The Kings of Israel and Judah by George Rawlinson

Author:George Rawlinson [Rawlinson, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Left of Brain Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XX.

Jehoash, or Joash, of Israel.

Partial recovery of Israel under Joash—His character—His visit to Elisha and the prophecy given him—His three victories over Benhadad and their result—He is challenged to fight by Amaziah—His reply and defeat of his antagonist—His early death.

Joash of Israel, the son of Jehoahaz, and grandson of Jehu, is a monarch superior to most of those who sat upon the Israelite throne. Though, like every other king of Israel, he maintained the system of Jeroboam as originally established, and thus shares in the universal condemnation—that “he did evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, but walked therein” (2 Kings xiii. 11), yet, apart from this one error of conduct, his life is almost faultless. Josephus ventures to say of him openly and boldly189—“He was a good man, and in his disposition entirely unlike his father.” When he ascended the throne, his country was at the lowest point of weakness and depression. Hazael ravaged it and oppressed it at his pleasure. Moab and Ammon indulged themselves in frequent kicks at the dead lion. When he died after an eventful reign of sixteen years, Samaria was once more independent and respected. Not only had the advance of Syria been checked, but she had received defeats, and been deprived of a large portion of her conquests. The kingdom had to a considerable extent recovered itself, and the way had been prepared for that fuller, and indeed, astonishing recovery which makes the reign of Jeroboam the Second the turning-point of the later Israelite history.

It would seem to have been very shortly after the accession of Joash to the throne that intelligence reached him of Elisha being prostrated by a serious illness. The prophet must by this time have reached a very advanced age. It was sixty-three years since his call, when he can scarcely be supposed to have been less than twenty years old, so that, at the very least, he must now have been eighty-three, and may not improbably have verged upon ninety. Very few Israelites, at this period of the nation’s history, attained to so great an age, and it may have been increasing years and increasing infirmities which had caused the prophet’s retirement from public life and long continued seclusion. In his seclusion he had, apparently, been forgotten; amid the troubles that had befallen Jehu in his later years, and Jehoahaz throughout his entire reign, no recourse had been bad to the aged “man of God” for counsel or advice; no one had thought to ask, “Is there not anywhere in Israel a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire of the Lord by him?” But Joash was of a different temper from his father and grandfather. He was more God-fearing, keener-witted, more sensitive. The thought that to his other troubles was to be added the loss of so eminent a subject, so valuable a support, smote him with dismay,

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