Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
King Joash under Jehoiada the Pontiff duly worships God; but after his death turning to idols, and being rebuked for this by Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, he stones and kills him in the court of the temple. Therefore the following year God delivers Judah to be plundered by the Syrians, and kills King Joash by the hands of his own servants.
Vulgate Text: 2 Paralipomenon 24:1-27
1. Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba. 2. He did what was good in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the Priest. 3. Jehoiada took for him two wives, from whom he begot sons and daughters. 4. After this it pleased Joash to restore the house of the Lord. 5. He gathered the priests and Levites and said to them: Go out to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel for the repair of the temple of your God each year, and do this quickly. But the Levites acted too negligently. 6. The king summoned Jehoiada the chief and said to him: Why have you not taken care to compel the Levites to bring in from Judah and Jerusalem the money that was appointed by Moses the servant of the Lord, for all the multitude of Israel to bring into the tabernacle of the testimony? 7. For the most impious Athaliah and her sons had destroyed the house of God, and out of all the things that had been consecrated in the temple of the Lord, they had decorated the shrine of the Baals. 8. So the king commanded, and they made a chest and placed it beside the gate of the house of the Lord outside. 9. And it was proclaimed in Judah and Jerusalem that each person should bring to the Lord the contribution that Moses the servant of God had imposed upon all Israel in the wilderness. 10. All the princes and all the people rejoiced, and coming in, they contributed to the chest of the Lord and put in so much that it was filled. 11. When it was time for the chest to be brought before the king by the hands of the Levites (for they saw that there was much money), the king's secretary and the one appointed by the chief priest would come, and they would pour out the money that was in the chest; then they would carry the chest back to its place. They did this daily, and an immense amount of money was collected, 12. which the king and Jehoiada gave to those who oversaw the works of the house of the Lord; and they hired stonecutters and craftsmen of every kind to restore the house of the Lord, as well as workers in iron and bronze, to strengthen what had begun to collapse. 13. And the workers labored diligently, and the cracks in the walls were repaired by their hands; they restored the house of the Lord to its former state and made it stand firm. 14. When they had completed all the works, they brought before the king and Jehoiada the remaining money, from which were made vessels for the service of the temple and for the holocausts — bowls and other vessels of gold and silver; and holocausts were offered in the house of the Lord continually all the days of Jehoiada. 15. Jehoiada grew old, full of days, and died at the age of one hundred and thirty years. 16. They buried him in the City of David with the kings, because he had done good for Israel and for God's house. 17. But after Jehoiada died, the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king; and he, won over by their flattery, yielded to them. 18. They abandoned the temple of the Lord God of their fathers and served the groves and carved images; and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of this sin. 19. He sent them prophets to bring them back to the Lord, and they testified against them, but the people would not listen. 20. Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the Priest, and he stood before the sight of the people and said to them: Thus says the Lord God: Why do you transgress the commandment of the Lord, which will not profit you, and have you forsaken the Lord so that He should forsake you? 21. They conspired against him, and by the king's command they stoned him in the court of the house of the Lord. 22. King Joash did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada his father had shown him, but killed his son. And as he was dying, he said: May the Lord see and require it. 23. When the year had passed, the army of Syria marched against him, and came into Judah and Jerusalem, and killed all the princes of the people, and sent all the plunder to the king in Damascus. 24. And although a very small number of Syrians had come, the Lord delivered into their hands an immense multitude, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers; and they also executed shameful judgments upon Joash. 25. And departing they left him in great suffering; and his servants rose up against him to avenge the blood of the son of Jehoiada the Priest, and killed him in his bed, and he died. They buried him in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings. 26. Those who conspired against him were Zabad the son of Shimeath the Ammonitess, and Jehozabad the son of Shimrith the Moabitess. 27. Now his sons, the great amount of money that had been gathered under him, and the restoration of the house of God, are written more fully in the Book of Kings; and Amaziah his son reigned in his place.
I have explained this chapter in 4 Kings (2 Kings), chapter 12.
Verse 22: May the Lord See and Require It
22. AND AS HE (Zechariah) WAS DYING, HE SAID: MAY THE LORD SEE AND REQUIRE IT. — "May He see" — namely my innocence and uprightness, by which in my office (for he was Pontiff) I reprove the king for worshiping idols. "May He see" likewise the king's impiety and ingratitude, by which he ungratefully, unjustly, and impiously kills me, the son of Jehoiada the Pontiff, his own uncle, to whom he owes his life and kingdom. "And may He require it" — that He may punish and avenge my death and such great crimes by His just judgment. Zechariah said this out of zeal for justice, which was the spirit of Elijah and of the Old Testament. But in the New, Christ and the Apostles, killed by the Jews, prayed not for vengeance but for pardon for their killers from God. Hence Christ on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," Matthew chapter 27 (Luke 23:34), and Stephen when he was being stoned, just as Zechariah here: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them," Acts chapter 7. God heard the prayer of Zechariah; hence He punished Joash and the Jews in many ways: for first, as follows, in the very next year Hazael king of Syria with a small force struck down an immense multitude of the Jews, and carried off the treasures of the temple as well as of the royal palace into Syria.
Second, upon King Joash He executed shameful judgments, as is said in verse 24, reproaching him for his ingratitude and perfidy, and heaping upon him various reproaches and indignities, and, as it seems, blows, such as Nebuchadnezzar inflicted upon the treacherous Zedekiah, 4 Kings (2 Kings) chapter 25.
Third, from these indignities and blows, and from this new divine chastisement, Joash fell into a grave illness, which caused him great pains and suffering, verse 25.
Fourth, his servants conspired against him and slaughtered him lying in his bed in the house of Millo, which was near the palace. Josephus adds that these conspirators were friends of Zechariah, whence in verse 25 they are said to have killed him "to avenge the blood of Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada." Finally, St. Jerome, St. Thomas, Abulensis, Jansenius, Maldonatus, Barradius, and others think that this is the Zechariah whose murder Christ reproaches the Jews with, and threatens them with destruction saying: "That upon you may come all the blood, etc., from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar," Matthew 23; see what was said there. Furthermore, on account of the temple having been polluted by the murder and blood of this Zechariah, divine oracles and responses ceased thereafter in the temple, according to St. Epiphanius in the Life of Zechariah, and after him Genebrardus in the Chronology.