2 Kings 12; 2 Chronicles 24

2 Kings 12 (2 Chronicles 24:1-14)
1-16 King Joash (Jehoash) Repairs the Temple

• Joash, whose mother is Zibiah of Beer-sheba, begins his reign in Jehu's 7th year and reigns 40 years in Jerusalem.
• Jehoiada gets him 2 wives, and he has sons and daughters.
  
• Under Jehoiada's instruction, he does what is right in God's sight, although he does not take away the high places.
• Some time into his reign, he instructs the priests to go out and get sacred donations, assessments, and voluntary offerings to repair the temple. The dedicated things in the house of the LORD had been used by Athaliah's followers for the worship of Baal.
  
• After 23 years, the repairs have still not been made, so he tells the priests, including Jehoiada, to either repair the house or stop accepting money. So they decide not to gather any more donations.
• By Joash's command, Jehoiada sets up a donation chest by the altar and Joash sends out a proclamation for all Judah to bring in the taxes that Moses had laid on the people in the wilderness. He sets priests to guard the chest.
• When it gets full, the king's secretary and high priest go up, count the money, put it in bags, and give it to carpenters, masons and stonecutters and for supplies to repair the temple. They don't ask for an accounting from the workers, because they are trustworthy.
• When the repairs are finished, they use the remainder to buy vessels of gold or silver from the money.
• The priests still receive money from guilt offerings and sin offerings. I just now realized this must be where the Catholic practice of selling indulgences comes from! Except I think that devolved into an abusive practice and getting permission to sin, not as a sacrifice for sin.
• They offered burnt offerings in the temple all the days of Jehoiada.

2 Chronicles 24:15-22 Joash's Apostasy

• When Jehoiada dies at the age of 132, they bury him in the city of David among the kings, "because he had done good in Israel, for God and his house."
• Sadly, his influence doesn't last. The officials of Judah come, do obeisance to King Josiah, and convince him to abandon the temple and serve the sacred poles and idols.
• God sends prophets to bring them back to the LORD, but they refuse to listen.
• Zechariah, son of the priest Jehoiada, rises up and preaches against their transgression, but the people conspire against him, and by the king's command they stone him to death. Joash "did not remember the kindness of Jehoiada." As Zechariah dies, he says, "May the LORD see and avenge!"

2 Kings 12:17-18 (2 Chronicles 24:23-24) Hazael Threatens Jerusalem

• (Usually an enemy of Israel, not Judah), King Hazael fights against Gath and takes it, then decides to take on Jerusalem as well.
  
• Joash pacifies Hazael by taking all the votive gifts his predecessors had put into the temple, with all the gold in the temple and king's house and sends them to Hazael, who withdraws.
• The Chronicles account may have been at a later time, possibly because Joash ceases to pay tribute to Hazael. In that account, the Syrian army, with just a few men, attacks Judah, destroys the officials, and takes all the booty to the king of Damascus. The LORD is responsible for this defeat of Joash because he has abandoned the God of his fathers.
  

2 Kings 12:19-21 (2 Chronicles 24:25-27)
Death of Joash

• The Arameans (Syrians) leave Joash severely wounded and weakened.
  
• Because of his killing Zechariah, his servants, Jozacar (Zabad) and Jehozabad, conspire to kill him, in his bed, in the house of Millo.
  
• He is buried with his ancestors in the city of David, succeeded by his son Amaziah. (Chronicles says he is not buried in the tombs of the kings.)