xii. 1, 2, but omits 3, because he dislikes the fact that not even his

hero Jehoiada had anything to say against the _bamoth_. But it appears from 2 Kings xxiii. 9 that the _bamoth_ had regular priests of their own, who "eat the priestly portions" (according to an old MS.) among their brethren.

[259] 2 Chron. xxiv. 7.

[260] 2 Kings xii. 4: "The money that every man is set at." Lit., "Each the money of the souls of his valuation." Comp. Numb. xviii. 16; Lev. xxvii. 2.

[261] The Chronicler says "at the gate."

[262] 2 Chron. xxiv. 11.

[263] Lev. v. 1-6, xiv. 13. "Trespass-money" is here first mentioned.

[264] 2 Chron. xxiv. 8-10. There is a difference between the historian and the Chronicler respecting the vessels of the house.

[265] 2 Chron. xxiv. 15, 16. The statement of the Chronicler is (as so often) surrounded by difficulties and improbabilities. If Jehoiada was one hundred and thirty years old when he died, he must have been ninety when Ahaziah was murdered, at the age of twenty-three. But as Ahaziah was (apparently) born when his father Jehoram was eighteen, Jehosheba must have been under eighteen, and must have been married to a man seventy years older than herself! See Lord Arthur Hervey, _On the Genealogies_, p. 113.

[266] 2 Chron. xxiv. 27.

[267] Stanley charitably thinks that Joash may have only burst into hasty words like those of Henry II. against Becket.

[268] The Chronicler says that "the _sons_ of Jehoiada" had helped to crown him, and that he put "the _sons_ of Jehoiada" to death (2 Chron. xxiii. 11, xxiv. 25).

[269] Gittin, f. 57, 2; Sanhedrin, f. 96, 2; Hershon, _Treasures of the Talmud_, p. 276; Lightfoot on Matt. xxiii. 35. There can be little doubt that the reading "Berechiah" is a later correction of some one who remembered the murder narrated in Jos., _B. J._, IV. v. 4, and that the true reading is "son of Jehoiada." This is the last murder of a prophet mentioned in the Old Testament, and we learn from the Gospel the fact that he was slain "between the Temple and the altar."

[270] Isa. xxiv. 2; Jer. v. 31, xxiii. 11; Ezek. vii. 26, xxii. 26; Hos. iv. 9; Mic. iii. 11, etc.

[271] Jer. xxix. 24-32.

[272] 2 Kings ix. 11.

[273] But from the Book of Kings we should not infer that there had been any fighting at all. The Syrian commander had been bribed to retire.

[274] We cannot understand the addition "on the way that goeth down to Silla." Silla is nowhere else referred to.

[275] LXX., 2 Chron. xxiv. 27, καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ πάντες.