◄ 2 Chronicles 23:12 ►
When Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and cheering the king, she went out to them in the house of the LORD.
Sermons
Sin Surprised At its RaptureW. Clarkson 2 Chronicles 23:11-15
The Fall of AthaliahT. Whitelaw 2 Chronicles 23:12-15














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Fall Of Athaliah
2 Chronicles 23:12-15
T. Whitelaw

I. A STARTLED QUEEN. (Vers. 12, 13.)

1. An unusual sound. Secretly as the coronation of Joash had been conducted, Athaliah's quick ear caught the noise of trampling feet, clapping hands, and shouting voices that issued from the temple on the other side of the Tyropoean valley. Guilty consciences, of sovereigns, as of common sinners, are prone to be startled by strange sounds (Job 18:11, 12); cf. 'Macbeth' (act 2. sc. 2), "I have done the deed: didst thou not hear a noise?"

2. An unexpected sight. Mustering her guards, Athahah proceeded from her palace across the bridge that spanned the valley, and entered the temple court, when a most unwelcome spectacle met her gaze-a boy standing on a raised platform in front of the inner court, probably the brazen scaffold of Solomon (2 Chronicles 6:13), his head encircled with a diadem, his hand grasping a roll of parchment as if it were a sceptre; beside him Jehoiada the priest, the princes of the people, and the Levitical trumpeters; around him all the people of the land, rejoicing and singing.

3. An unrestrained cry. Whether or not Athaliah recognized in Joash one of Ahaziah's sons, whom she fancied she had murdered six years before, she had no difficulty in comprehending the situation. A usurper herself, she perfectly understood the scene she beheld to mean revolution. Rending her garments in horror at the spectacle (2 Kings 6:30; Ezra 9:3), and perhaps in involuntary acknowledgment that the hour of her overthrow had struck (1 Samuel 15:27, 28; 1 Kings 11:30), she likewise rent the air with a shriek of "Treason! treason!" (cf. 2 Kings 9:23).

II. AN AVENGING PRIEST. (Vers. 14, 15.)

1. A charge to the captains.

(1) Concerning the queen. To arrest her, to lead her beyond the precincts of the temple, to put her to death. Sudden and peremptory, this order was absolutely necessary. Divine justice and public safety alike demanded Athaliah's blood. A murderess herself (2 Chronicles 22:10), her life was forfeit to the law (Genesis 9:6). An idolatress of the rankest type, she had incurred the sentence, "I will cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you" (Leviticus 26:30). A conspiratress, so long as she was spared the life of Joash was not secure.

(2) Concerning her adherents. That they also should be put to the sword. To follow Athaliah, defend her person or champion her cause, was to be guilty of leze majesty against Joash, and indeed against Jehovah, whose vicegerent Joash was.

2. Its execution by the captains.

(1) They hurried the unhappy queen beyond the precincts of the temple, that the holy place might not be polluted with human blood.

(2) They conducted her forth to the vicinity of the king's stables, the people opening their ranks and making way for her to pass.

(3) They slew her there, within sight of the palace she had usurped and of the temple she had desecrated. As by violence she had climbed into the throne, by violence she was hurled from it. As she had lived so doubtless she died, in unbelief and sin - a victim at once of popular fury and Divine retribution (Proverbs 11:31). Learn:

1. That the way of transgressors is hard.

2. That the wages of sin is death.

3. That they who take the sword shall perish with the sword.

4. That verily there is a God who judgeth in the earth.

5. That with what measure one metes it shall be measured to him again. - W.

Biblical Illustrator
For his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly.
2 Chronicles 22:8
A mother's influence
W. Richter.
Every first thing continues for ever with the child; the first colour, the first music, the first flower paint the foreground of life. Every new educator effects less than his predecessor, until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institute, a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse.

(W. Richter.)

A mother's influence
Great Thoughts.
Mothers, ye are the sculptors of the souls of the coming men; queens of the cradle, humble or high, ye are the queens of the future. In your hands lie the destinies of men. I am not speaking poetry, but plain fact, which history proves. Nero's mother was a murderess; Nero was a murderer, on a gigantic scale. Byron's mother was proud, ill-tempered, and violent; Byron was proud, ill-tempered, and violent. Washington's mother was noble and pure; Washington was noble and pure. Scott's mother loved poetry and painting; you know what Walter Scott was. Carlyle's mother was stern, and full of reverence; Carlyle very much so. Wesley's mother was a God-like woman; Wesley was a God-like man. The prison chaplain will tell you that the last thing forgotten, in all the recklessness of dissolute profligacy, is the prayer or hymn taught by a mother's lips, or uttered at a father's knee. Yes, when all other roads are closed, there is one road open to the heart of the desperate man — the memory of his mother.

(Great Thoughts.)

An unnatural mother
J. Parker, D. D.
"For his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly." There must be a mistranslation! All nature is offended by this tremendous affront. Can we not.find some other word for "mother"? Any other word will do better, even "father" would not be so objectionable. The one word that cannot be tolerated here is the word that is found, namely, "mother"! We might close the Bible here, and say the book that contains this statement was never inspired. But we cannot do so. Then the word "counsellor" is so full of plan, premeditation, arrangement; the mother was a schoolmistress, with one pupil, and she suggested, invented, culminated ends, whispered, threw out hints, advised bad policies; told him when he was halting because the course was evil to "go on!" Napoleon said, "They that rock the cradle rule the world." To have a cradle rocked by such a mother as Athaliah surely were enough to be foredoomed to endless misery! How sweetly the text would have read had it proceeded on the lines of nature! — for his mother was his counsellor to do bravely. Surely the word "wickedly" is a misprint, traceable to some careless copyist! — his mother was his counsellor to do wisely, patiently, hopefully, — these would have been womanly words, words most motherly, the very words with which we build home and Church and heaven. But the word is "wickedly," and we must regard it in its literal significance. What are mothers doing now? They could be God's foremost ministers. No man can pray like a woman; no man has the art of eloquence as a woman has it; no one can come into life so silently, quietly, blessingly as woman, mother, sister. If women would preach surely the world would listen. They ought to preach; they know the secret of love, they have the answer to the Cross, they can solve in some degree the enigma of sacrifice. This is the very reason of the horribleness of the text. If woman had been otherwise, then the word "wickedly" would not have read with such a sense of irony and moral collision as it does in this instance. It is because woman can be so heavenly that she can be so low, and wicked, and bad; it is because she can be so like a saviour that she can be such an engine and agent of ruin.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

People
Adaiah, Athaliah, Azariah, David, Elishaphat, Ishmael, Jehohanan, Jehoiada, Jeroham, Johanan, Levites, Maaseiah, Mattan, Obed, Zichri
Places
Gate of the Foundation, Jerusalem, Samaria
Topics
Athaliah, Athali'ah, Cheering, Heareth, Hearing, Noise, Praising, Running, Temple, Voice
Outline
1. Jehoiada, having set things in order, makes joash king
12. Athaliah is slain
16. Jehoiada restores the worship of God

Dictionary of Bible Themes
2 Chronicles 23:12

     5178   running

2 Chronicles 23:11-13

     5443   pillars

2 Chronicles 23:12-13

     8288   joy, of Israel

Library
Jehoiada and Joash
'And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal. 2. But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain; and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain. 3. And he was with her hid in the house of the Lord six years. And Athaliah did reign over the land. 4. And the seventh year Jehoiada …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Chronicles
The comparative indifference with which Chronicles is regarded in modern times by all but professional scholars seems to have been shared by the ancient Jewish church. Though written by the same hand as wrote Ezra-Nehemiah, and forming, together with these books, a continuous history of Judah, it is placed after them in the Hebrew Bible, of which it forms the concluding book; and this no doubt points to the fact that it attained canonical distinction later than they. Nor is this unnatural. The book …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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