Jehoash (; ; ), also known as Joash (in

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...

), Joas (in Douay–Rheims) or Joás (), was the eighth king of Judah, and the sole surviving son of Ahaziah after the massacre of the royal family ordered by his grandmother, Athaliah. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba. Jehoash was 7 years old when he ascended to the throne, reigning for 40 years."Joash", ''Jewish Encyclopedia''
/ref> ( 2 Kings 12:1, 2 Chronicles 24:1) He was succeeded by his son, Amaziah of Judah. He is said to have been righteous "all the days of Jehoiada the priest" () but to have deviated from fidelity to

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

after Jehoiada's death (). William F. Albright has dated his reign to 837–800 BCE, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 835–796 BCE.

Early life

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According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Jehosheba, who was married to the high priest, Jehoiada. After hiding him in the Temple for seven years, Jehoiada had Jehoash crowned and anointed king in a ''

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

'' against Athaliah, who had usurped the Throne of David. Athaliah was killed during the coup.Sperling, S. D.
''Encyclopaedia Judaica'': Joash
second edition, vol 11, pg 343 After Jehoash was crowned, the covenant was renewed between God, the king, and the nation. The Tyrian cult of Baal, which was introduced under Jehoram and strengthened under Athaliah, was suppressed. Mattan, the priest of Baal, was killed as altars to Baal were destroyed. For the first time in Judah's history, the

Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accord ...

and its priesthood achieved national importance.

Achievements

According to the accounts in 2 Kings 12, Jehoash directed that the money paid by worshippers at the Temple should be used to fund its repair. By the 23rd year of his reign, he was aware that the priests had failed to implement a restoration program, and so he made his own arrangements, funded by popular contributions, to restore the temple to its original condition and further strengthen it. The account in 2 Chronicles 24 follows the account in 2 Kings 12, but adds the detail that it was "as a form of taxation, similar to the tax collected in the desert in connection with the tabernacle". At the instigation of Jehoiada, King Joash undertook the restoration of the Temple. The Work was completed so expeditiously that one living at the time the Temple was erected by Solomon was permitted to see the new structure shortly before his death. This good fortune befell Jehoiada himself, the son of Benaiah, commander-in-chief of the army under Solomon.

Later life and death

So long as Jehoash continued under the tutelage of Jehoiada, he was a pious king; Jehoash listened to the princes of Judah instead of the priests. This led him to abandon worshipping Yahweh and turning instead to idols and the Asherim as previous kings of Israel did. 2 Chronicles 24 narrates how Jehoash son-in-law the prophet Zechariah, Jehoiada's son and successor, rebuked them for forsaking God, which resulted in Jehoash ordering his execution by stoning. The author of the

Books of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Ta ...

criticizes this cruel act strongly. "Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The look upon it, and require it". The author also attributes Jehoash's deeds to the oppression suffered at the hands of Aramean invaders as God's judgment. According to the account in 2 Kings 12, when King Hazael of Syria marched on Jerusalem, Jehoash surrendered all the gold of the royal and sacred treasuries, thereby persuading him to call off his attack, but according to the account in 2 Chronicles, the Syrian army "destroyed all the leaders of the people from among the people, and sent all their spoil to the king of Damascus", "execut ngjudgment against Joash" and leaving him severely wounded. Jehoash was eventually assassinated by his own servants at Beth Millo, and his assassination is portrayed as an act of revenge for the blood of Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada. Jehoash was buried together with his fathers in the City of David, although he was "not (buried) in the sepulchres of the kings". He was succeeded as king by his son Amaziah (אמציה), The rabbis of the Talmud declared, based upon a rabbinic tradition, that Prophet Amoz was the brother of Amaziah, the king of Judah at that time (and, as a result, that Prophet Isaiah himself was a member of the royal family).

In rabbinic literature

The extermination of the male descendants of

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

was considered divine retribution for his responsibility in the extermination of the priests by

Saul Saul (; , ; , ; ) was a monarch of ancient Israel and Judah and, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, the first king of the United Monarchy, a polity of uncertain historicity. His reign, traditionally placed in the late eleventh c ...

, who had commanded his servant Doeg the Edomite to perform this task (comp. ). Jehoash escaped death because in the latter case one priest, Abiathar, survived ( Sanh. 95b). The hiding-place of Jehoash was, according to R. Eleazar, one of the chambers behind the

Holy of Holies The Holy of Holies ( or ''Kodesh HaKodashim''; also ''hadDəḇīr'', 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God in Judaism, God's presence) appeared. According ...

; according to R. Samuel b. Naḥman, it was one of the upper chambers of the Temple ( Cant. R. i. 66). Although a king who is the son of a king need not be anointed, an exception was made in the case of Jehoash, as well as of

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

and Jeoahaz, the succession of each of whom was contested. ( Lev. R. x. 8) Particular mention is made of the crown placed on Joash's head (), because it fitted exactly, signifying that he was qualified for kingship. ( Ab. Zarah 44a) Joash was one of the four men who pretended to be gods. He was persuaded thereto particularly by the princes, who said to him. "Wert thou not a god thou couldst not come out alive from the Holy of Holies" (Ex R. viii. 3). "..Joash himself, the murderer of Zechariah, met with an evil end. He fell into the hands of the Syrians, and they abushed him in their barbarous, immoral way. Before he could recover from the suffering inflicated upon him.."The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg .p259
/ref>he was assassinated by two of his servants, one of whom was a son of an Ammonite woman and the other the offspring of a Moabite (II Chron. xxiv. 26); for God said: "Let the descendants of the two ungrateful families chastise the ungrateful Joash" (Yalk., Ex. 262).

Jehoash Tablet

In 2001, an unprovenanced inscription was published, known as the Jehoash Inscription or Temple Inscription, which appears to be a record of repairs made to Solomon's Temple during Jehoash's reign. The tablet consists of 15 lines of Hebrew text inscribed on a piece of tabular black stone. Following extensive scientific tests, the Israeli archaeological authorities declared it to be a forgery and attempted but failed to prosecute the perpetrator; a number of experts maintain that it is not a forgery.Giuseppe Regalzi
The So-Called ‘Jehoash Inscription’: Transcription and Bibliography
Retrieved 23 September 2011.

Chronological notes

The calendars for reckoning the years of kings in Judah and Israel were offset by six months, that of Judah starting in Tishri (in the fall) and that of Israel in Nisan (in the spring). Cross-synchronizations between the two kingdoms therefore often allow narrowing of the beginning and/or ending dates of a king to within a six-month range. For Jehoash, the Scriptural data allow the narrowing of his accession to some time between Nisan 1 of 835 BCE and the day before Tishri 1 of the same year. His death occurred at some time between Nisan 1 of 796 BCE and the day before Tishri 1 of that same year. During his reign, the Judean court recorders were still using the non-accession system of measuring years that was adopted in the days of Jehoshaphat from the practice of the northern kingdom, whereby the king's first partial year in office was counted as his first year of reign.

Christian texts

The

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...

does not list Jehoash of Judah in the

genealogy of Jesus The New Testament provides two accounts of the genealogy of Jesus, one in the Gospel of Matthew and another in the Gospel of Luke. Matthew starts with Abraham and works forwards, while Luke works back in time from Jesus to Adam. The lists of na ...

, Jehoash being one of four kings of Judah so omitted, the other three being Ahaziah, Amaziah, and Jehoiakim.

Ancestry

References

External links

Joash
(

Jewish Virtual Library The Jewish Virtual Library (JVL, formerly known as JSOURCE) is an online encyclopedia published by the American foreign policy analyst Mitchell Bard's non-profit organization American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). It is a website cove ...

)
Joash, King of Judea - Jewish History
(

Chabad.org Chabad.org is the flagship website of the Chabad, Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Judaism, Hasidic movement. It was one of the first Jewish internet sites. History In 1988, Yosef Yitzchak Kazen, a Chabad rabbi, began creating a Chabad-Lubavitch prese ...

) {{Authority control 9th-century BCE kings of Judah 8th-century BCE kings of Judah Ancient child monarchs 8th-century BC murdered monarchs Biblical murder victims