2 Kings 11:5 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
2 Kings 11:5
And he commanded them, saying, This is the thing that ye shall do; A third part of you that enter in on the sabbath shall even be keepers of the watch of the king’s house;
(intensively) to constitute · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
saying
לֵאמֹ֔רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
thing
הַדָּבָ֖רha.da.Var
H1697
a word · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
do
תַּעֲשׂ֑וּןta.'a.Sun
H6213
to do or make · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural + paragogic nun
part
הַשְּׁלִשִׁ֤יתha.she.li.Shit
H7992
third · definite article + ordinal number, feminine singular absolute
in
בָּאֵ֣יba.'Ei
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
sabbath
הַשַּׁבָּ֔תha.sha.Bat
H7676
intermission · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
keepers
וְשֹׁ֣מְרֵ֔יve.Sho.me.Rei
H8104
properly · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
watch
מִשְׁמֶ֖רֶתmish.Me.ret
H4931
watch · noun, common feminine singular construct
king’s
הַמֶּֽלֶךְha.Me.lekh
H4428
a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
house
בֵּ֥יתbeit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Chronicles 9:25 And their brethren, which were in their villages, were to come after seven days from time to time with them.
1 Kings 10:5 And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and…
2 Kings 11:19 And he took the rulers over hundreds, and the captains, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from t…
2 Kings 16:18 And the covert for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king’s entry without, turned he from the house of the LORD for the…
1 Chronicles 23:3-6 Now the Levites were numbered from the age of thirty years and upward: and their number by their polls, man by man, was thirty and eight tho…
1 Chronicles 23:32 And that they should keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the charge of the holy place, and the charge of the sons of…
1 Chronicles 24:3-6 And David distributed them, both Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, according to their offices in their ser…
Jeremiah 26:10 When the princes of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king’s house unto the house of the LORD, and sat down in the entry…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 11:4-12
Six years Athaliah tyrannised. We have not a particular account of her reign; no doubt it was of a piece with the beginning. While Jehu was extirpating the worship of Baal in Israel, she was establishing it in Judah, as appears, Ch2 24:7. The court and kingdom of Judah had been debauched by their alliance with the house of Ahab, and now one of that house is a curse and a plague to both: sinful friendships speed no better. All this while, Joash lay hid, entitled to a crown and intended for it, and yet buried alive in obscurity. Though the sons and heirs of heaven are now hidden, the world knows them not (Jo1 3:1), yet the time is fixed when they shall appear in glory, as Joash in his seventh…
HE IS MADE KING. (Kg2 11:4-12)
the seventh year--namely, of the reign of Athaliah, and the rescue of Jehoash.
Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers, &c.--He could scarcely have obtained such a general convocation except at the time, or on pretext, of a public and solemn festival. Having revealed to them the secret of the young king's preservation and entered into a covenant with them for the overthrow of the tyrant, he then arranged with them the plan and time of carrying their plot into execution (see on 2Ch. 22:10-23:21). The conduct of Jehoiada, who acted the leading and chief part in this conspiracy, admits of an easy and full justification; for, while Athaliah was a usurper, and belon…
That enter in on the Sabbath - It appears that Jehoiada chose the Sabbath day to proclaim the young king, because as that was a day of public concourse, the gathering together of the people who were in this secret would not be noticed; and it is likely that they all came unarmed, and were supplied by Jehoiada with the spears and shields which David had laid up in the temple, Kg2 11:10.
The priests and Levites were divided into twenty-four classes by David, and each served a week by turns in the temple, and it was on the Sabbath that they began the weekly service, all this favored Jehoiada's design.
The Church Fathers
"Let a third part of you come in on the Sabbath, etc." [2 Kings 11:5] This is what the high priest Jehoiada said to the priests and Levites when he brought forth Joash the son of Azariah, whom he had secretly nurtured in the temple for six years during Athaliah's reign: "Let a third part of you come in on the Sabbath and keep watch at the house of the king; let a third part be at the Gate of Seir, and a third part at the gate which is behind the habitat of the guards; you will keep watch at the house of Mesha. Let two parts of you, all going out on the Sabbath, keep watch at the house of the Lord around the king, and you shall surround him, having weapons in your hands," and the rest which is mentioned or done there. These things can be better understood if some things about the places in the temple where these events occurred are more broadly recalled. The temple itself, excluding the porticos which surrounded it on all sides, was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide within its walls (this is the initial measurement named in the Words of the Days). The entire circumference of the courtyard was surrounded by a wall three cubits high, having an entrance on the east side, of which Scripture in the Book of Kings thus makes mention: "And he built the inner court three rows of hewn stone and one row of cedar logs" (I Kings VI). This court is called inner because there are other outer courts surrounding it. Furthermore, in the Words of the Days, it is thus written: "He made also the court of the priests and a great hall and doors in the hall which he covered with bronze" (II Chronicles IV). This court of the priests is so named because it was made to guard against the entrance of others into the temple, signifying that only the priests were permitted to enter. This same court was closer to the wall of the temple from the south, west, and north sides. Further to the east, where it also had an entrance through steps, it extended to a great length from the temple, as in that part it had the altar of burnt offerings, in that part ten lavers in which the offerings were washed, in that part the bronze sea in which the priests who were about to enter for ministry washed, in that part the choirs of Levites for the sacrificing and chanting priests. This courtyard, however, was surrounded all around at a distance by a very large square building. Its inner wall, that…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Church And State · .Withdraws support and anoints a succes — .Withdraws support and anoints a succes
Levites, The · Guarded king’s person and house in times of danger — Guarded king’s person and house in times of danger
Loyalty · .Jehoiada — .Jehoiada
Orphan · .Joash — .Joash
Palaces · Of kings: Were strictly guarded — Of kings: Were strictly guarded
Usurpation · .By Athaliah — .By Athaliah
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on 2 Kings 11:5
And he commanded them, saying, this is the thing that ye shall do,.... These were the rulers over hundreds among the priests and Levites, and which he, as high priest, could command, and whom he could convene without suspicion, being such as he had a connection with, and were unarmed men: and for the better understanding of what follows, it should be observed, that the priests, in the times of David, were divided into twenty four courses, which were by turns to serve a week in the temple; the course that came in entered when the sabbath began, and that which went out went out when it ended, and each course consisted of a thousand men: now with respect to both these courses, both that which w…
Dethronement of Athaliah and Coronation of Joash (compare the account in 2 Chron 23, which is more elaborate in several points).
(Note: In both accounts we have only short extracts preserved from a common and more complete original, the extracts having been made quite independently of one another and upon different plans. Hence the apparent discrepancies, which have arisen partly from the incompleteness of the two abridged accounts, and partly from the different points of view from which the extracts were made, but which contain no irreconcilable contradictions. The assertion of De Wette, which has been repeated by Thenius and Bertheau, that the chronicler distorted the true state of the cas…
Jehoiada divided the royal guard into distinctive units: some to guard the young king; others to take up posts at the palace, the Sur Gate (or Foundation Gate, 2 Chr 23:5), and positions behind the palace guard; and still others to stand guard . . . at the Lord’s Temple. All care was taken to secure the king and the site for his anointing.
Rashi on 2 Kings 11:5
One third of you of those who come on Shabbos. The watches would be renewed on Shabbos,8See Mishnayos Maseches Taanis 2:6,7. There were twenty-four families of kohanim and Leviyim that served in rotation in the Beis Hamikdosh. They changed places on Shabbos. the watches of the kohanim and Leviyim. one would enter and one would leave. He ordered the watch that was entering, to divide into three parts, one third in the king’s palace, to guard that no one rise up against the king to assassinate him.9I.e., Yoash.
