law, as the rule of his life and action as king, according to the precept in Deu 17:18-19. ואת־העדוּת is connected with את־הנּזר עליו יתּן, because עליו יתּן has the general meaning “delivered to him, handed him,” and does not specially affirm the putting on of the crown. ימליכוּ, they made him king. The subject is the persons present, through, as a matter of course, the anointing was performed by Jehoiada and the priests, as the Chronicles expressly affirm. Clapping the hands was a sign of joyful acclamation, like the cry, “Long live the king” (cf. 1Ki 1:39).
Verses 13-14
Death of Athaliah. - 2Ki 11:13, 2Ki 11:14. As soon as Athaliah heard the loud rejoicing of the people, she came to the people into the temple, and when she saw the youthful king in his standing-place surrounded by the princes, the trumpeters, and the whole of the people, rejoicing and blowing the trumpets, she rent her clothes with horror, and cried out, Conspiracy, conspiracy! העם הרצין does not mean the people running together, but the original reading in the text was probably והעם הרצין, the people and the halberdiers, and the Vav dropped out through an oversight of the copyist. By הרצין we are to understand the captains of the halberdiers with the armed Levites, as in 2Ki 11:11; and העם is the people who had assembled besides (cf. 2Ki 11:19). In the Chronicles המּלך והמהללים הרצים is in apposition to העם: the noise of the people, the halberdiers, and those who praised the king. The עמּוּד, upon which the king stood, was not a pillar, but an elevated standing-place (suggestus) for the king at the eastern gate of the inner court (בּמּבוא, 2Ch 23:13 compared with Eze 46:2), when he visited the temple on festive occasions (cf. 2Ki 23:3), and it was most probably identical with the brazen scaffold (כּיּור) mentioned in 2Ch 6:13, which would serve to explain כּמּשׁפּט, “according to the right” (Angl. V. “as the manner was”). השּׂרים are not merely the captains mentioned in 2Ki 11:4, 2Ki 11:9, and 2Ki 11:10, but these together with the rest of the assembled heads of the nation (האבות ראשׁי, 2Ch 13:2). החצצרות, the trumpets, the trumpeters. The reference is to the Levitical musicians mentioned in 1Ch 13:8; 1Ch 15:24, etc.; for they are distinguished from וגו כּל־העם, “all the people of the land rejoicing and blowing the trumpets,” i.e., not all the military men of the land who were present in Jerusalem (Thenius), but the mass of the people present in the temple (Bertheau).
Verse 15
Jehoiada then commanded the captains החיל פּקדי,
