God’s Word for You
2 Chronicles 24:1-7 Joash the King
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, April 25, 2025
24:1 Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah, and she was from Beersheba. 2 Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest. 3 Jehoiada got two wives for the king, and he had sons and daughters. 4 After this, it entered Joash’s mind to restore the house of the LORD. 5 He called together the priests and Levites and said to them, “Go to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel to repair the temple of your God. Do this year by year. Hurry to do this.” But the Levites did not hurry. 6 Therefore the king summoned Jehoiada (who was in charge) and said to him, “Why haven’t you required the Levites to bring in from Judah and Jerusalem the tax which Moses the servant of the LORD established with the assembly of Israel for the Tent of the Testimony?” 7 Now the sons of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into the House of God and had even used all the sacred objects of the House of the LORD for the Baals.
Our prophet records the Holy Spirit’s judgment of King Joash. This seventh king of Judah during the divided kingdom reigned from 835 to 796 BC, and we are told the name of his mother, who was from Beersheba in the south of Judah. In fact, Beersheba was the remnant of the territory of Simeon, which was absorbed into Judah long before. The judgment that he did what was right “all the days of Jehoiada the priest” tells us that there was a downfall coming.
Joash was given two wives; one of them was named Jehoaddin (2 Kings 14:2). It’s possible that he married these women one at a time—that is, the first wife died, and then he married again. But it’s more likely that he married the second wife as a rival to the first wife. One perplexing issue in Scripture is the frequent problem of bigamy or polygamy among Israel’s kings. These plural marriages were obviously seen as a means for making treaties with other nations, and they were probably meant to ensure that a king would have many sons to preserve the royal line. As with other acts that are not themselves moral or lawful under the Law of Moses, a plural marriage was in fact regulated by the Lord. Although it was not the Lord’s will for a man to have more than one wife, if he took a second wife, he was not permitted to mistreat her, or to deny the rights of the firstborn “of the wife he does not love” (Deuteronomy 21:15). Therefore, when Jehoiada the high priest and surrogate father to the king found two wives for the king, the Lord allowed this as a cross the young king had to bear. For only in a godly marriage, a marriage of one wife and one husband, is there peace and a unified single flesh. Otherwise the rival wife will despise the other (Genesis 16:4), or they will fight over their husband’s favors (Genesis 30:15-17), and there will always be a question in each of their minds: Does my husband truly love me? (Genesis 29:32).
The account of the young king’s desire to restore the temple shows how it fell into disrepair from time to time during its four centuries. Joash took his cue from the account of Moses and imposed a tax on the people; the half-shekel tax that was a baseline offering for everyone, rich or poor (Exodus 30:15-16). He also showed his energy by commanding that the Levites must “hurry” to do this, and then he was angered when they did not hurry. Therefore the king even took his mentor, Jehoiada, to task (although Jehoiada was over one hundred years old at this time).
The reason for the temple’s repairs are finally revealed in verse 7. The wicked Athaliah (or at least her sons) had broken into the temple—which shows that the doors had been shut during her reign—and she plundered it for things she could use in her shrine for Baal. This came to an end when Mattan her Baal-priest was executed along with her (23:15,17).
Joash has characteristics of at least two of the kinds of seed described by Jesus in his Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). He heard the word and immediately received it with joy (Matthew 13:5, 20), and again, there were thorns all around him (Matthew 13:7). Here was a young man who had the High Priest of Israel himself for a mentor and a surrogate father. He had all of the material blessings a man could want. Protection, power, marriage, family, money—all of these were his.
We know that there is a downfall coming for Joash, for the text has already told us so (verse 2) and you are probably familiar with the account already. But that leaves us with the worries we all have about our own families, our own children, or our own friends. Some of them may have already fallen away from faith. Some of them may have found a church that brushes aside the Scriptures in their simple, literal sense, and that have elevated human reason or the strange interpretations of some mad but highly charismatic leader. It is not too late to pray for them. Some of them may have simply turned away from God and his word because they have chosen a sin that they want to say is a choice and not a sin, and they maintain the distinction between God’s will and their own will—one of those must go, and they have chosen their own will, their own desire, and they have decided to ignore God’s will or to call it names and dismiss it for their own reasons. It is not to late to pray for them, either. There are many people in the true church whose main role in the kingdom of God is to pray for others. Paul urges them on: “Pray for us” (Colossians 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:25; 2 Thessalonians 3:1). And Jesus himself prays for many people (Matthew 19:13; John 17:9, 17:20). Do likewise. “Always keep in praying for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18), and pray for absolutely anyone and everyone who is in your heart, especially if their life has become a cross that you carry. Your love for them and your prayer for them is powerful and effective (James 5:16). God listens to those who cry out to him day and night. He will not keep putting you off. You have Jesus’ word on it (Luke 18:6-7).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.