the upper gate] compare xxvii. 3, “the upper gate of the house of the Lord.” In 2 Kings, “by the way of the gate of the guard” (doubtless one of the gates of the palace). The Chronicler, writing at a time when the palace had ceased to exist, naturally fixes localities by reference to the Temple. The gate in question was probably one in the north wall of the Temple court, referred to in Jeremiah xx. 2 as “the upper gate of Benjamin.”
Chapter XXIV.
1–3 (compare 2 Kings xi. 21–xii. 3).
Joash begins to Reign.
¹Joash was seven years old when he began to reign; and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba. ²And Joash did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.
2. After this verse Kings adds “Howbeit the high places were not taken away: the people sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.” This the Chronicler omits, for it was quite irreconcilable with his notion of the religious reformation which marks the opening years of the reign of Joash.
³And Jehoiada took for him two wives; and he begat sons and daughters.
3. And Jehoiada, etc.] This verse is not in Kings. It was the duty of a Jewish father to provide his son with a wife; Jehoiada standing in loco parentis does this for Joash.
4–14 (= 2 Kings xii. 4–16).
The Restoration of the Temple.
⁴And it came to pass after this, that Joash was minded to restore the house of the Lord. ⁵And he gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, Go out unto the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and see that ye hasten the matter. Howbeit the Levites hastened it not.