Commentaria in IV Regum
Chapter 11. Synopsis of the Chapter
Athalia, the royal seed being destroyed, reigns; Joiada the high priest slays her, and sets up Joas, the son of Ochozias, as king.
1. And Athalia the mother of Ochozias, seeing that her son was dead, rose up and killed all the royal seed. 2. But Josaba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ochozias, took Joas the son of Ochozias, and stole him from among the king’s sons that were slain, and him and his nurse she hid from the face of Athalia out of the bedchamber, so that he was not slain. 3. And he was with her six years hid in the house of the Lord: and Athalia reigned over the land. 4. But in the seventh year Joiada sent, and taking the centurions and soldiers, brought them in to him into the temple of the Lord, and made a covenant with them: and taking an oath of them in the house of the Lord, he showed them the king’s son. 5. And he commanded them, saying: This is the thing that you must do: 6. Let a third part of you go in on the sabbath, and keep the watch of the king’s house. And let a third part be at the gate of Sur: and a third part at the gate behind the dwelling of the shieldbearers: and you shall keep the watch of the house of Messa. 7. And let two parts of you, all that go out on the sabbath, keep the watch of the house of the Lord about the king. 8. And you shall compass him round about, having weapons in your hands: and if any man shall enter into the precinct of the temple, let him be slain: and you shall be with the king, coming in and going out. 9. And the centurions did according to all things that Joiada the priest had commanded them: and taking every one their men that went in on the sabbath, with them that went out on the sabbath, they came to Joiada the priest. 10. And he gave them the spears, and the arms of king David, which were in the house of the Lord. 11. And they stood, having every one their weapons in their hand, from the right side of the temple to the left side of the altar and the temple, about the king. 12. And he brought forth the king’s son, and put the diadem upon him, and the testimony: and they made him king, and anointed him: and clapping their hands, they said: God save the king. 13. And Athalia heard the noise of the people running, and going in to the multitudes into the temple of the Lord, 14. She saw the king standing upon a tribunal, as the manner was, and the singers, and the trumpets near him, and all the people of the land rejoicing, and sounding the trumpets: and she rent her garments, and cried: A conspiracy, a conspiracy. 15. But Joiada commanded the centurions that were over the army, and said to them: Have her forth without the precinct of the temple, and whosoever shall follow her, let him be slain with the sword. For the priest had said: Let her not be slain in the temple of the Lord. 16. And they laid hands on her, and thrust her out by the way of the horses’ gate, into the palace, and she was slain there. 17. And Joiada made a covenant between the Lord, and the king, and the people, that they should be the people of the Lord, and between the king and the people. 18. And all the people of the land went into the temple of Baal, and broke down his altars, and his images they broke in pieces thoroughly: they slew also Mathan the priest of Baal before the altar. And the priest set guards in the house of the Lord. 19. And he took the centurions, and the bands of the Cerethi and Phelethi, and all the people of the land: and they brought the king from the house of the Lord, and came by the way of the gate of the shieldbearers into the palace, and he sat on the throne of the kings. 20. And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet: and Athalia was slain with the sword in the king’s house. 21. Joas was seven years old when he began to reign.
1. AND ATHALIA THE MOTHER OF OCHOZIAS, SEEING HER SON DEAD (Ochozias slain by Jehu, chapter 9, v. 27), ROSE UP (raised herself), AND KILLED ALL THE ROYAL SEED,—namely all the sons of king Ochozias and of her own son, and therefore her own grandsons, and the others born of kings. The impious “Athalia” was the daughter of the impious Achab and Jezabel, married to Joram, son of Josaphat king of Juda, and by him she bore Ochozias; wherefore, seeing her son Ochozias slain by Jehu, she seized the kingdom, and killed all the king’s sons, whose grandmother she was. Wonderful was this barbarous ferocity and impiety of hers, by which, like another Medea (whose tragedy see in Seneca), she butchered her own sons, that is, grandsons. She did this partly out of rage and fury, partly out of ambition, that she might reign freely in her own name alone, and not as grandmother and guardian of her grandsons; partly out of envy, that, the family of Achab and Jezabel, whose daughter she was, being overthrown, she might likewise overthrow the house of David, to whom she begrudged posterity and the continuance of the kingdom. So Josephus. Theodoret adds: “The impious and tyrannical Athalia,” he says, “wished to extirpate the whole race of David, as being pious, that having seized the sovereignty she might teach her people impiety.” Others add: that she might arm herself with the whole strength of the kingdom against Jehu, who had overthrown the house of Achab, and avenge its overthrow by bringing war or death upon Jehu. Like Athalia was Drahomira, the impious idolatrous mother of St. Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia and martyr, who drove his brother Boleslaus to the murder of Wenceslaus; but God punished her, for the earth swallowed her up alive, as I have related more fully from Aeneas Sylvius and others on Genesis, chapter 4.
Under Athalia flourished Lycurgus, who shortly afterwards gave laws to the Lacedemonians, drawn from the laws of Minos, which he had given to the Cretans, and from others; for Lycurgus flourished before Solon and Draco about the year 290 after the capture of Troy, 150 years before the founding of Rome, 125 years before the Olympiads, 900 years before Christ, says Salianus from Clement and Eusebius, in the year of the world 3133.
2. BUT JOSABA, THE DAUGHTER OF KING JORAM, SISTER OF OCHOZIAS, TOOK JOAS THE SON OF OCHOZIAS, AND STOLE HIM, etc., AND HID HIM FROM THE FACE OF ATHALIA, SO THAT HE WAS NOT SLAIN.—Josephus, Antiquities, book 9, ch. 7, asserts that Josaba was the wife of Joiada the high priest, and that therefore Joiada was as an uncle to Joas, and as high priest restored him to the kingdom. Philo, or rather the Pseudo-Philo of the Times, whom John Annius and John Lucidus have followed, therefore errs in saying that the line of Solomon failed in Ochozias, and that all who follow him descend from Nathan, not from Solomon; for this Joas is expressly called the son of Ochozias, who descended from Solomon, not from Nathan. It is therefore frivolous that they add that for this reason Joas, Amasias and Ochozias are omitted in the genealogy of Christ, Matthew 1, because the line of Solomon failed in Ochozias.
5. LET A THIRD PART OF YOU GO IN ON THE SABBATH (to the house of the Lord, or the temple), AND KEEP THE WATCH OF THE KING’S HOUSE,—that is, let it guard the gate of the temple that looks toward the palace. So Abulensis, Cajetan and others. Joiada divided the soldiers into three parts, to guard the three places necessary for the protection of the new king and for the seizure of Athalia. Further, Joiada took the greater part of these soldiers from the Levites, over whom he presided as high priest, so that the conspiracy might be more secret and safer; for if he had taken seculars, Athalia would at once have learned of it and crushed them. Hence also he kept back the Levites on the sabbath, who, having served their weekly turn, were by custom about to return home, in order to make up from them a larger number of soldiers. Hence also he took five centurions from the Levites, to gather to himself the rest of the Levites scattered through the cities of Juda, namely Azarias the son of Jeroham, Ismael the son of Johanan, Azarias the son of Obed, Maasias the son of Adaias, and Elisaphat the son of Zechri, as is said in 2 Paralipomenon 23:1. Further, these Levites came to the temple without arms, as though to minister in it; but Joiada the high priest there gave them spears, lances, shields and bucklers, as is said there, v. 9, and here, v. 10.
6. AND A THIRD PART AT THE GATE WHICH IS BEHIND THE DWELLING OF THE SHIELDBEARERS.—This is the gate by which one went down from the house of the Lord, or the temple, into the palace, as is plain from v. 19, which in 2 Paralipomenon 23:20 is called “the upper.”
7. AND LET TWO PARTS OF YOU, ALL THAT GO OUT ON THE SABBATH, KEEP THE WATCH OF THE HOUSE OF THE LORD ABOUT THE KING.—Note that every sabbath the ministers, that is, the priests and Levites, were wont to be changed in the temple for the ministry, so that week by week each in his turn served, according to the order prescribed by David, 1 Paralipomenon 24:3 and following; Joiada therefore kept back both, that is, the ministers of both weeks, of the one ending and of the other beginning; and the new ones, who were entering upon the ministry of the temple, he divided into three parts or classes, and assigned to each one gate to guard; but the old ones, who were going out, he divided into two parts, to guard the new king, the boy Joas, as is said in this verse. So Abulensis.
8. AND IF ANY MAN SHALL ENTER INTO THE PRECINCT OF THE TEMPLE, LET HIM BE SLAIN.—For here the discipline of the military guard had to be most strictly kept, lest either the ranks be thrown into confusion by a thronging crowd, or Athalia send soldiers or her ministers to seize or kill the boy king.
12. AND HE BROUGHT FORTH THE KING’S SON, AND PUT UPON HIM THE DIADEM (that is, he crowned him king), AND THE TESTIMONY.—For diadem the Hebrew has nezer, which the Septuagint render “sanctification,” by which Theodoret understands the chrism; but the chrism and anointing of Joas follow shortly after, and nezer signifies the diadem or royal crown, which the Septuagint call sanctification because it was kept in the holy temple, to be placed upon the faithful king of Israel as one chosen and sanctified by God. So Abulensis. By the testimony Pagninus and Vatablus understand the royal robe, namely the purple or purple mantle. Others better take it as Deuteronomy: for God had commanded this to be given to a new king, Deuteronomy 17:18–19, that from it the king might learn that it was his office both to worship God piously and to rule his subjects kindly as a parent. So Abulensis, Cajetan and others, and St. Jerome on 2 Paralipomenon. That it is so is plain from 2 Paralipomenon 23:11, where it is thus clearly explained: “They put,” it says, “the law into his hand to hold.” For this ceremony in the inauguration of a king was prescribed by God, Deuteronomy 17. For the law, or Deuteronomy (that is, the second law, the repetition of the law made by Moses in Deuteronomy), is called the “testimony,” namely of the divine will, because in it God ordained and bore witness what he wished to be done. All these things Joiada rightly did, both because he was uncle to the boy Joas, to whom the kingdom was due, and therefore as his guardian he ought to see that it was taken from Athalia, who had seized it, and restored to the king Joas, and was bound to administer it in the name of Joas his ward; and because he was high priest, to whom, in the failure of a king or prince, belonged the care both of the Synagogue and of the Commonwealth. It was therefore his task to see that Athalia, the enemy of Israel, who was overthrowing the Commonwealth and religion together, should be removed from the kingdom, and that another prince or king, to whom it rightly belonged, should be made, who would preserve and promote both.
14. THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND,—that is, the common people, for this is lowly, and “of the earth,” as being abject and cast down to earthly things.
16. AND THEY THRUST HER OUT,—that is, laying hands on her, they dragged her by force out of the temple, that they might kill her outside, lest they should pollute the temple with the slaughter and blood of so impious a woman.
19. THE CERETHI AND PHELETHI;—who these were I said on book 2, chapter 8. In Hebrew it is leaders and runners, that is, light-armed soldiers, such as the velites are. Our version has named them Cerethi and Phelethi, because these were the praetorians and the bravest soldiers, who in this deed were most necessary.
20. SHE WAS SLAIN WITH THE SWORD IN THE KING’S HOUSE,—that is, near the house or palace of the king, as was said at v. 16. She was fittingly slain where she had sinned; for she had seized the palace and the kingdom. Wherefore what Josephus says, book 9, ch. 7, that Athalia was dragged to the torrent Cedron and slain there, is not true; yet it could be that the body of the slain woman was cast into the torrent Cedron.
Like Athalia and Jezabel in impiety, and likewise in the vengeance of God, was Brunichildis in the time of the Pontiff St. Gregory the Great, the mother and grandmother of many kings of France. For in order to reign for ever and to die a queen, she kept king Theodoric, whose grandmother she was, entangled in the love of concubines, and therefore expelled from Gaul St. Columban, who rebuked him, and killed Desiderius of Vienne and Delphinus of Lyons, bishops, and by her work and counsel destroyed ten kings; but at last she was taken by king Clothar, and set upon a camel and led about as a laughing-stock for all the people, then bound by the hair to the tail of an untamed horse and dragged, and by the horse’s kicks her brains were scattered, while the remaining limbs were dragged over rough stones, thorns and rocks and torn to pieces, as Baronius relates from Aimoin, in the year of Christ 614.