in the bedchamber] margin, in the chamber for the beds, i.e. perhaps in a store room in which bed furniture was kept: a convenient but an uncertain interpretation.
the wife of Jehoiada the priest] Compare xxiii. 1. This relationship is not given in Kings.
¹²And he was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land.
12. with them] i.e. with Jehoiada and Jehoshabeath. In Kings “with her.”
in the house of God] “The chamber for beds” (which was perhaps in the palace) was only a temporary hiding-place.
Chapter XXIII.
1–11 (compare 2 Kings xi. 4–12).
The Conspiracy against Athaliah.
The account in Kings of the famous conspiracy which resulted in the downfall and death of Athaliah the queen mother and the coronation of the child Joash has the marks of a graphic and accurate narrative. The Chronicler evidently desired to reproduce it word for word, but in one point he was obliged to alter it in accordance with his ideas. In Kings the plot is engineered by the high-priest Jehoiada with the help of the officers (“captains of hundreds”) and men of the Carites and the guard, (i.e. the royal body-guard), who were foreign mercenaries. But the statement in 2 Kings xi. 4, 11, that these men who were both laymen and foreigners were permitted by the high-priest to be within the court of the Temple, though no doubt correct in point of fact (see Ezekiel xliv. 6 f.), was inconceivable to the Chronicler. In his account therefore the soldiers of the guard vanish, and the “captains of hundreds” are prominent Levites, who organise the conspiracy by gathering the Levites and chief men throughout Judah (verse 2); and, further, careful directions are given (verse 6) that none shall enter the Temple save priests and Levites “for they are holy.” The passage is an interesting example of the Chronicler’s procedure in the interests of the ecclesiastical order to which he belonged and in which he believed so firmly.
¹And in the seventh year Jehoiada strengthened himself, and took the captains of hundreds, Azariah the son of Jeroham, and Ishmael the son of Jehohanan, and Azariah the son of Obed, and Maaseiah the son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat the son of Zichri, into covenant with him.