2nd Chronicles Chapter 24 verse 25 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 25. - They left him in great diseases. See note above, and observe further that this parenthetic clause, as treated in both Authorized Version and Revised Version, prepares the way for what follows, and especially for the fact that it was on his bed that they slew him. Render thus, And after they had betaken themselves away, whereas they left him sorely ill, his own servants conspired... and slew him in his bed. His own servants. These had the opportunity the rather at hand, in that he was so ill and in bed. That he died by the conspiring together of a couple of servants, whose foreign and heathen maternity is particularly recorded, was the more ignominious end for him, who had commanded Zechariah to be openly stoned - a death highly honourable in comparison. The parallel (2 Kings 12:20) adds that it was in "the house of Mille, which goeth down to Silla" (for the explanation of which passage, see note ad loc.), that the servants' conspiracy to kill Joash took effect. The sons of Jehoiada. We know of only one son, Zechariah; there may have been other sons, or other lineal relations of Jehoiada may be covered by the word "sons." We are not obliged to interpret the avenging act of the servants as one to which their own pious and patriotic zeal led them, which, considering their maternal pedigree, is perhaps something unlikely, though of course not impossible, but one to which they were incited by the retributive providence of him who held their hearts also in his hand. In a word, it was a deed done for the bleed - required (see note and references under ver. 22). Not in the sepulchres of the kings. See note on ver. 16, and references there quoted; as also the ambiguous expression of the parallel (ver. 21), "They buried him with his fathers in the city of David."

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(25) And when they were departed from him.--Omit were. The Syrians retired, instead of besieging Jerusalem, as they had purposed to do.For they left him in great diseases.--Some refer this to the wounds which Joash had received from the Syrians in battle. But it is not said that Joash himself was wounded, but only that the destruction of his princes and the defeat of his army were judgments upon him. The word rendered "diseases" (mah?l-yim) only occurs here; but it is obviously a near synonym of the term used of the last sickness of Jehoram (tah?l-'im, 2chron xxi, 19), and the probable meaning is "pains," or "suffering." Calamity may have brought about the sickness of Joash, or perhaps the invasion had come upon him when already prostrate with disease, and unable to resist in person.His own servants conspired against him.--2Kings 12:20, "And his servants arose and made a conspiracy." Comp. the similar circumstances in the murder of Ishbosheth (2Samuel 4:5).For the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest.--The LXX. and Vulgate correct this, and read "son," meaning Zechariah the prophet (2Chronicles 24:22), and the plural may be due to a transcriber's mistake. More probably it is used rhetorically, as in 2Chronicles 28:16, and elsewhere. . . .