And the city was quiet, after that they had slain Athaliah with the sword. We can conceive of many occasions when the "slaying of a woman with the sword" should not and would not lead to quietude, but to unrest, to turbulence, and to strife. But this "wicked woman," Athaliah, was the impersonation of usurpation and of idolatry. To slay her was to "put away the evil thing" from above and from the midst of the people of God. It was an act of purgation, of cleansing of the nation's conscience. It was a spiritual upheaval, throwing off a heavy weight that rested on the spirit of obedience. It was an act of excision, cutting off the guilty "right hand" that the "whole body" might be saved. If there be in the way of our conscientious adhesion to the cause, and engagement in the service, of Christ any such obstacle as was this Athaliah to the people of Judah, then no half-measures will suffice. The evil, whatever it be, must be slain with the sword, must be "done to death," must be relentlessly rooted out; then, and net till then, will there be quiet through all the region of the soul. We may find this Athaliah of ours in -

I. AN INSINCERE PROFESSION OF FAITH we no longer hold, and consequently a disloyal practice in which we do not believe.

II. AN IMMORAL OR INJURIOUS HABIT, which may be secretly cherished, but which we know to be guilty.

III. AN UNLAWFUL GAIN, which our conscience condemns.

IV. A COMPANIONSHIP (or companionships), which cannot be retained while Jesus Christ is honoured and obeyed. - C.

Is it possible that a time may come when people will rejoice that we are dead? Will some pulpits be more honoured by emptiness man by occupancy? Will some businesses have a chance to recover their character when the principals are dead, but not so long as those principals initiate and conduct the policy of the house? Is it possible that a throne may be a fountain of mischief? Questions such as these, penetrating, unsparing, we should thrust into ourselves, that they may work first painfully and then curatively. Is there. no explanation given of all this rejoicing over the death of Athaliah? The explanation is given in 2 Chronicles 24:7 — "that wicked woman." This is an alliteration which the grammarian might detest, the rhetorician avoid as a vice in eloquence, but which the moralist must look at with a sense of ineffable shame. "Wicked woman" — it is impossible! It ought to be an affront to the very genius of creation; say dark sun, say waterless sea, say flowerless summer, and the irony might be tolerated, for it might be only a discord in words; but "wicked woman" indicates a possibility that makes all hell easy of belief. This is the moral explanation of the physical disaster. Athaliah was slain with the sword — cry, Murder then! Arrest the homicide, the regicide! But wait; you know not all; the explanatory word found in the context — "that wicked woman."

(J. Parker, D.D.).