In As You Like It, Shakespeare wrote these famous lines: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and every man in his time plays many parts.”
The bard went on to say that every man has seven acts in his life: (1) Infancy, when he is “mewling and puking” in his nurse’s arms: (2) Whining schoolboy with satchel and shining morning face creeping like a snail unwilling to school; (3) Lover, sighing like a furnace with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow; (4) Soldier, full of strange oaths; sudden, quick in quarrel; (5) Justice with round belly, severe eyes, beard of formal cut, wise words; (6) The sixth stage “shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon with spectacles on nose…and big manly voice turning again toward childish treble, pipes; (7) Last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth; sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
In this post, the spotlight on the stage of scripture is on Joash, the eighth king of Judah in the succession of kings following the division of the kingdom after Solomon’s death. The years are 835-796 B.C., and the record is in II Chronicles 24 and II Kings 12, where we see Joash’s providential rise, privileged rule, and pathetic ruin.
- Providential rise: After Jehu had Joash’s father, Ahaziah, king of Judah, killed, the evil mother of Athaliah “arose and destroyed all the seed royal.” (II Kings 11:1). But King Joram’s daughter, Jehosheba, sister of Ahaziah, hid the infant son of Ahaziah, sparing him death when the rest of the royal seed was slain. She hid and nursed him in her house until he was six years of age, while Athaliah reigned over the land. Joash had been marked for death but was providentially spared the wicked woman’s evil plot by a caring aunt.
When the child was seven years of age, the godly priest, Jehoiada, colluded with the rulers over hundreds—captains and guards—and entered into a covenant with them to depose Queen Athaliah and anoint Joash as the rightful king of Judah. The daring plot succeeded; the queen, crying “treason, treason,” was slain at the horse gate by the king’s house, and young Joash was installed as king, entering into a covenant with Jehoiada “between all the people, and between the king, that they should be the Lord’s people.” (II Chr. 23:16)
- Privileged rule: His reign of 40 years was summarized in II Chr. 24:2: “And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.” He led in the repairing of the temple, spearheading the collection of the funds and materials with which to accomplish this task: “So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it.” (II Chr. 24:13). God’s house had been in a wretched state of disrepair—dirty and ruinous—in a time when magnificent palaces, theatres, ball-rooms and houses of frivolity were garnished. Jehoiada and Joash responded and left a legacy of respect and reverence for the House of God.
- Pathetic ruin. We are told that in time Jehoiada, the good priest and godly mentor of King Joash, “waxed old and was full of days when he died.” Almost immediately following the burial of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah, making obeisance to the king, persuaded him to pursue a different course: “Then the king hearkened unto them. And they left the house of the Lord God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass.” (II Chr. 24:15-19) From there, things went “south” quickly. Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, rebuked the king and his idol-worshipping court and was stoned to death. Before the year’s end, the king of Syria, with a small band, defeated Joash and Judah “because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers.” (II Chr. 24:24) Joash, suffering from an unspecified disease, was slain in his own bed by his own servants, “and they buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings.”
The life, labors, and last days of this king—spared by God from death as a baby, to live to reign as a child and later as an adult with guidance from a guardian-priest of God—offer many priceless lessons. We cannot live on the faith and obedience of others. As long as Jehoiada was alive, Joash walked the straight and narrow; when this godly guide passed away, at the age of 130, it seems as if the devil’s minions had an easy time in dissuading Joash from continuing the life that pleases God. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17) Let us all look, listen and live in the light of the spiritual warfare all around us, and let us ever “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” (Eph. 6:10)
“Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.” (II Pet. 3:17,18)
YOU and GOD 