Chapter 24
This chapter takes us back to 2K12, as Joash begins to reign in Judah at the age of 7. Some clarification. Joash tells the Levites to start collecting the Temple tax again. Athaliah's sons had raided the temple treasury and taken the holy things to use for Baal worship. The Levites are hesitant to start collecting this tax again...for obvious reasons. That explains why the chest with a hole in the top was placed in the Temple. Then the King declared the tax reinstated. So people brought their money - but it does not sound like any accounting was made. It was voluntarily mandatory.
24:15 says Jehoiada the High Priest lived to be 130 years old. But he died. He was buried in Jerusalem among the Kings for all he had done for Israel. This would be a great honor, to be buried with Kings.
vss 17-19 are very sad. After the High Priest dies, the "princes" of Judah come and talk to the King. The King listens to them. As a result, they again abandon the Temple, and begin to worship the Asherim as their fathers did. So quickly they turn away. Why would they??? God is angry, yet he sends them prophets to bring them back. But this does no good. (What prophets? Looking at my list, and noting that Joash became King of Judah in 835 BC, my list of prophets is very scant. Apparently those sent did not end up writing down their message in a way that got into the Bible as a book with their name on it.)
2023 - Here are those verses: 17 Now after the death of Jehoiada the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. 18 And they abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. [2Ch 24:17-18 ESV]. It occurs to me this year that the reason things change so quickly is simple greed. If THE Temple is the ONLY Temple, then the only ones receiving offerings are the Aaronic and Levitical priests who are in charge of the Temple. BUT, if there are altars and temples to MANY Gods, basically temples that anyone can establish anywhere and then appoint either themselves or whomever they want to be the priest of that temple, and then share the offerings made to that god in that "privately owned" temple - the meat, the money, the grain - they'd have quite a lucrative business going there. They'd be making money off religion. They could sell the offerings right out the back door of the temple, and make a profit from inventory donated to the god of that temple or shrine. Making money off religion is not new. It was about greed then, and it's about greed now. And it also requires a total disregard for the eternity of those fooled by the greedy.
Zechariah was Jehoiada's son, and he gets up and tells the people that they do not prosper because they have turned back from following God, and that because they have abandoned God, He has also abandoned them. Many are angry about this. So the King, Joash, who had gathered money to repair the Temple, orders that Zechariah be killed. They stone him to death in the court of the Temple. This is the son of the man who had hidden Joash for 6 years after Athaliah tried to kill all of Azariah's sons. The heinousness of this - and the extent of the about face this represented from Joash - is incomprehensible. How could this even happen!?!?!?!
And here is some additional explanation. After Zechariah is killed, Syria brings an army against Jerusalem. They prevail. They kill all the princes of Judah, and send home the spoil that they take. The Syrian army was small, not nearly large enough to take Jerusalem, but God gives victory to the Syrians because of the sin of Joash and the princes. God avenges Zechariah.
Joash the King is severely wounded in the battle with the Syrians. He is in bed when his servants decide to kill him for what he did to Zechariah. They murder him as he lays helpless in his bed. Brave servants. Vs 26 tells us the servants names. One was from Ammon, the other was from Moab. These countries are named for the sons of Lot. After all the good Joash had done, these acts at the end meant that while he was buried in the city of David, he was not buried with the Kings.
Joash's son Amaziah reigns in his place.