Commentaria in II Paralipomenon
Chapter 24. Synopsis of the chapter
Joas under the high priest Joiada worships God rightly; but after his death, turning aside to idols, and being rebuked by Zacharias the son of Joiada, he stones and kills him in the court of the temple. Wherefore in the following year God delivers Judea to be despoiled by the Syrians, and Joas the king is slain by his own servants.
1. Joas was seven years old when he began to reign: and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem, the name of his mother was Sebia of Bersabee.
2. And he did that which is good before the Lord all the days of Joiada the priest.
3. And Joiada took for him two wives, of whom he begot sons and daughters.
4. After this it pleased Joas to repair the house of the Lord.
5. And he gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them: Go out to the cities of Juda, and gather money from all Israel to repair the temple of your God, from year to year, and do this speedily. But the Levites acted more negligently.
6. And the king called Joiada the chief, and said to him: Why hast thou not taken care to oblige the Levites to bring in out of Juda and out of Jerusalem the money that was appointed by Moses the servant of the Lord, that all the multitude of Israel should bring it into the tabernacle of the testimony?
7. For the most wicked Athalia, and her children, have destroyed the house of God; and of all things that were consecrated in the temple of the Lord they have adorned the temple of Baalim.
8. So the king commanded, and they made a chest, and set it at the gate of the house of the Lord without.
9. And it was proclaimed in Juda and Jerusalem, that every man should bring to the Lord the price which Moses the servant of God appointed over all Israel in the desert.
10. And all the princes rejoiced, and all the people: and they went in and brought into the chest of the Lord, and cast in so that it was filled.
11. And when the time was come that they should bring the chest before the king by the hands of the Levites (for they saw that there was much money), the king’s scribe came in, and he whom the chief priest had appointed: and they emptied the money that was in the chest: and carried back the chest to its place: and so they did every day, and there was gathered an infinite sum of money,
12. which the king and Joiada gave to them that had charge of the works of the house of the Lord: but they hired of it hewers of stone, and artificers of every work, to repair the house of the Lord: and also workers in iron and brass, to prop up what was beginning to fall.
13. And they that were employed in the work did diligently, and the wall was repaired by their hands, and they raised up the house of the Lord to its former state, and made it stand firm.
14. And when they had finished all the works, they brought before the king and Joiada the rest of the money: of which were made vessels of the temple for the ministry, and for the holocausts, and bowls, and other vessels of gold and silver: and holocausts were offered in the house of the Lord continually all the days of Joiada.
15. And Joiada grew old, full of days, and died when he was a hundred and thirty years old,
16. and they buried him in the city of David with the kings, because he had done good in Israel, and with his house.
17. But after the death of Joiada, the princes of Juda went in, and adored the king; who being softened by their obsequiousness, hearkened to them.
18. And they forsook the temple of the Lord the God of their fathers, and served groves and idols, and there was wrath against Juda and Jerusalem for this sin.
19. And he sent prophets to them to bring them back to the Lord, but they were not willing to hear them when they protested.
20. And the Spirit of God clothed Zacharias the son of Joiada the priest, and he stood in the sight of the people, and said to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Why transgress you the commandment of the Lord, which shall not prosper with you, and have forsaken the Lord that he might forsake you?
21. And they gathered themselves together against him, and stoned him, according to the king’s commandment, in the court of the house of the Lord.
22. And king Joas remembered not the kindness that Joiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. And when he died, he said: The Lord see and require it.
23. And when a year was past, the army of Syria came up against him: and came into Juda and Jerusalem, and killed all the princes of the people, and sent all the spoils to the king into Damascus.
24. And truly whereas the Syrians came with a very small number of men, the Lord delivered into their hands an infinite multitude, because they had forsaken the Lord the God of their fathers: and upon Joas also they executed shameful judgments.
25. And when they were departed they left him in great diseases: and his servants rose up against him, in revenge of the blood of the son of Joiada the priest, and slew him in his bed, and he died: and they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings.
26. And they that conspired against him were Zabad the son of Semmaath the Ammonitess, and Jozabad the son of Semarith the Moabitess.
27. Now his sons, and the sum of the money which had been gathered under him, and the repairing of the house of God, are written more diligently in the book of the kings: and Amasias his son reigned in his stead.
I explained this chapter in 4 Kings XIII.
Verse 22. Who (Zacharias) when he died, said: The Lord see and require it.—“See,” namely my innocence and uprightness, with which by my office (for he was a high priest) I rebuke the king who worships idols. “See” likewise the impiety and ingratitude of the king, with which he ungratefully, unjustly, and impiously kills me, the son of the high priest Joiada, his uncle, to whom he owes his life and kingdom. “And require it,” that he may punish and avenge my death and so great crimes by just judgment. Zacharias said this from zeal for justice, which was the spirit of Elias: but the saints of the Old Law when slain prayed of God for their slayers not vengeance but pardon. Whence Christ on the cross: “Father,” he said, “forgive them, for they know not what they do,” Matthew XXVII; and Stephen when he was stoned, like this Zacharias: “Lord,” he said, “lay not this sin to their charge,” Acts VII.
God heard the prayer of Zacharias; whence he punished Joas and the Jews in many ways; for first, as follows, in the year immediately following Hazael king of Syria with small forces slew an immense multitude of the Jews, and carried off the treasures of the temple as well as of the royal palace into Syria.
Second, he executed shameful judgments upon king Joas, as is said in verse 24, reproaching him with his ingratitude and perfidy, and afflicting him with insults and various ignominies, and, as it seems, with blows, such as Nabuchodonosor inflicted on the perfidious Sedecias, 4 Kings XXV.
Third, from these insults and blows, and from the new chastisement of God, Joas fell into a grievous disease, which brought him great pains and weakness, verse 25.
Fourth, his servants conspired against him, and slew him lying in his bed in the house of Mello, which was near the palace. Josephus adds that these conspirators were friends of Zacharias, whence in verse 25 they are here said to have slain him “in revenge of the blood of Zacharias, the son of Joiada.” Finally St. Jerome, St. Thomas, Abulensis, Jansenius, Maldonatus, Barradius, and others hold that this is the Zacharias whose death Christ reproaches the Jews with, and threatens them with destruction, saying: “That upon you may come all the just blood, etc., from the blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar,” Matthew XXIII; see what I said there. Finally, on account of the temple being polluted with the slaughter and blood of this Zacharias, thereafter the oracles and divine responses failed in the temple, according to the Chronology.