Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Chronicles 23-25.

Joash was an infant when his father died and his grandmother seized power by killing of all of the rest of the males of the royal family.  He only survived because his aunt secreted him away to her husband the high priest, Jehoiada.  There he was raised by Jehoiada and Jehosheba alongside their other children (well, maybe not exactly alongside, as their other children appear to be significantly older than Joash).  Jehoiada’s sons played a key role in protecting Joash and placing him on the throne.  I wrote all of that to set the stage for what struck me in today’s passage.  As long as Joash’s stepfather Jehoiada lived, Joash strove to earnestly serve the Lord, even going beyond Jehoiada in his devotion.  However, once Jehoiada died, the officials of Judah buttered him up and convinced Joash to worship Asherah poles and other idols.  When Zedekiah, his stepbrother, Jehoiada’s son, confronted Joash for abandoning the worship of the Lord for idol worship, Joash ordered him stoned to death.  When Zedekiah saw the king he must have thought of as a brother turn from the Lord, he tried to do what his father would have wanted.  He tried to turn him back to God.  But Joash forgot how Jehoiada had saved him from being killed as a child and killed his son.  The passage says that Joash forgot Jehoiada’s kindness, but I think it would be more accurate to say that he disregarded what Jehoiada had done for him.  I have never written much about it, but Zedekiah son of Jehoiada must have died in great sadness; partly because his “kid brother” ordered his death, but to a greater extent because he was unable to turn him back to serving God.  Joash allowed himself to be flattered and thus betrayed what his younger self valued most.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.