2 Kings 11King James Version
In Judah, the queen mother Athaliah tries to wipe out all the royal heirs so she can reign. One infant, Joash, is hidden in the temple for six years by his aunt. In the seventh year the high priest Jehoiada stages a coup, crowns the boy king, and has Athaliah killed.
When Ahaziah dies, his mother Athaliah seizes the throne of Judah and orders all the royal heirs killed. But Joash, an infant son of Ahaziah, is hidden in the temple by his aunt Jehosheba for six years. The priest Jehoiada organizes a coup. In the seventh year, Joash is crowned in the temple. Athaliah hears the noise, comes to the temple, and is executed. Jehoiada makes a covenant between the people, God, and the king. The temple of Baal in Jerusalem is destroyed. The city is calm.
One hidden child in the temple is the thread that preserves the Davidic line: the dynasty promised to David survives because one woman hid a baby and one priest kept him alive for six years.
3: "And he was with her hid in the house of the LORD six years. And Athaliah did reign over the land." Two sentences that hold the entire tension: one child in hiding, one usurper on the throne, six years.
Around 835 BC. Athaliah's six-year reign is the only break in the Davidic succession in Judah's entire history. The temple of Baal she had apparently installed alongside the Jerusalem temple was torn down and its priest Mattan killed. Jehoiada's action is both a religious restoration and a dynastic rescue, and the two are inseparable in the text.
Athaliah, the only woman to reign over Judah, killing her own grandchildren for power; Jehosheba, who hides the infant Joash; Jehoiada the priest, who orchestrates the restoration; Joash, the child king.
Athaliah is the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, which means Jezebel's bloodline nearly extinguished the Davidic line from which the Messiah was expected to come. The survival of Joash is presented as a theological near-miss. The Chronicler's version adds detail, but here the drama is in the brevity: six years of hiding, then a coronation, then an execution.
For when what matters most seems impossibly fragile and surrounded by forces determined to destroy it. One child in a side room of the temple, kept alive for six years, changes everything.
1And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.
2But 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.
3And he was with her hid in the house of the LORD six years. And Athaliah did reign over the land.
4And the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers over hundreds, with the captains and the guard, and brought them to him into the house of the LORD, and made a covenant with them, and took an oath of them in the house of the LORD, and shewed them the king's son.
5And he commanded them, saying, This is the thing that ye shall do; A third part of you that enter in on the sabbath shall even be keepers of the watch of the king's house;
6And a third part shall be at the gate of Sur; and a third part at the gate behind the guard: so shall ye keep the watch of the house, that it be not broken down.
7And two parts of all you that go forth on the sabbath, even they shall keep the watch of the house of the LORD about the king.
8And ye shall compass the king round about, every man with his weapons in his hand: and he that cometh within the ranges, let him be slain: and be ye with the king as he goeth out and as he cometh in.
9And the captains over the hundreds did according to all things that Jehoiada the priest commanded: and they took every man his men that were to come in on the sabbath, with them that should go out on the sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.
10And to the captains over hundreds did the priest give king David's spears and shields, that were in the temple of the LORD.
11And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, from the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple, along by the altar and the temple.
12And he brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony; and they made him king, and anointed him; and they clapped their hands, and said, God save the king.
13And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people, she came to the people into the temple of the LORD.
14And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar, as the manner was, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king, and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew with trumpets: and Athaliah rent her clothes, and cried, Treason, Treason.
15But Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth without the ranges: and him that followeth her kill with the sword. For the priest had said, Let her not be slain in the house of the LORD.
16And they laid hands on her; and she went by the way by the which the horses came into the king's house: and there was she slain.
17And Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD and the king and the people, that they should be the LORD'S people; between the king also and the people.
18And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD.
19And he took the rulers over hundreds, and the captains, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from the house of the LORD, and came by the way of the gate of the guard to the king's house. And he sat on the throne of the kings.
20And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was in quiet: and they slew Athaliah with the sword beside the king's house.
21Seven years old was Jehoash when he began to reign.