chest set up,—­ not, however, beside the altar, but only at the doorway (xxiv. 8; comp. 2Kings xii. 10).  The clergy, the Levites, are charged only with making the collection, not with maintaining the building out of the sacred revenues; consequently they are not reproached with keeping the money to themselves, but only with not being heartily enough disposed towards the collection.  It appears, however, that they were perfectly justified in this backwardness, for the king has only to set up the “treasury of God,” when forthwith it overflows with the voluntary offerings of the people who flock to it, so that out of the proceeds something remains over (ver. 14) for certain other purposes—­which according to 2Kings xii. 14 [13] were expressly excluded.  Joash imposes no demands at all upon the priests, and Jehoiada in particular stands over against him as invested with perfectly equal rights; if the king sends his scribe, the high priest also does not appear personally, but causes himself to be represented by a delegate (xxiv. 11; comp. 2Kings xii. 11 [10]).  Here also many a new piece does not come well into the old garment, as De Wette (i. 10O) shows.  Chronicles itself tacitly gives the honour to the older narrative by making Joash at last apostatise from Mosaism and refuse the grateful deference which he owed to the high priest; this is the consequence of the unpleasant impression, derived not from its own story, but from that of the Book of Kings, with regard to the undue interference of the otherwise pious king in the affairs of the sanctuary and of the priests.

Chronicles reaps the fruits of its perversion of 2Kings xii. in its reproduction of the nearly related and closely connected section 2Kings xxii. 3-IO.  It is worth while once more to bring the passages together.

2Kings xxii. 2Chronicles xxxiv.

3.  And in the eighteenth year 8.  And in the eighteenth year of king Josiah the king sent of his reign, to cleanse the Shaphan the son of Azaliah, land and the house, he sent the son of Meshullam, the scribe, Shaphan the son of Azaliah, to the house of Jehovah, saying, and Maaseiah the governor of
                                    the city, and Joah the son of
4.  Go up to Hilkiah the high Joahaz the recorder, to repair priest, that he may empty the the house of Jehovah his God. money which hath been brought into the house of Jehovah 9.  And they came to Hilkiah which the keepers of the the high priest, and they threshold have gathered of delivered the money that had the people. been brought into the house
                                    of God which the Levites that
5.  And let them deliver it into kept the threshold had gathered the hand of the doers of the from Ephraim and Manasseh and work that have the oversight all the remnant of Israel and of the house of Jehovah, and from all Judah