being laid in the city of David among the kings: “For he had done good in Israel, and towards God and His house” (the temple). According to 2Ki 12:7, he still took an active part in the repair of the temple in the twenty-third year of Joash, and according to 2Ch 24:14 he lived for some time after the completion of that work. But after his death the people soon forgot the benefits they owed him.
Verses 17-20
The princes of Judah besought the king to allow them to worship the Astartes and idols, and the king hearkened to them, did not venture to deny their request. למּלך ישׁתּחווּ, they bowed themselves before the king, i.e., they besought him. What they thus beseechingly requested is not stated, but may be gathered from what they did, according to 2Ch 24:18. They forsook Jahve the God of their fathers, etc. There came wrath upon Judah because of this their trespass. קצף, a wrathful judgment of the Lord, cf. 2Ch 29:8, viz., the invasion of the land by Hazael, 2Ch 24:23. On the construction זאת אשׁמתם, cf. Ew. §293, c, S. 740. Against this defection prophets whom the Lord sent did indeed lift up their testimony, but they would not hearken to them. Of these prophets, one, Zechariah the son of the high priest Jehoiada, is mentioned by name in 2Ch 24:20., who, seized by the Spirit of the Lord, announced to the people divine punishment for their defection, and was thereupon, at the king's command, stoned in the court of the temple. With לבשׁה רוּח cf. 1Ch 12:18, and the commentary on Jdg 6:34. לעם מעל, above the people, viz., as we learn from 2Ch 24:21, in the inner, higher-lying court, so that he was above the people who were in the outer court. “Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, and (why) will ye not prosper?” Fidelity to the Lord is the condition of prosperity. If Israel forsake the Lord, the Lord will also forsake it; cf. 2Ch 12:5; 2Ch 15:2.
Verses 21-22
And they (the princes and the people) conspired against him, and stoned him, at the command of the king, in the court of the temple. This זכריה is the Ζαχαρίας whose slaughter is mentioned by Christ in Mat 23:36 and Luk 11:51 as the last prophet-murder narrated in the Old Testament, whose blood would come upon the people, although Matthew calls him υἱὸς Βαραχίου. According to these passages, he was slain between the temple and the altar of burnt-offering, consequently in the most sacred part of the court of the priests. That the king, Joash, could give the command for this murder, shows how his compliance with the princes’
