Bashan, which had been lost to Israel for some time already.
Athaliah reigned seven years, not ingloriously; but she belonged to
the house of Ahab, and the adherents of the prophets, whose party had
planned Jehu's revolution, could no longer witness with equanimity one
of the accursed race thus prospering and ostentatiously practising the
rites of Baal-worship within sight of the great temple of Jahveh. On
seizing the throne, Athaliah had sought out and put to death all the
members of the house of David who had any claim to the succession; but
Jeho-sheba, half-sister of Ahaziah, had with difficulty succeeded in
rescuing Joash, one of the king's sons. Her husband was the high priest
Jehoiada, and he secreted his nephew for six years in the precincts of
the temple; at the end of that time, he won over the captains of the
royal guard, bribed a section of the troops, and caused them to swear
fealty to the child as their legitimate sovereign. Athaliah, hastening
to discover the cause of the uproar, was assassinated. Mattan, chief
priest of Baal, shared her fate; and Jehoiada at once restored to Jahveh
the preeminence which the gods of the alien had for a time usurped
(837). At first his influence over his pupil was supreme, but before
long the memory of his services faded away, and the king sought only
how to rid himself of a tutelage which had grown irksome. The temple
had suffered during the late wars, and repairs were much needed.
Joash ordained that for the future all moneys put into the sacred
treasury--which of right belonged to the king--should be placed
unreservedly at the disposal of the priests on condition that they
should apply them to the maintenance of the services and fabric of
the temple: the priests accepted the gift, but failed in the faithful
observance of the conditions, so that in 814 B.C. the king was obliged
to take stringent measures to compel them to repair the breaches in the
sanctuary walls:* he therefore withdrew the privilege which they had
abused, and henceforth undertook the administration of the Temple
Fund in person. The beginning of the new order of things was not very
successful. Jehu had died in 815, after a disastrous reign, and both he
and his son Jehoahaz had been obliged to acknowledge the supremacy of
Hazael: not only was he in the position of an inferior vassal, but, in
order to preclude any idea of a revolt, he was forbidden to maintain
a greater army than the small force neces
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