2 Kings 12:2, commentary and pictures

2 Kings 12:2 introduces the beginning of the reign of Joash in Judah under the good priest Jehoiada. Joash was the true king, hidden until he was old enough to be proclaimed king, after which Athaliah was slain. He was only seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. Jehoiada was the high priest, an aged centenarian.

Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the time Jehoiada instructed him, and his faithfulness stood under Jehoiada's guidance. That instruction shaped his early religious inclinations and his concern for the worship of the kingdom. After Athaliah's rule and the worship of Baal, Jehoiada helped restore the worship of the Lord, and Joash continued that reformation under his counsel.

At first his youth limited his ability to lead reform. Meanwhile the people's inclination toward Baal worship was not materially restrained, and the priests of the Lord were not properly provided for. Afterward Joash submitted to Hazael and then died. Later in his reign he repaid Jehoiada poorly by killing his sons.

He stands as one of the now-and-then good kings in Judah, in contrast to the kings of Israel, who were invariably deplorably weak or altogether bad. His reign came two centuries before Josiah's, and his repairing of the temple in Jerusalem was done in the same way as Josiah's, with money collected by the Levites for the work. Its overseers and workmen were so honest that they were not required to give account of the money put into their hands, showing thorough repentance and earnest return to God by faithfulness in material things, bringing in the tithes, liberality in offerings, and energetic labor for God. Jehoiada was the cause of the piety of Joash's reign, just as the faithful king Asa was the cause of piety in Jehoshaphat's reign, while Josiah had no such godly priest or king to help him.