2 Kings 12:9

2Ki 12:9 But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of the LORD: and the priests that kept the door put therein all the money [that was] brought into the house of the LORD.

Ver. 9. But Jehoiada the priest took a chest.] This he did by the king’s appointment, {2Ch 24:8} and it took good effect. {2Ki 12:9-10}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Ki_12:9

And Jehoiada the priest took a chest.

The first contribution-box

This chapter takes us away from those confusions up in northern Palestine, which seemed to be getting a little overcrowded with murder and warfare and theft. There is a deep spiritual apathy in the city and the land everywhere. The people have still idolatrous practices; around on some of the hills there are altars and groves where decorous men and women would think it not nice to go. The worst of this terrible ungodliness is found in the greediness of the priests. Evidently they are self-seekers of the vile sort. They exhaust all the income of the sanctuary, slender as it is, in their own emoluments and perquisites. The king is inefficient, as should be expected; what could a little boy do? The temple is all out of repair; there are breaches in many parts of the building. A dull period of sixteen years has been slowly drifting along. The picture is not encouraging; but let us turn ourselves to the instruction it offers for us in these modern times. The force of the story will come out in a series of observations.

I. Sometimes religious depression shows itself in material dilapidations. Everything is running behind-hand in the public spirit of the town, the city, or the congregation.

1. It is a bad sign when the church edifice is going into ruinous condition. Can it be said that the zeal of the Lord is eating any one up there?

2. It is a worse sign when the income of any congregation has begun to fail. In the story here, somebody must have pushed up that little seven-year-old king Jehoash to try to collect some money, for he issued a call almost at once for help to put the temple under repair. But it all came to nothing; the house of the Lord continued to discourage and chill the devotions far more than to awake them, because it was so forlorn and unclean.

3. It is a worse sign still when the minister and the employees exhaust the funds in their own uses and luxuries. That was the trouble during those sad sixteen years of Jehoashs infancy. Money went in, but the priests swallowed it up.

4. It is the worst sign of all when the peoples heart is unmoved; when everybody knows and nobody cares about the cheerlessness of the facts or the prospects.

II. Sometimes the speediest relief is found in the peoples taking the reform wholly into their own hands.

1. In this case, it was the young king and the people who did the work, though the high-priest organised the new movement, under royal direction. Let us look into the whole facts and philosophy of this uprising of the community there in Jerusalem. The religious and ordained officers in the congregation of the temple cheerfully arose to say, Let anybody do this great and needed thing that can do it better than we can. They consented to receive none of the money, and they withdrew from ordering the repairs. In that historic hour there came first to light the earliest contribution-box used in the service of God. Was there ever anything imagined so rude or inartistic as an instrument of devotion?

2. But before you smile at the prosaic expedient, pause a moment to do simple justice to one of Gods instruments of good. From that day the contribution-box has been an institution for the Church under the Old Testament and the New, probably as well known as any other in the range of our experience. It deserves now and then a decent eulogy. Its record is honourable and fair.

(1) The contribution-box exhibits the wide reach of religious obligation. This one stood beside the altar.

(2) The contribution-box kindles the fires of love and hope in the believers heart. For it seems to say, All are at work now, and all together; what are you doing for your Lord?

(3) The contribution-box keeps good and true men up to the exact end in view.

(4) The contribution-box develops and commissions the most capable workers in the Lords cause. When men have given hopeful hearts and open hands alike to the service of the Master, it is not necessary to guard them; they will surely deal faithfully.

III. Sometimes piety is brought back to its level under a fresh impulse of material prosperity. This is a reflection also that we might expect to be suggested by the history here.

1. The philosophy underlying such a conclusion is simple. We are all creatures of human build and constitutional weakness in relation to the practical world we live in. When the church is repulsive and the services dull, when the carpets are soiled with long using, when the prayer-circle is languishing; then, good friends, it is almost hopeless for even the best of saints to try and keep up his spirits.

2. The relief is close at hand.

3. The facts, which might be offered in illustration, are without limit. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Ki 12:9. Jehoiada the priest took a chest — By the king’s order, 2Ch 24:8. And set it beside the altar — In the court of the priests. Upon comparing the passage in Chronicles, just referred to, with this, it seems probable that it was first placed by the altar, and afterward removed thence to the gate of the court, for the people’s greater satisfaction, that they might come thither, and put in their money with their own hands.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12:9-11 Joash’s solution for securing and distributing the money for Temple repairs included placing a large chest at an accessible place to receive the people’s contributions. When Joash informed the people of the need for a tax and voluntary offerings to complete the repairs, they “gladly brought their money and filled the chest with it” (2 Chr 24:9-10). With sufficient funds on hand, the money was given to the construction supervisors and the repair and restoration of the Temple began.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

That is, on the South side.

Or, vessel.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 9. Jehoiada - took a chest] This chest was at first set beside the altar, as is here mentioned; but afterwards, for the convenience of the people, it was set without the gate; see 2Ch 24:8.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(9) But.—And.

Jehoiada the priest took a chest.—By order of the king (2Ch_24:8).

Beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of the Lord.—Chronicles says: “in the gate of the house of the Lord outwards.” This can hardly refer to the same position. It probably describes where the chest, which became a permanent feature of the sanctuary, stood in the time after the return from the Captivity. The chronicler adds that offerings were asked by proclamation throughout the country, and that the princes and people readily contributed.

Put.—Rather, used to put. The chest was kept locked, and the Levitical doorkeepers received the money from those who offered it, and dropped it at once into the chest. This obviated all suspicion of a possible misapplication of the contributions.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. But Jehoiada the priest took a chest] The Chronicler says ‘At the king’s commandment they made a chest’. It is manifest that both king and priests were at one in changing the plan for raising a repair-fund. But it is not without interest to note that the narrative of Chronicles, which is assumed to bring the priest into prominence everywhere, here omits Jehoiada’s name from the story.

set it beside the altar] In Chronicles it is said to have been ‘set without at the gate of the house of the Lord’. The altar spoken of here is the brasen altar for burnt offerings which was outside the temple, in the court, before the porch of the temple. So the description in Chronicles appears to be a little less exact than in the verse before us. But the words which are added here ‘on the right side as one cometh into the house of the Lord’ may have given rise to the Chronicler’s more vague description ‘at the gate of the house of the Lord’. The account in Kings is to be preferred as drawn from some contemporary record and compiled earlier than the narrative in Chronicles.

all the money that was brought] In 2Ch_24:9-10 we are told that when the chest was set ‘they made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem to bring in to the Lord the collection that Moses, the servant of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness. And all the princes and all the people rejoiced, and brought in, and cast into the chest, until they had made an end’. While the money had been given by individuals at their homes, and with no united action, the preparations had languished. The new arrangement put life into the work. The givers saw that others were giving as well as they, and found that a sum was being gathered of which regular account was kept, so that there was now some hope that the work would be completed. Josephus exactly hits the feeling which would be created in this way when he says πολὺν ἄργυρον καὶ χρυσὸν φιλοτιμούμενοι καὶ συνεισφέροντες ἤθροισαν. The spirit of cooperation was invoked and the contributors saw that success was likely to attend what they were doing. Hence their zealous efforts. The history is not without its value in our own days.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And they gave the money, being told, into the hands of them that did the work, that had the oversight of the house of the Lord,.... Who were appointed overseers of the workmen employed in the repairs of the temple; which overseers were laymen, and not priests, they being discharged from any concern in the repairs: this money "told", Kimchi interprets of its being coined; he supposes money coined and uncoined to be brought, which was put in separate bags; and that, which was not coined, they coined it before they delivered it to the overseers to pay the workmen with:

and they laid it out to the carpenters and builders that wrought upon the house of the Lord; paid them with it, some that wrought in cutting the timber, and others in building with it.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The priests that kept the door - The north door into the priests’ court Eze 40:35-43 seems to be intended, not the door of the temple building. The chest must have been placed a little to the right of this north door, between it and the altar of burnt-offering, so that the people could see it from the doorway. The people were not ordinarily allowed to go within the doorway into this court, which belonged to the priests and Levites only.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

By the altar, yet without the enclosure, that any person might freely put in what he thought proper, 2 Paralipomenon xxiv. 8. Priests were still appointed to watch, that no fraud was committed: and they counted the money which the law ordained to be paid. Josephus (Jewish Wars vi. 5.) speaks of many coffers; one might be near the altar, and another out of the door. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Jehoiada the priest, by the king’s consent, 2Ch 24:8.

Beside the altar, in the priests’ court.

Object. It was placed without at the gate of the house of the Lord, 2Ch 24:8.

Answ. Either, first, It was first placed by the altar, and afterwards thence removed to the gate of the court, for the people’s greater satisfaction, that they might come thither, and put in their money with their own hands. Or, secondly, That place 2 Chron speaks of the gate of the temple strictly so called, nigh unto which the altar of burnt-offerings was. Or, thirdly, It was placed near the entrance into the priests’ court, which was over against the altar, and not far from it; so as the people standing in their own court might either put their money into it, or see when the priests put it in.

The priests that kept the door; the door of the priests’ court, which, together with the temple and all its utensils, was committed to the charge of the priests and Levites, Num 18:4; 1Ch 9:26, &c.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. Jehoiada… took a chest — This, according to 2Ch_24:8, was done “at the king’s commandment,” and was a much more popular measure than the one tried before. It provided that the contributions be audited and used by other persons besides the priests. Their’s was the trespass money and sin money, (2Ki_12:16,) but the chest was to receive the contributions for the repairing of the temple. “It was expected,” says Keil, “that the people would give more, when the collection was appointed for the special purpose of repairing the temple, than when they were to give the legal and voluntary payments only to the priests, whereby no giver knew how much of it might be applied for building.”

The priests… put therein all the money — Chronicles, however, seems to show that the people cast their money in the chest with their own hand. It may all have passed through the priests’ hands, but so publicly and with such oversight of interested parties as prevented all chance for embezzlement. There is not the slightest evidence that the priests and Levites had been guilty of any dishonesty in former collections, and yet there might have been suspicions.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But Jehoiada the priest took a chest. The writer of Chronicles says, "At the king"s commandment, they made a chest". (2Ch_24:8) The suggestion was probably the king"s, but the ecclesiastical and civil authorities worked harmoniously in the business. And bored a hole in the lid of it as hundreds of thousands have done since his timeand set it beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of the Lord. The altar intended is, of course, the altar of burnt offering, which was in the court of the temple, directly opposite the porch. The chest was placed outside the sanctuary, (2Ch_24:8) and, indeed, outside the porch, on the right hand as one entered into the court by the north door. It was thus very conspicuous. And the priests that kept the doori.e. the door of the courtput therein all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord. The priests received the money from those who offered, at the gate of the court, and, proceeding to the chest, dropped it in through the aperture. A man could not see that all which he had given was put in, but he reckoned on the good faith of the priest, and was satisfied.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Instead, Jehoiada

"Instead of the priests collecting the money, Jehoiada"

on the right side as one comes into the house of Yahweh

"on the right side of the entrance to the temple"

put into it

"put into the chest" or "put in the box"

the money that was brought

This can be stated in active form. AT: "the money that people brought" (See: Active or Passive)

put the money in bags and then count it

Many versions put this in a more logical order such as "count the money and put it in bags."

put the money in bags

Possible meanings are 1) "put the money in bags" or 2) "tied up the money in bags" .

the money found

"the money that they found in the chest"

translationWords

priest

altar

house of God

temple

king

scribe

high priest

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.