(2) But Jehosheba . . . sister of Ahaziah.--By a different mother (see Josephus). Athaliah would not have allowed her daughter to marry the high priest of Jehovah. (Comp. 2Kings 11:3 with 2Chronicles 22:11.) This marriage with a sister of the king shows what almost royal dignity belonged to the high priest's office.

The king's sons which were slain.--Rather, which were to be put to death. At the time when the order for slaying the princes had been given, Jehosheba (or Jehoshabeath; Chronicles) concealed the infant Joash. The fact of his infancy caused him to be overlooked. [The Hebrew text here reads by mistake a word meaning deaths (Jeremiah 16:4). Chronicles supports the Hebrew margin.]

And they hid him.--This clause is out of its place here. The Hebrew is, him and his nurse in the chamber of the beds; and they hid him from Athaliah, and he was not put to death. Clearly the word, "and she put," supplied in Chronicles, has fallen out before this. The Targum and Syriac read, "and she hid him and his nurse," &c.

In the bedchamber.--In the chamber of beds, i.e., the room in the palace where the mattresses and the coverlets were kept, according to a custom still prevalent in the East. This chamber being unoccupied was the nearest hiding-place at first. The babe was afterwards secretly conveyed within the Temple precincts.

Verse 2. - But Jehosheba ("Jehoshabeath," Chronicles; "Josabethe," Josephus). The daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah - half-sister, according to Josephus ('Ant. Jud.,' 9:7. § 1), the daughter of Joram by a secondary wife, not by Athaliah - took Jonah the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain. As aunt of the royal children, Jehosheba would have free entrance into the palace, and liberty to visit all the apartments. She did not dare openly to oppose Athallah's will, but contrived secretly to save one of the intended victims, the smallest of them, an infant of a year old (παμδίον ἐνιαύσιον, Josephus). His tender age, probably, moved her compassion, and induced her to select him from the rest. And they hid him: even him and his nurse. The order in the Hebrew is, "even him and his nurse, and they hid him," which clears the sense. Jehosheba stole away Joash and his nurse, and they, i.e. Jehosheba and the nurse together, hid him between them. In the bedchamber; rather, in the chamber of mattresses - a room in the palace where mattresses, and perhaps coverlets, were stored. Chardin notes ('Works,' vol. 3. p: 357) that there is usually retch a room m an Oriental palace, which is only used as a store-chamber, and not as a dwelling-room. From Athaliah, so that he was not slain. Athaliah's servants may not have been very anxious to carry out her cruel orders to the uttermost, and may have made no very careful search.

11:1-12 Athaliah destroyed all she knew to be akin to the crown. Jehoash, one of the king's sons, was hid. Now was the promise made to David bound up in one life only, and yet it did not fail. Thus to the Son of David, the Lord, according to his promise, will secure a spiritual seed, hidden sometimes, and unseen, but hidden in God's pavilion, and unhurt. Six years Athaliah tyrannized. Then the king was brought forward. A child indeed, but he had a good guardian, and, what was better, a good God to go to With such joy and satisfaction must the kingdom of Christ be welcomed into our hearts, when his throne is set up there, and Satan the usurper is cast out. Say, Let the King, even Jesus, live, for ever live and reign in my soul, and in all the world.But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram,.... Not by Athaliah, but another woman; for an high priest, as her husband was, would not have married the daughter of such an idolatrous woman, nor would she have married her to him:

sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons which were slain: among whom he lay; either being cast there by the murderer, or her associates, supposed to be dead, or by his nurse, that he might be thought to be so, who acquainting his aunt with it, went and privately took him away:

and they hid him, even him and his nurse, in the bedchamber from Athaliah, so that he was not slain; that is, Jehosheba and her husband hid him and his nurse in a bedchamber; or "chamber of beds" (y), in which there were more beds than one; one of the chambers of the priests and Levites in the temple, that is, which were adjoining to it; for into the sanctuary itself it was not usual to bring beds (z); wherefore

the house of the Lord, in the next verse, must be understood largely as including all the appendages of it.

(y) "in cubiculo lectorum", Pagninus, Montanus. So Sept. &c. (z) T. Bab. Tamid, c. 1. fol. 26. 2.