Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/337

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II CHRONICLES XXIII. 18—XXIV. 3
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distributed in the house of the LORD, to offer the burnt offerings of the LORD, as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, [1]according to the order of David. 19And he set the porters at the gates of the house of the LORD, that none which was unclean in any thing should enter in. 20And he took the captains of hundreds, and the nobles, and the governors of the people, and all the people of the land, and brought down the king from the house of the LORD: and they came through the upper gate unto the king's house, and set the king upon the throne of the kingdom. 21So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet: and they slew Athaliah with the sword.
24Joash was seven years old when he began to reign; and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba. 2And Joash did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest. 3And Jehoiada took for him two wives; and he


according to the order of David] Note that the Chronicler ascribes all sacrificial arrangements to the law of Moses, but all musical arrangements to David, cp. 1 Chr. xxv.

19. he set the porters] Cp. 1 Chr. xxvi. 1 ff., 13 ff. Jehoiada is regarded as re-establishing a Davidic arrangement which had fallen into disuse.

20. the nobles] Heb. addīrīm; cp. Neh. iii. 5 (with Ryle's note). In 2 Kin., "the Carites"; cp. ver. 1 (note).

the upper gate] cp. xxvii. 3, "the upper gate of the house of the LORD." In 2 Kin., "by the way of the gate of the guard" (doubtless one of the gates of the palace). The Chronicler, writing at a time when the palace had ceased to exist, naturally fixes localities by reference to the Temple. The gate in question was probably one in the north wall of the Temple court, referred to in Jer. xx. 2 as "the upper gate of Benjamin."


Ch. XXIV. 13 (cp. 2 Kin. xi. 21—xii. 3). Joash begins to Reign.

2. After this verse Kings adds "Howbeit the high places were not taken away: the people sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places." This the Chronicler omits, for it was quite irreconcilable with his notion of the religious reformation which marks the opening years of the reign of Joash.

3. And Jehoiada, etc.] This ver. is not in Kings. It was the duty

  1. Heb. by the hands of David.