat sons and daughters.'' But the peculiar circumstances of the restoration were also fraught with an interest of their own. The part played by Jehoiada raised the Priesthood to an importance which (with the single exception of Eli) it had never before attained in the history of the Jewish nation, and which it never afterwards altogether lost. Through the Priesthood the lineage of David had been saved, and the worship of Jehovah restored in Judah, even more successfully than it had been in Samaria through the Prophets. During the minority of Joash, Jehoiada virtually reigned. The very office was in some sense created by himself. The name of 'High Priest,' which had not been given to Aaron, or Eli, or Zadok, was given to him, and afterwards continued to his successors. He was regarded as a second founder of the order, so that in after days he, rather than Aaron, is described as the chief.1 The first object was to restore the Temple itself. treasures had been given away piecemeal to invaders, even by the most devout of the Kings, and had been plundered twice over by the Egyptians and Arabs. Its very foundations had been injured by the agents of 5 Athaliah in removing its 12 Chr. xxiv. 3. 2 Ibid. xxiii. 18, 19. This is omitted in 2 Kings xi. 2 Kings xii. 10. Down to this time the chief of the order had been Its The Priest.' The only exception is the doubtful one of Jehoiada the father of Benaiah, in 1 Chr. xxvii. 5 (the 'head Priest'). Jer. xxix. 26. 52 Chr. xxiv. 7. Joash. stones for her own temple. To Joash, who alone of the Princes of the house of David had been actually brought up within the Temple walls, the reparation of its veneReforms of rable fabric was naturally the first object. From him, as it would seem, and not from Jehoiada, the chief impulse proceeded. Joash was minded to restore the house ' of the Lord.' 'The repairing of the house of the Lord' is mentioned as one of the great acts of his reign.' And it is instructive to see that the elevation of the moral above the ceremonial law, which characterised the best traditions of the Jewish nation, made itself felt even in the King who might, most of all, have been thought a mere nursling and instrument of the sacerdotal caste. When, from some unexplained cause, the Priests had failed to appropriate the contribution to its proper purpose, the whole hierarchy, with Jehoiada 2 at their head, met with a mild yet decided rebuke from the King, and a measure was agreed upon, very similar to those which have taken place in modern times on the suspicion of maladministration of ecclesiastical property. The administration of the funds was removed from the hands of the delinquent order. All future contributions were deposited in a public chest, placed close to the great3 altar in the Temple court, and were audited, so to speak, not only by the High Priest, but by the royal secretary in the presence of public officers. The measure completely answered. Confidence was restored, contributions flowed in, the workmen could be implicitly trusted, and the repairs went on in this and the succeeding reigns at a rapid pace. Nothing was spent on mere ornaments-everything was devoted to the solid repair of the fabric. 1 2 Chr. xxiv. 4, 27. 22 Kings xii. 7. In 2 Chr. xxiv. 5,6, only Jehoiada and the Levites, not the Priests. 3 2 Kings xii. 9. This is omitted in 2 Chr. xxiv. 8, and the chest is placed at the outer gate. 2 Kings xii. 10; 2 Chr. xxiv. 11. 2 Kings xii. 13. This is contradicted in 2 Chr. xxiii. 12, 13, 14, and probably by implication in 7. |