And Jehoiada made a covenant between himself and all the people and the king, that they should be the people of Jehovah.
Athaliah, the queen who tried to wipe out David's royal line, is dead, and the boy-king Joash is crowned in the temple. Jehoiada the priest acts first as a priest, binding the nation to God by covenant — so who are its parties, and what does it demand?
The king here is a child, so the lead falls to the man who had kept him hidden.
Jehoiada took the lead in making a covenant between himself, the people and the king. The king was a ward of Jehoiada, because he was so young (v. 16). The covenant stood against Athaliah's idolatry, and it agreed with the law of Moses. It stressed that Judah should be the Lord's people, not a people who worship idols.
The parallel record in 2 Kings 11:17 names the LORD as one party. One writer shows how the two sides bind each other.
"And Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD and the king and people, that they should be the LORD's people, and also between the king and the people" (v. 17). A covenant assumes two parties. Here, under the law, each side binds itself to the other: the Lord on one side, the king and the people on the other. It is as if the king answered for the people, and the people for the king. Before the Lord they form one whole. The covenant between the king and the people makes this promise even more solemn. Each side binds itself to walk the same path.
Earlier Jehoiada had bound only a few men by oath. This covenant reaches everyone.
And a larger covenant is now made. This is not just the priest taking an oath from a few men on behalf of the hidden Joash, and showing him only to them. Now the priest brings all the people, the king, and the LORD into holy, gracious covenant again, that they should be the Lord's people. Then he shows the rightful heir of all the glory, not to some, but to all the congregation of Israel.
Commentators differ on how far this applies today. One places the act in its own time instead of making it a pattern for believers now.
Jehoiada acted as a priest of God should act. He began by making a covenant between the Lord, the king and the people. This fitted the order of God's law, under which Israel lived at the time. Under grace today, vows and covenants are forbidden (Matthew 5:33-37). But Jehoiada sought to bring Israel back to the obedience of law, which was right at the time.
Words on their own settle nothing. The next verse shows the people acting on their pledge, and one writer makes this the test of any claimed revival.
The beginning was in a solemn covenant. This covenant bound the young ruler and the people together to be true to the LORD, as the LORD requires of His people. There was also a covenant between the king and the people (2 Kings 11:17). Under the priest's direction, the revival began with the destruction of the idols and false worship, and with a return to the LORD and the true worship of His Name. Every true revival must begin the same way. Measured by this standard, most revivals today fall short.
Another commentator puts the order plainly:
This work of tearing down was necessary, just as the execution of Athaliah was. It had to come before the true worship of God was set up, as verses 18-20 show.
Commentators read the pairing of priest and king here as a shadow of what is still ahead.
When the Lord Jesus comes out, He will be both priest and king. The offices of Jehoiada and Joash are both His. Zechariah 6 shows this: "He shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on His throne. And there shall be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." A new covenant will be made with Israel when the king comes out. One of its terms is "They shall be my people." Everything connected with idolatry will be set aside and removed for ever.
- Covenant — the agreement binds two sides. The LORD stands on one side, the king and people on the other. King and people also bind themselves to each other, so that all walk one path.
- Custodian — Jehoiada leads because the crowned king is a child in his care. The pledge he frames strikes at Athaliah's idolatry.
- Congregation — this goes wider than his earlier oath with a few men. It gathers the whole nation, and it shows the rightful heir to them all.
- Clearing — a real covenant shows itself by tearing down Baal first. Writers treat that removal as the test of any claimed revival. Only then comes the restored worship of verses 18-20.
- Coming King — the priest and the king together point on to Christ, who will hold both offices. A new covenant follows, and its term is that they shall be God's people, with idolatry gone for good.
And all the people went into the house of Baal, and broke it down; and they broke his altars and his images in pieces, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.
Athaliah has just been killed, and a covenant has just bound king and people to the LORD. What comes next is not a ceremony but a demolition: the people pull down the temple of Baal in Jerusalem, smash its altars and images, and kill Mattan his priest.
A vow to be the LORD's people could not stand alongside a working temple of Baal in the same city.
Such a covenant required the destruction of the temple of Baal. The people did it at once, breaking its altars and images in pieces and killing the priest of Baal (v. 17). This negative work was necessary, just as the execution of Athaliah was. It had to come before the positive work of setting up the true worship of God, which follows in verses 18-20.
Mattan, killed at the altars, was the priest of Baal, slain in the time of Jehoiada. The verse names no commander: the people themselves go in and break the temple down. One writer sets this beside Jehu's earlier campaign against Baal.
It is a community of zeal for God. There is no need for the subtlety and artifices of Jehu to wipe out Baal from Judah. Here you see the powerful action of the Spirit of God in a people. In the end that is much more blessed than the action of a single individual, even when he is in fact doing the will of God. Jehu had thought out his plan alone and handed its execution to guards and captains. Here the whole people wipe out Baal, his house and his worship. They claim their title as the people of the LORD, and they are closely bound to the king God had given them. For about 180 years, until the reign of ungodly Manasseh, this detestable idolatry disappears from the house of Judah.
The same writer draws a warning out of that comparison. A campaign against an idol can succeed and still leave the man himself unchanged.
Jehu's zeal destroyed Baal, but it had not re-established the covenant, and it goes no further than that. He rooted out the new idolatry, yet the old idolatry, Jeroboam's calves, still stands for him. It is always like this when the flesh has a part in reform. It cannot cure the abandoning of God that has marked it from the start. If it could, it would no longer be the flesh. The natural man may well root out an idol, whether it be wine or any other vice. But he only replaces it with the idolatry of self, his own self-righteousness, and his lack of conscience towards God. He throws these into sharper relief. All the while he pretends, like Jehu, to serve God with zeal.
The rubble of Baal's house lies between Athaliah's death and the king's peaceful enthronement.
Everything that offends and works wickedness is taken out of the way — the house, the altars, the images, and the priests of Baal. And at last the king passes through the line of bodyguards, all of them glad to attend him. Like a second Solomon, in peace and dignity, full of honour and of the people's gladness, he sits on the throne of the kingdom, the throne of the house of David.
One writer looks ahead from this scene. The smashing of Baal's temple is a small model of a far larger clearance still to come.
Everything connected with idolatry will be set aside and removed for ever. Once all that belonged to Baal was gone, Jehoiada sets everything in order for the worship of the LORD, "according to the directions of David." So it will be at the coming of Christ. God will perfectly express His original thoughts, which man had set aside.
- Covenant first. The demolition is the covenant taking physical form. A pledge to belong to God settles what has to go.
- Community, not celebrity. The whole people tear the temple down, and that shared zeal is more blessed than one gifted man's campaign.
- Thoroughness. House, altars, images and priest — they leave nothing of Baal standing to rebuild later.
- Clearing before building. This negative work had to come before the true worship of God took its place.
- Lasting, but not automatic. Baal stayed out of Judah for about 180 years. But zeal that never reaches the covenant only swaps one idol for the idolatry of self.
And Jehoiada appointed the offices of the house of Jehovah under the hand of the priests, the Levites, whom David had set by classes over the house of Jehovah to offer up Jehovah's burnt-offerings, as it is written in the law of Moses, -- with rejoicing and with singing according to the directions of David.
Athaliah is dead, Baal's temple is rubble, and Joash sits on David's throne. Only now does Jehoiada turn to the house of the LORD itself, and that raises the question every recovery faces: what do you rebuild from?
Pulling down came first, and building up came second. One commentator sets the two side by side:
The people quickly destroyed the temple of Baal, breaking its altars and images in pieces and killing the priest of Baal (v. 17). This negative work was necessary, just as the execution of Athaliah was, before the true worship of God could be positively set up, as verses 18-20 show. Jehoiada the priest was a faithful man. He gave the oversight of the house of the LORD back into the hands of the priests and Levites, in line with David's assignment, and with his insistence that the offering of burnt sacrifices to the LORD should follow the law of Moses.
The ESV says Jehoiada "posted watchmen for the house of the LORD"; older translations read that he "appointed the offices" of the house. Either way, the priests and Levites had charge of it again.
Jehoiada was not working with a healthy nation. The royal line was all but gone, and he had only one ground to build on — God's own faithfulness:
Everything was in a very low state. To all appearances the house of David was finished, but the faithfulness of God did not fail. The throne has lost all its power, and the family of David is set aside; yet God raises up a man of faith, in the person of the high priest, to restore the whole. God's chastisement was complete. His judgment had overturned the whole order of the throne. Nothing was left but the faithfulness of God. Man was judged. He had no means of recovery left.
The verse rests on two written authorities: what Moses wrote, and what David arranged. One writer finds the same two at work in a later restoration in Israel:
It was a day of great joy and gladness. For directions about the altar, the sacrifices and the feasts, they had gone back to the word, "as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God." In the same way they turned to "the directions of David king of Israel" for guidance in their service of praise.
One writer lists this verse among the evidences that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible:
That Moses was the writer of these five inspired records is evident from the testimony of the books themselves (Deut. 31:9, 24), by Joshua (Joshua 1:7), by Samuel (1 Sam. 12:6-8), by David (1 Kings 2:3)… by Jehoiada (2 Chron. 23:16-18), by Hezekiah (2 Chron. 30:16), by Ezra (Ezra 7:6)…
Jehoiada did not copy recent practice; he went back to what was written. One commentator applies this to today:
Where people in our own day have departed from the truth of the Word of God, how vital it is that we should return. Not merely to what our fathers may have practiced, but to the truth the New Testament lays down about the character and practice of the Church of God. Israel was to return and recognize the beginning of their history under law. The Church should return and take in the character of its beginning under grace.
One writer sees Jehoiada's arrangement as a picture of what Christ will do when He comes:
Once everything belonging to Baal was gone, Jehoiada set everything in order for the worship of Jehovah, "according to the order of David." So it will be at the coming of Christ. God's original thoughts, which man set aside, will then find perfect expression.
What a revival is worth shows up after its leader is gone:
The revival during Joash's early reign had already lost its hold. It could not have been very deep, if they could turn aside to idols so soon after Jehoiada was gone.
- Cleared — Baal's altars came down before God's order went up. Judging the evil is the first half of every real restoration.
- Written — Jehoiada rebuilt from a text, not from memory: the law of Moses for the offerings, David's arrangement for the praise.
- Given back — oversight of the house went back to the men God had appointed to it, the priests and Levites.
- Joyful — the restored service came "with rejoicing and with singing." Going back to the Word brings gladness, not just correctness.
- Tested — worship that leans on one strong man falls when he dies. Only worship drawn straight from the Word outlasts him.