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1Jehoash began to reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. 2Jehoash did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. 3However, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places.

4Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the holy things that is brought into Yahweh’s house, in current money, the money of the people for whom each man is evaluated, and all the money that it comes into any man’s heart to bring into Yahweh’s house, 5let the priests take it to them, each man from his donor; and they shall repair the damage to the house, wherever any damage is found.”

6But it was so, that in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had not repaired the damage to the house. 7Then King Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest, and for the other priests, and said to them, “Why aren’t you repairing the damage to the house? Now therefore take no more money from your treasurers, but deliver it for repair of the damage to the house.”

8The priests consented that they should take no more money from the people, and not repair the damage to the house. 9But Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into Yahweh’s house; and the priests who kept the threshold put all the money that was brought into Yahweh’s house into it. 10When they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king’s scribe and the high priest came up, and they put it in bags and counted the money that was found in Yahweh’s house. 11They gave the money that was weighed out into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of Yahweh’s house; and they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on Yahweh’s house, 12and to the masons and the stone cutters, and for buying timber and cut stone to repair the damage to Yahweh’s house, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it. 13But there were not made for Yahweh’s house cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold or vessels of silver, of the money that was brought into Yahweh’s house; 14for they gave that to those who did the work, and repaired Yahweh’s house with it. 15Moreover they didn’t demand an accounting from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to give to those who did the work; for they dealt faithfully. 16The money for the trespass offerings and the money for the sin offerings was not brought into Yahweh’s house. It was the priests’.

17Then Hazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath, and took it; and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem. 18Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own holy things, and all the gold that was found in the treasures of Yahweh’s house, and of the king’s house, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria; and he went away from Jerusalem.

19Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 20His servants arose and made a conspiracy, and struck Joash at the house of Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla. 21For Jozacar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, his servants, struck him, and he died; and they buried him with his fathers in David’s city; and Amaziah his son reigned in his place.

Place

Hebron

Type
City
Location
31.524, 35.109
 Site Study | Brian Kvasnica

Beyond the important connections between Abraham, the other patriarchs, and the matriarchs centered around the Machpelah Cave (see above at Gen 23:3), Hebron continued to be a central city in Biblical history, earning the place of one of the four most sacred cities in Jewish tradition. Hebron was a city of refuge and a Levitical city (Josh 21:11-13 and 1 Chr 6:55-57)  as well as the place where David first centered his reign: at the pool (traditionally connected with Birket es-Sultan), David executed the two sons of Rimmon who had murdered Saul’s son Ishboshet (2 Sam 4:12); and  where David was crowned king (2 Sam 2:3-4; 5:5)  and reigned for 7 ½ years where six sons were born to him before conquering Jerusalem where he had 13 more sons.  Even after the Exile in the sixth century BC, Jews returned to Hebron (Neh 11:25) probably living alongside Edomites.  In the second-century BC Simon Maccabeus took Hebron from the Edomites (1 Macc 5:65; Josephus, Antiquities, XII, viii, 6) and in the Great revolt of AD 70, first Simon bar-Gioras captured the city (Josephus, War, IV, ix, 7), and then Vespasian’s general Cerealis conquered it, slaughtering its inhabitants and burning it (War IV, ix, 9).

Copyright © 2026 Brian Kvasnica. All rights reserved.

Hebron in the Land of Canaan

 Site Study | Brian Kvasnica | Hebron

23:2 Hebron was first built as a Canaanite city seven years prior to Zoan (Greek Tanis) in Egypt (Num 13:22) and is located 3,040 ft. above sea-level in the southern tribal allotment of Judah.  The city is also called Kiriath-Arba (Gen 23:2, etc.) possibly after a forefather of the Anakim (Josh 14:15; 15:13), or as of the four cities, thus “City-of-Four” (Hebrew arba, “four”; see Josh 15:54; 2 Sam 2:3; Neh 11:25). Here Abram’s name was changed to Abraham (Gen 17:5) and here (in conjunction with Mamre), came the three angels with the promise of a son (18:1 ff.).  At Hebron, Isaac and Jacob often lived (35:27; 37:14).  From Hebron Jacob sent Joseph to seek his brothers (37:14).  There also Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt (46:1).  Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah from Ephron in order to bury Sarah (Genesis 23), and Abraham himself was buried there (Gen 25:9-10), as was Isaac (Gen 35:27-29), and all the patriarchs and their wives except Rachel (49:30ff; 50:13).  Today the site is known as Tel Hebron or Jebel Rumeidah and is inhabited by a few dozen Jewish families after excavations were carried out by P.C. Hammond in the 1960’s but not published and in the 1980’s by A. Ofer as well as M. Anbar and N. Na’aman.  More recently Emanuel Eisenberg excavated the north side of the tell and Jeffrey Chadwick is beginning to write up Hammond’s report.  In Arabic today, the town is known as el Khalil ("the friend” of God), a favorite name for Abraham, as seen also in James 2:23.  The gigantic edifice built by Herod the Great still stands and is a place for many pilgrimages even today.  For later Biblical and post-biblical connections see further site study on Hebron at 1 Chr 3:1.

Copyright © 2026 Brian Kvasnica. All rights reserved.
Person & place data: Theographic Bible Metadata by Robert Rouse (Viz.Bible), CC BY-SA 4.0.