2 Chronicles 24:15–22, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
2 Chronicles 24:15–22
After Jehoiada's death, Zechariah is stoned
When the priest who saved him is buried, the king hears new princes
Jehoiada waxes old and is full of days; he is a hundred and thirty when he dies. They bury him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, toward God and toward his house. After his death the princes of Judah come and make obeisance to the king. The king hearkens. They leave the house of the LORD God of their fathers and serve groves and idols, and wrath comes on Judah and Jerusalem for this trespass. Prophets are sent to bring them again; they will not give ear.
The man who hid Joash, crowned him, and ran the repair is gone. Memory is now a test. Obeisance is flattery with a program. The turn is not a small liturgical disagreement; it is abandonment of the house that sheltered the king as a child.
Zechariah is stoned in the temple court at the king's commandment
The Spirit of God comes upon Zechariah, son of Jehoiada the priest. He stands above the people: Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you. They conspire against him and stone him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD. Thus Joash remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. When Zechariah dies, he says, The LORD look upon it, and require it.
The rescued child, grown, orders the priest's son killed in the same sacred courts that hid him. Remembered not condemns betrayal of received kindness, not ordinary forgetfulness. The dying appeal is this victim's cry, not a warrant for later curses, martyr-seeking, or violence against people who change religious practice.
How this should shape us
Gratitude that lasts only while a patron is alive is not gratitude. Do not stone a public rebuke, and do not use Zechariah's last words as permission to hunt anyone in his name.
Teach it back
Explain 2 Chronicles 24:15–22 in your own words. Include its movement, placement in Chronicles, one Samuel-Kings comparison, one material uncertainty, one affected person or group, and one modern use the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The identity and later reception of Zechariah differ across traditions; the narrative's charge against Joash is clearer than every genealogical correlation.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
2 Chronicles 24:15–22, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 24:15–22
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
STEP Bible NET2full, 2 Chronicles 24:15–22, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Supports: Publisher-visible framing of the Chronicler's God, worship, Israel, kingship, retribution, and hope, used within its access limitation rather than as uninspected detailed commentary.
Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles (2009), chapter 3, 'The People of Israel,' pp. 209–307, and chapter 4, 'Kingship,' pp. 308–383; only the official exposed openings and ranges were inspected
Supports: A postexilic identity-negotiation model used as a reconstruction, never as ethnic prescription or explicit author biography.
Jonker, Verbum et Ecclesia 24.2 (2003), complete article, sections on Persian-period Yehud, older tradition, cultic identity, and multi-ethnic context
Supports: A recent critical reading of institutional legitimation and selective historical discourse, used without reducing all worship to elite manipulation.
Geyser-Fouché, HTS 79.1 (2023), complete official HTML, sections on selective narration, temple and personnel, royal patronage, Athaliah and Joash, exile, and power
Supports: Case-sensitive distinction between events and literary presentation in ancient historiography, including credibility limits and rhetorical shaping.
Kalimi, 'History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility,' repository PDF pp. 7–25
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Chronicles 24:15–22, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Chronicles
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 24:15–22
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Full Notes: 2 Chronicles
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 2 Chronicles 24:15–22, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Open source ↗modern scholarly monograph limited access
The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought
Sara Japhet
Eisenbrauns / Penn State University Press, English edition 1989; reprint 2009
Supports: Publisher-visible framing of the Chronicler's God, worship, Israel, kingship, retribution, and hope, used within its access limitation rather than as uninspected detailed commentary.
Exact location: Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles (2009), chapter 3, 'The People of Israel,' pp. 209–307, and chapter 4, 'Kingship,' pp. 308–383; only the official exposed openings and ranges were inspected
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
The rhetorics of finding a new identity in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society: The case of the book of Chronicles
Louis C. Jonker
Verbum et Ecclesia 24(2), article 350, 2003
Supports: A postexilic identity-negotiation model used as a reconstruction, never as ethnic prescription or explicit author biography.
Exact location: Jonker, Verbum et Ecclesia 24.2 (2003), complete article, sections on Persian-period Yehud, older tradition, cultic identity, and multi-ethnic context
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
1 and 2 Chronicles as a discourse of power
Ananda Geyser-Fouche
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 79(1), article 8011, 2023
Supports: A recent critical reading of institutional legitimation and selective historical discourse, used without reducing all worship to elite manipulation.
Exact location: Geyser-Fouché, HTS 79.1 (2023), complete official HTML, sections on selective narration, temple and personnel, royal patronage, Athaliah and Joash, exile, and power
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility: Chronicles in Its Ancient Context
Isaac Kalimi
Poznań Theological Studies repository edition, pp. 7-25, 2019 repository edition
Supports: Case-sensitive distinction between events and literary presentation in ancient historiography, including credibility limits and rhetorical shaping.
Exact location: Kalimi, 'History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility,' repository PDF pp. 7–25
Open source ↗