Joash

(Great Start, Terrible End)

Jesus’ ancestors were kings of Judah, some good, some bad, some a mixed bag. Joash (a.k.a. Jehoash) reigns forty years over the southern kingdom of Judah (c. 835-796 B.C.), as recorded in 2 Kings 11-12 and 2 Chronicles 22-24. His life teaches that a bright beginning is no guarantee of a faithful finish.

Flawed Father (Evil Ahaziah)

Joash is the great(x6)-grandson of David. His recent ancestors are awful. His father, King Ahaziah, is the son of King Jehoram and Athaliah. Athaliah is the daughter of Ahab (King of Israel) and Jezebel. So, with the northern and southern kingdoms cross-pollinating among the royalty, Joash’s grandmother is Jezebel’s daughter. Joash’s father, Ahaziah, king of Judah (not to be confused with another Ahaziah, king of Israel) reigns a single year before being killed by Jehu. When his father dies, Joash is about a year old.

Gruesome Grandmother (Murderous Athaliah)

But the late king’s son is a dangerous thing to be when your grandmother’s towering ambition is only eclipsed by her lack of humanity. Not aspiring to “Grandmother of the Year,” Athaliah begins murdering her own grandsons so she can call herself queen. Joash—helpless one year old—is saved from his other brothers’ fate by his aunt, Jehoshabeath (Ahaziah’s sister), who takes the infant and hides him for six years in the temple. That God’s temple could be a lifesaving secret hideout for young Joash indicates how little Athaliah had to do with the place. Courageous Aunt Jehoshabeath is married to the brightest light in the whole sordid story: Jehoiada the priest.

Proactive Priest (Righteous Jehoiada)

Comes a time when a good man needs to stand up and do a drastic thing. With bloodthirsty Queen Athaliah having wreaked havoc for the past six years, and very much still on her throne, Jehoiada summons the courage to pitch to the people the idea that Joash—now seven years old—should rightfully be king. And it happens. Under Jehoiada’s direction, the young boy is crowned and kept under heavy guard. When Athaliah hears the sound of celebration, she’s horrified to see her grandson, Joash, alive and being proclaimed king. The evil queen pronounces it treason before being taken into custody and rightly executed, after which the city experiences a happy calm that must have seemed long overdue. Jehoiada, the influential priest who made it all happen, gets everyone to make a covenant that they will be God’s people. They begin destroying the temple of Baal and all the tokens of pagan worship.

Bright Beginning (Young Joash)

Son of an evil king he was too young to remember, survivor of attempted murder by his own grandmother, and having spent the past six years in hiding, Joash emerges at the age of seven to ascend the throne of Judah. A page has turned; the moment is auspicious. “And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest” (2 Chron. 24:2, ESV)—a statement favorable, yet foreboding.

Religious Restoration (A Neglected Temple)

Joash sets his sights on restoring the neglected temple of the Lord, built by Solomon many decades earlier. Proper offerings to God are brought back online. “And they offered burnt offerings in the house of the Lord regularly all the days of Jehoiada” (2 Chron. 24:14). Notice, for the second time, the haunting phrase, “all the days of Jehoiada.”

Example’s Extinguishing (Dead Jehoiada)

Powerful as his presence was, Jehoiada dies at the age of 130. He’s accorded the honor of burial among Judah’s kings because of all the good he did for the country and God’s house. With Jehoiada’s voice silenced, the king’s ear is now caught by another influence—the princes of Judah. They have a different direction in mind.

Astonishing Apostasy (180-Degree Turn)

The temple Joash once lavished with attention is now abandoned. By Joash. The people re-adopt paganism. God sends multiple prophets to call the nation to repentance, but they are ignored. Jehoiada did have a son named Zechariah, and, in what seems the last ditch effort to bring his people to their senses, God sends Zechariah to warn: “Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you” (2 Chron. 24:20). For that message, and by order of Joash himself, Zechariah the priest of God is stoned to death in the temple’s court. What began so well has become something else.

Costly Comeuppance (Sin’s Toll)

Despite Judah’s sizable army, a small Syrian force comes against them in judgment from heaven. The princes to whom Joash listened are slaughtered. Joash is severely wounded in battle. Whether he might have recovered in time will never be known. Some, who survived the humiliating defeat, are so livid at Joash’s murdering the son of righteous Jehoiada that they come upon the injured king in his bed and kill him. Joash, who survived attempted assassination in his infancy, succumbs to assassination in his apostasy. And, unlike Jehoiada (buried with kings though he was not one), Joash is not buried with the kings (though he was one). And that’s Joash—from favorable dawn to faithless doom. What good he did in between does not overcome his refusal to “be faithful unto death” (Rev. 2:10). What counts is not what we were in Act One, but what we are when the final curtain falls.