1 In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. 2 And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days he was instructed by Jehoiada the priest.
3 Nevertheless, the high places were not removed; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.
4 Then Joash said to the priests, “Collect all the money brought as sacred gifts into the house of the LORD—the census money, the money from vows, and the money brought voluntarily into the house of the LORD. 5 Let every priest receive it from his constituency, and let it be used to repair any damage found in the temple.”
6 By the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash, however, the priests had not yet repaired the damage to the temple. 7 So King Joash called Jehoiada and the other priests and said, “Why have you not repaired the damage to the temple? Now, therefore, take no more money from your constituency, but hand it over for the repair of the temple.”
8 So the priests agreed that they would not receive money from the people and that they would not repair the temple themselves.
9 Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one enters the house of the LORD. There the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money brought into the house of the LORD.
10 Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of money in the chest, the royal scribe and the high priest would go up, count the money brought into the house of the LORD, and tie it up in bags. 11 Then they would put the counted money into the hands of those who supervised the work on the house of the LORD, who in turn would pay those doing the work—the carpenters, builders, 12 masons, and stonecutters. They also purchased timber and dressed stone to repair the damage to the house of the LORD, and they paid the other expenses of the temple repairs.
REFLECTIONS
Written by Stephen Shead
Earlier we saw the courage and faithfulness of Joash’s aunt and uncle, Jehosheba and Jehoiada the priest. It’s encouraging to see their influence on Joash – that he grows up with a firm commitment to worshiping the Lord and seeing that his people do the same. Apparently the temple in Jerusalem had been neglected and was in disrepair. Under the old covenant, this was the dwelling place of God among the people, so Joash’s insistence on restoring it was a sign of his genuine faith.
I’m not sure what was behind the delay in the building project actually going ahead – did the priests want to do it themselves to save money, and they just never got around to it? At any rate, that all felt way too close to home. It feels too similar to the delays we’ve had in trying to make progress on our plans to improve and expand our church buildings…
Except in a very important sense, it’s not at all similar, because our church buildings are NOT temples! We could meet in a warehouse, a barn, or a house like the New Testament churches, and it would be fine. (If you come from a church tradition where that hasn’t been clear, then repeat after me: “A church building is not a temple, it’s just a building.” Or better still, read John 2:21, Ephesians 2:19-22 and 1 Corinthians 3:16 – we are God’s temple, because Jesus is the true temple and he lives in us.)
The thing that is the same, though, is the importance of God’s people being joyfully generous in giving to support the work of ministry – motivated by a zeal for God’s name and for people to come to him. Maybe that’s something you can pray about now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen is our senior minister.