HAZAEL MAKES AN EXPEDITION AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND
THE INHABITANTS OF JERUSALEM.
JEHU DIES, AND JEHOAHAZ SUCCEEDS IN THE GOVERNMENT.
JEHOASH THE KING OF JERUSALEM AT FIRST IS CAREFUL ABOUT THE WORSHIP OF
GOD BUT AFTERWARDS BECOMES IMPIOUS AND COMMANDS ZECHARIAH TO BE STONED.
WHEN JEHOASH [KING OF JUDAH] WAS DEAD, AMAZIAH SUCCEEDS HIM IN THE KINGDOM.
FJAJ 9.40
1. NOW Hazael, king of Syria, fought against the Israelites and their
king Jehu, and spoiled the eastern parts of the country beyond Jordan,
which belonged to the Reubenites and Gadites, and to [the half tribe of]
Manassites; as also Gilead and Bashan, burning, and spoiling, and offering
violence to all that he laid his hands on, and this without impeachment
from Jehu, who made no haste to defend the country when it was under this
distress; nay, he was become a contemner of religion, and a despiser of
holiness, and of the laws, and died when he had reigned over the Israelites
twenty-seven years
He was buried in Samaria, and left Jehoahaz his son
his successor in the government. FJAJ 9.41
2. Now Jehoash, king of Jerusalem, had an inclination to repair the
temple of God; so he called Jehoiada, and bid him send the Levites and
priests through all the country, to require half a shekel of silver for
every head, towards the rebuilding and repairing of the temple, which was
brought to decay by Jehoram, and Athaliah and her sons
But the high priest
did not do this, as concluding that no one would willingly pay that money;
but in the twenty-third year of Jehoash's reign, when the king sent for
him and the Levites, and complained that they had not obeyed what he enjoined
them, and still commanded them to take care of the rebuilding the temple,
he used this stratagem for collecting the money, with which the multitude
was pleased
He made a wooden chest, and closed it up fast on all sides,
but opened one hole in it; he then set it in the temple beside the altar,
and desired every one to cast into it, through the hole, what he pleased,
for the repair of the temple
This contrivance was acceptable to the people,
and they strove one with another, and brought in jointly large quantities
of silver and gold; and when the scribe and the priest that were over the
treasuries had emptied the chest, and counted the money in the king's presence,
they then set it in its former place, and thus did they every day
But
when the multitude appeared to have cast in as much as was wanted, the
high priest Jehoiada, and king Joash, sent to hire masons and carpenters,
and to buy large pieces of timber, and of the most curious sort; and when
they had repaired the temple, they made use of the remaining gold and silver,
which was not a little, for bowls, and basons, and cups, and other vessels,
and they went on to make the altar every day fat with sacrifices of great
value
And these things were taken suitable care of as long as Jehoiada
lived. FJAJ 9.42
3. But as soon as he was dead (which was when he had lived one hundred
and thirty years, having been a righteous, and in every respect a very
good man, and was buried in the king's sepulchers at Jerusalem, because
he had recovered the kingdom to the family of David) king Jehoash betrayed
his [want of] care about God
The principal men of the people were corrupted
also together with him, and offended against their duty, and what their
constitution determined to be most for their good
Hereupon God was displeased
with the change that was made on the king, and on the rest of the people,
and sent prophets to testify to them what their actions were, and to bring
them to leave off their wickedness; but they had gotten such a strong affection
and so violent an inclination to it, that neither could the examples of
those that had offered affronts to the laws, and had been so severely punished,
they and their entire families, nor could the fear of what the prophets
now foretold, bring them to repentance, and turn them back from their course
of transgression to their former duty
But the king commanded that Zechariah,
the son of the high priest Jehoiada, should be stoned to death in the temple,
and forgot the kindnesses he had received from his father; for when God
had appointed him to prophesy, he stood in the midst of the multitude,
and gave this counsel to them and to the king: That they should act righteously;
and foretold to them, that if they would not hearken to his admonitions,
they should suffer a heavy punishment
But as Zechariah was ready to die,
he appealed to God as a witness of what he suffered for the good counsel
he had given them, and how he perished after a most severe and violent
manner for the good deeds his father had done to Jehoash. FJAJ 9.43
4. However, it was not long before the king suffered punishment for
his transgression; for when Hazael, king of Syria, made an irruption into
his country, and when he had overthrown Gath, and spoiled it, he made an
expedition against Jerusalem; upon which Jehoash was afraid, and emptied
all the treasures of God and of the kings [before him], and took down the
gifts that had been dedicated [in the temple], and sent them to the king
of Syria, and procured so much by them, that he was not besieged, nor his
kingdom quite endangered; but Hazael was induced by the greatness of the
sum of money not to bring his army against Jerusalem; yet Jehoash fell
into a severe distemper, and was set upon by his friends, in order to revenge
the death of Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada
These laid snares for the
king, and slew him
He was indeed buried in Jerusalem, but not in the royal
sepulchers of his forefathers, because of his impiety
He lived forty-seven
years, and Amaziah his son succeeded him in the kingdom. FJAJ 9.44
5. In the one and twentieth year of the reign of Jehoash, Jehoahaz,
the son of Jehu, took the government of the Israelites in Samaria, and
held it seventeen years
He did not [properly] imitate his father, but
was guilty of as wicked practices as hose that first had God in contempt:
but the king of Syria brought him low, and by an expedition against him
did so greatly reduce his forces, that there remained no more of so great
an army than ten thousand armed men, and fifty horsemen
He also took away
from him his great cities, and many of them also, and destroyed his army.
And these were the things that the people of Israel suffered, according
to the prophecy of Elisha, when he foretold that Hazael should kill his
master, and reign over the Syrians and Damcenes
But when Jehoahaz was
under such unavoidable miseries, he had recourse to prayer and supplication
to God, and besought him to deliver him out of the hands of Hazael, and
not overlook him, and give him up into his hands
Accordingly God accepted
of his repentance instead of virtue; and being desirous rather to admonish
those that might repent, and not to determine that they should be utterly
destroyed, he granted him deliverance from war and dangers
So the country
having obtained peace, returned again to its former condition, and flourished
as before. FJAJ 9.45
6. Now after the death of Jehoahaz, his son Joash took the kingdom,
in the thirty-seventh year of Jehoash, the king of the tribe of Judah.
This Joash then took the kingdom of Israel in Samaria, for he had the same
name with the king of Jerusalem, and he retained the kingdom sixteen years.
He was a good man, (17)
This character of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, that "he was a good
man, and in his disposition not at all like to his father," seems
a direct contradiction to our ordinary copies, which say (2 Kings 13:11)
that "he did evil in the sight of the Lord; and that he departed not
from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin:
he walked therein." Which copies are here the truest it is hard positively
to determine. If Josephus's be true, this Joash is the single instance
of a good king over the ten tribes; if the other be true, we have not one
such example. The account that follows, in all copies, of Elisha the prophet's
concern for him, and his concern for Elisha, greatly favors Josephus's
copies, and supposes this king to have been then a good man, and no idolater,
with whom God's prophets used not to be so familiar. Upon the whole, since
it appears, even by Josephus's own account, that Amaziah, the good king
of Judah, while he was a good king, was forbidden to make use of the hundred
thousand auxiliaries he had hired of this Joash, the king of Israel, as
if he and they were then idolaters, 2 Chronicles 25:6-9, it is most likely
that these different characters of Joash suited the different parts of
his reign, and that, according to our common copies, he was at first a
wicked king, and afterwards was reclaimed, and became a good one, according
to Josephus.
and in his disposition was not at all like his father
Now at this time
it was that when Elisha the prophet, who was already very old, and was
now fallen into a disease, the king of Israel came to visit him; and when
he found him very near death, he began to weep in his sight, and lament,
to call him his father, and his weapons, because it was by his means that
he never made use of his weapons against his enemies, but that he overcame
his own adversaries by his prophecies, without fighting; and that he was
now departing this life, and leaving him to the Syrians, that were already
armed, and to other enemies of his that were under their power; so he said
it was not safe for him to live any longer, but that it would be well for
him to hasten to his end, and depart out of this life with him
As the
king was thus bemoaning himself, Elisha comforted him, and bid the king
bend a bow that was brought him; and when the king had fitted the bow for
shooting, Elisha took hold of his hands and bid him shoot; and when he
had shot three arrows, and then left off, Elisha said, "If thou hadst
shot more arrows, thou hadst cut the kingdom of Syria up by the roots;
but since thou hast been satisfied with shooting three times only, thou
shalt fight and beat the Syrians no more times than three, that thou mayst
recover that country which they cut off from thy kingdom in the reign of
thy father." So when the king had heard that, he departed; and a little
while after the prophet died
He was a man celebrated for righteousness,
and in eminent favor with God
He also performed wonderful and surprising
works by prophecy, and such as were gloriously preserved in memory by the
Hebrews
He also obtained a magnificent funeral, such a one indeed as it
was fit a person so beloved of God should have
It also happened, that
at that time certain robbers cast a man whom they had slain into Elisha's
grave, and upon his dead body coming close to Elisha's body, it revived
again
And thus far have we enlarged about the actions of Elisha the prophet,
both such as he did while he was alive, and how he had a Divine power after
his death also. FJAJ 9.46
7. Now, upon the death of Hazael, the king of Syria, that kingdom came
to Adad his son, with whom Joash, king of Israel, made war; and when he
had beaten him in three battles, he took from him all that country, and
all those cities and villages, which his father Hazael had taken from the
kingdom of Israel, which came to pass, however, according to the prophecy
of Elisha
But when Joash happened to die, he was buried in Samaria, and
the government devolved on his son Jeroboam. FJAJ 9.47