Lux Lucet

The Sins of Athaliah and the Bravery of Jehosheba

Queen Athaliah was, in the first place, a usurper.  As the verse quoted at the top of this post reads, she attempted to extinguish all the rightful royal heirs to the throne of Judah.  These were the descendants of King David, whom God promised an everlasting dynasty.  This makes Athaliah not only a feminist and a political revolutionary and a murderer, but someone who deliberately tried to undo what God had decreed concerning the Davidic line of kings.  But that’s not all.  Like her mother, Jezebel, Athaliah also was a promoter of Baal worship.  So to her list of sins, we can add idolatry.

Athaliah went on to reign for six years.  Although Scripture does not tell us so, she probably thought she had gotten away with her bloodshed.  But such was not the case. II Kings 11:2 tells us that Jehosheba, the sister of deceased King Ahaziah and wife of the current High Priest Jehoiada, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and hid him in the temple for six years. 

I’d like to take a moment to note the importance of what Jehosheba did at great risk to herself.  We read, “But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being murdered; and they hid him and his nurse in the bedroom, from Athaliah, so that he was not killed. So he was hidden with her in the house of the Lord for six years, while Athaliah reigned over the land” (II Kings 11:2, 3).

Although we are citing the usurpation of Athaliah and her eventual removal from power as an example of the DLM, the example of Jehosheba is not to be overlooked.  Most of us are not elected or appointed government officials.  I never have held political office and I doubt that most of my readers have either. So while the DLM has bearing on all of us as Christians, it does not describe our own personal situation.  But Jehosheba’s position is certainly one those of us who are not in authority can identify with and learn from.

Jehosheba, as the Scriptures tell us, was the daughter of King Joram and the sister of the late King Ahaziah, who had been killed by Jehu, King of Israel.  Since the infant Joash was Ahaziah’s son, Jehosheba was Joash’s aunt.  In the parallel passage in II Chronicles, we learn that Jehosheba was the wife of Jehoiada, the faithful High Priest who would later remove Athaliah from power and have Joash anointed king. 

Now while Jehosheba was someone of high social standing, she was not a person in a position of formal authority.  She held no official office.  Although well-connected, Jehosheba was a private citizen.  But while she was not a person in authority, she used her position as part of the royal family, at great risk to herself, to rescue the rightful heir to the Davidic throne.       

Jehosheba’s righteous action in rescuing Joash is a model for what most of us who are not civil magistrates of any sort can do to resist an evil government.  Unlike the example from last week, where King Joash’s servants murdered him, Jehosheba took no violent action.  As a private person, she interposed herself between an evil queen and the rightful heir to the throne of Judah. 

As private citizens, Christians have both a right and duty to resist evil.  Think, for example, of those who hid Jews during WWII and refused to turn them over to the Nazis or of those in America prior to the Civil War who sheltered escaped slaves. 

As private citizens and as Christians, we have the right and responsibility to pray for ourselves and our nation.  Ourselves in that we ask God for discernment to understand what’s going on around us.  We are warned multiple times in the Scriptures not to be deceived, yet there are powerful forces out there trying to blind Christians to what is going on around them and to confuse them on where to look for answers.  We are to pray for ourselves also that we have the courage and wisdom to act properly.  If we discern the truth but fail to take proper action, we do ourselves and others no good.  What if Jehosheba, seeing the evil deeds of Athaliah, had understood the danger to Joash but had taken no action?  Would we commend her?  Likewise, we are called to pray, “For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” 

As private citizens, we also have the right and duty to speak out against evil.  Consider the example of John the Baptist who was put in prison for speaking out against Herod’s brother’s marriage to Herodias.  Worth noting is that John the Baptist eventually was executed for his outspokenness.  But this does not make what he did wrong.  It simply underscored the evil of the Herodian dynasty. 

It also underscores the very real risk that private citizens who are Christians face when speaking out against evil.  In our own time, in America, at least for now, one does not run the risk of being executed for rebuking evil from the Word of God.  In some places, even in the West, one can be thrown in jail or fined for expressing God’s condemnation of homosexuality or resisting governmental orders to take the experimental Covid gene therapy.  American Christians need to understand that this can come here too, despite our guaranteed First Amendment right of free speech and our long tradition of upholding it. 

Another way in which Christians who are private citizens can resist evil is to be involved in the political process.  We can run for office ourselves or support candidates who are believers and who uphold the Constitution.  Some may object to this by saying the Bible tells us not to put our faith in princes.  Very well.  The Scriptures do teach this.  But why should Christians not be part of the political process in a free republic?  There is no Biblical prohibition on Christians being involved in the political process, either as candidates themselves or working to support those who do run.  The Apostle Paul calls the civil magistrate “God’s minister.”  Civil government is a creature of God.  And as it says in Proverbs, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.” But how can there be righteous men in authority if Christians abandon the political process?  Jesus called his followers to be salt and light to a lost and dying world.  Serving as faithfully in elected office or supporting those who serve faithfully in elected office is one of many ways Christians can be salt and light. 

One caveat concerning Christian involvement in the political process is the temptation to compromise.  The utter failure of the conservative movement in America in the post-war years bears witness to this.  For all the time, money, and effort Christians have poured into conservative political causes, what do we have to show for it?  Have our liberties been preserved and enhanced or not?  Has the moral climate of the nation improved or not?  Very clearly, the answer is “no” to both.  Too often, Christians have found themselves compromising on the Gospel to gain some promised political win and ended up with nothing in return.  What does it profit a man if he bans abortion but yokes in ministry with Roman Catholics, confuses the Gospel, and loses his own soul in the process?        

Closing

Once again, I find myself at the end of this post not having gotten to the main subject I wanted to write about, namely, Jehoida’s example of a lesser magistrate interposing himself between wicked Queen Athaliah and both Joash, the rightful heir to the Davidic throne and the people of Judah.  In the providence of God, that will have to wait until next week.   

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