(16) They laid hands on her.--So the LXX. and Vulg. The Hebrew phrase means: and they made room for her on both sides--i.e., the crowd fell back, and a lane was formed for her exit (so the Targum and Rashi).

She went . . . king's house.--She entered the palace by way of the entry of the horses. Athaliah was conducted to the royal stables which adjoined the palace, and there put to death.

Verse 16. - And they laid hands on her. So the LXX. (ἐπέθηκαν αὐτῇ χεῖρας), the Vulgate, Luther, and others; but most moderns understand that they formed in two lines, one on either side of her, and so let her pass out of the temple and proceed towards the palace untouched - the divinity that hedged a queen preventing them from molesting her until the time came for her execution (see the Revised Version). And she went by the way by the which the horses came into the king's house. Josephus makes Athaliah pass out of the temple by the east gate, and descend into the Kedron valley. He says she was put to death "at the gate of the king's mules," but does not mark the locality. The gate intended can scarcely be the "horse gate" of Nehemiah 3:28, which was in the eastern wall, and north of the temple. It was probably a gate on the western side of the Tyropoeon valley, giving entrance to the stables of the palace (comp. 2 Chronicles 23:15, and see below, ver. 20). And there was she slain; "with the sword" (ver. 20). A single blow from one of the guardsmen probably sufficed.

11:13-16 Athaliah hastened her own destruction. She herself was the greatest traitor, and yet was first and loudest in crying, Treason, treason! The most guilty are commonly the most forward to reproach others.And they laid hands on her,.... Or rather,"set a place for her'',as the Targum; so Jarchi and Kimchi; made a space, opened a way for her to come out of the temple into their ranks, that she might be there taken and slain, and not in the temple:

and she went by the way by the which the horses came into the king's house; either the high road in which the horses and carriages went to the palace, or the way to the king's stables near the palace: and there was she slain; they let her go so far, which was far enough from the temple, and then they slew her.