17. the house of Baal] When this was erected is not known, perhaps under Jehoram (xxi. 6) or Ahaziah (xxii. 3), but it was doubtless intended for the worship of the Tyrian Baal, for Athaliah was probably grand-daughter of a Tyrian king (compare 2 Kings viii. 18 with 1 Kings xvi. 31). It is interesting to see that the revolt against Athaliah in Jerusalem, like the revolution led by Jehu against her parents, Ahab and Jezebel, in the Northern Kingdom, was fostered, if not indeed caused, by religious antipathy. At least these passages are of high value in showing the hold which the worship of Jehovah had already obtained upon the loyalty of Israel. Court influences, always powerful in such small states, when cast against the worship of Jehovah, were unable for long to maintain the struggle against the national “jealousy” for Him.
¹⁸And Jehoiada appointed the offices of the house of the Lord under the hand of the priests the Levites, whom David had distributed in the house of the Lord, to offer the burnt offerings of the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, according to the order of David[¹].
[¹] Hebrew by the hands of David.
18. And Jehoiada appointed, etc.] This whole verse is represented in Kings simply by the words, “And the priest appointed officers (‘offices,’ margin) over the house of the Lord” (i.e. officers for the care of the Temple, e.g. to see to cleaning and repairing it).
the priests the Levites] Read probably the priests and the Levites, and see the note on the same phrase in xxx. 27.
according to the order of David] Note that the Chronicler ascribes all sacrificial arrangements to the law of Moses, but all musical arrangements to David, compare 1 Chronicles xxv.
¹⁹And he set the porters at the gates of the house of the Lord, that none which was unclean in any thing should enter in.
19. he set the porters] Compare 1 Chronicles xxvi. 1 ff., 13 ff. Jehoiada is regarded as re-establishing a Davidic arrangement which had fallen into disuse.
²⁰And he took the captains of hundreds, and the nobles, and the governors of the people, and all the people of the land, and brought down the king from the house of the Lord: and they came through the upper gate unto the king’s house, and set the king upon the throne of the kingdom. ²¹So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet: and they slew Athaliah with the sword.
20. the nobles] Hebrew addīrīm; compare Nehemiah iii. 5 (with Ryle’s note). In 2 Kings, “the Carites”; compare verse 1 (note).