Jehoash of Israel

Jehoash was the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, and appears under both the names Jehoash and Joash.[1][3] He is distinct from Joash son of Ahaziah, the king of Judah whose reign provides the chronological reference for his accession.[4] The shared royal name therefore belongs to two separate monarchs: Jehoash son of Jehoahaz ruled Israel from Samaria, whereas Joash son of Ahaziah ruled Judah.[4]

His father’s reign was marked by pressure from Hazael, king of Aram, who oppressed Israel and took Israelite towns.[1] These losses formed the setting for Jehoash’s later campaigns against Hazael’s successor, Ben-hadad, in which he recovered towns previously lost by his father.[1] The account of his reign thus connects his military activity directly with the territorial reverses suffered under Jehoahaz.[1]

Jehoash’s accession is placed in the thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah, and his reign is assigned a duration of sixteen years.[1] One reconstruction dates his rule to 801–785 B.C.E. and allows for a period of two years or more during which he shared the throne with Jehoahaz.[3] The biblical accession notice itself supplies a synchronism with the Judahite king rather than an absolute B.C.E. date.[1]

Jehoash ruled Israel from Samaria, the city named both at his accession and as the destination to which he returned after his campaign against Judah.[1][2] The religious assessment of his kingship is negative: he continued the sins associated with Jeroboam son of Nebat and did not turn away from them.[1] Alongside that judgment, the account records military recoveries against Aram, his encounter with Elisha, and his victory over Amaziah.[1][2]

The regional circumstances of his campaigns included Assyrian attacks that weakened Aram.[3] In 796 B.C.E., Adad-Nirari III campaigned against Manṣuate in the Lebanon valley and attacked Damascus, defeating Aramean forces and exacting tribute from Ben-Hadad III.[3] This pressure on Damascus provided an important stimulus to Israel’s recovery of territory east of the Jordan.[3] Jehoash’s wars against Aram consequently took place amid a wider struggle in which Assyrian military intervention reduced the power of Israel’s adversary.[3]

An Assyrian inscription from Telel-Rimah names Jehoash of Samaria, written as Ia'asu, among those paying tribute to Adad-Nirari III.[3] Another inscription, from Calah, lists Tyre, Sidon, “the land of Omri,” Edom, and Philistia among the countries subdued by Adad-Nirari’s campaign; “the land of Omri” denotes Israel in this account.[3] Jehoash’s tribute payment is the basis for an interpretation that he recognized Assyrian sovereignty, although that political relationship is an inference from the inscription rather than its directly stated conclusion.[3]

A central episode in Jehoash’s reign concerns his visit to Elisha during the illness from which the prophet would die.[1] The king wept over him and cried, “Father, father! Israel’s chariots and riders!”[1] His words and tears accompany an encounter in which Elisha directs the king’s actions and announces the extent of his coming successes against Aram.[1] The episode places Jehoash’s military prospects within a personal exchange between the ruler and the dying prophet.[1]

Elisha told Jehoash to take a bow and arrows, open the east window, and shoot.[1] The king shot eastward, and Elisha identified the shot as an arrow of victory over Aram, announcing that Jehoash would rout Aram at Aphek.[1] The geographical setting of the subsequent wars at Aphek is placed east of the Sea of Galilee, and those campaigns appear to have broken Aram’s strength.[3] The promise of victory at Aphek is therefore associated with the same struggle for the recovery of Israelite territory described elsewhere in the reign.[1][3]

Elisha next instructed the king to strike the ground with the arrows.[1] Jehoash struck three times and stopped, provoking the prophet’s anger.[1] Elisha told him that five or six blows would have meant the annihilation of Aram, whereas stopping at three meant that he would defeat Aram only three times.[1] The distinction in the episode is between limited, repeated victories and the more complete destruction that Elisha said a greater number of blows would have represented.[1]

Elisha died and was buried after this encounter.[1] The surrounding narrative also describes Moabite bands entering the land during Jehoash’s reign.[1] In an episode associated with those raids, people carrying out a burial saw raiders and threw a dead man’s body into Elisha’s grave.[5] When the corpse touched the prophet’s bones, the man came to life and stood up.[5] This account follows the king’s meeting with Elisha and places the prophet’s burial within the same narrative setting of insecurity and foreign incursions.[1][5]

The recovery of towns from Aram followed the death of Hazael and the succession of his son Ben-hadad.[1] Hazael had oppressed Israel throughout the reign of Jehoash’s father, and the towns Jehoash recovered were those taken from Jehoahaz.[1] Jehoash defeated Ben-hadad three times and restored the Israelite towns.[1] The number of victories matches the limit announced by Elisha after the king struck the ground three times with the arrows.[1]

The account gives Israel’s preservation a religious explanation as well as describing its military recovery.[1] God’s continued concern for Israel is connected with the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.[1] Within this presentation, the survival of Israel and the recovery of its towns stand alongside the unfavorable religious judgment on Jehoash himself.[1][1] His reign is therefore depicted as a period in which the kingdom recovered territory despite the king’s continuation of the practices condemned in the royal assessment.[1]

Jehoash’s other major conflict was with Amaziah, king of Judah, who challenged him after a victory over Edom.[2] Before the battle, Jehoash answered with a parable about a thistle and a cedar in Lebanon.[2] In the parable, the thistle sent the cedar a request that the cedar’s daughter be given in marriage to the thistle’s son, but a passing wild beast trampled the thistle.[2] The contrast between the two plants accompanied Jehoash’s warning that Amaziah should not allow his success over Edom to make him arrogant.[2]

The warning was directed not only at Amaziah’s personal ambition but also at the disaster that provoking war could bring upon Judah.[2] Jehoash urged him not to pursue a confrontation that would lead to his own fall and that of his kingdom.[2] Amaziah nevertheless refused to heed the warning, and the two kings met at Beth-shemesh in Judah.[2] Judah was defeated, its troops fled, and Jehoash captured Amaziah.[2]

After the victory, Jehoash advanced to Jerusalem.[2] He breached four hundred cubits of the city wall between the Ephraim Gate and the Corner Gate.[2] The account specifies both the length of the demolished section and the gates marking its limits, distinguishing the damage to Jerusalem from the earlier fighting at Beth-shemesh.[2] Amaziah’s defeat was thus followed by a direct attack on the defenses of his royal city.[2]

Jehoash took gold, silver, and vessels from the Temple, as well as valuables from the royal palace treasury.[2] He also took hostages and returned to Samaria.[2] The campaign’s outcome therefore included the capture of the Judahite king, a breach in Jerusalem’s wall, the removal of Temple and palace wealth, and the transfer of hostages to Israel’s royal center.[2] These are the principal consequences attached to Jehoash’s victory in the account of the war.[2]

The circumstances preceding the conflict have also been connected with a possible earlier relationship between the two kingdoms.[3] One proposed reconstruction has Israel and Judah cooperating in a campaign against Edom before falling out for an unspecified reason.[3] A separate account in Chronicles describes Amaziah hiring one hundred thousand Israelite soldiers before his Edomite campaign.[3] The narrative in Kings, by contrast, moves from Amaziah’s success against Edom to his challenge, Jehoash’s warning, and the battle at Beth-shemesh.[2][3]

Jehoash’s death was followed by burial in Samaria with the kings of Israel, and his son Jeroboam succeeded him.[2] Amaziah survived Jehoash by fifteen years.[2] A reconstruction placing Jehoash’s death in 785 B.C.E. situates it shortly after his victory over Amaziah, in the fifteenth year of Amaziah’s reign.[3] Chronological information concerning Jeroboam has also been used to suggest that father and son may have shared royal authority during Jehoash’s final years.[3]

Jehoash left the throne to Jeroboam, whose reign continued the narrative of Israelite territorial recovery.[2][2] Jeroboam is assigned forty-one years of rule in Samaria and is credited with restoring Israel’s territory from Lebo-hamath to the Sea of the Arabah.[2] That restoration is connected with a divine promise delivered through the prophet Jonah son of Amittai.[2] The succession therefore links Jehoash’s recovery of towns from Aram with a further expansion of Israel’s territory under his son.[1][2]

The notices of Jehoash’s reign direct readers to the Annals of the Kings of Israel for further information about his acts, his might, and his war with Amaziah.[1][2] This reference appears both in the account of his rule and in the closing notice associated with the conflict with Judah.[1][2] His remembered royal accomplishments include the recovery of lost towns and the defeat of a neighboring king, while the religious assessment continues to condemn his adherence to the sins associated with Jeroboam son of Nebat.[1][2]

The contrast between that religious judgment and Jehoash’s grief for Elisha has drawn interpretive attention.[6] Éliezer Livneh argues that the king’s tears and participation in the arrow ritual illustrate a close relationship between monarch and prophet.[6] In “Prophecy and Monarchy”, Livneh emphasizes the difference between Jehoash’s unfavorable religious characterization and his emotional response to Elisha’s approaching death.[6] This reading treats the encounter as evidence of a relationship that cannot be reduced to the negative evaluation attached to the king’s conduct.[6]

Historical retellings have likewise centered on the wars against Aram and Judah.[7][8] One account describes Israel’s recovery from Aramean power under Jehoash and tentatively connects the change with Hittite and Egyptian opposition to Damascus.[7] Its narrative includes three victories over Ben-hadad III, the recovery of towns taken by Hazael, the capture of Amaziah at Beth-shemesh, and Jehoash’s entry into Jerusalem.[7] Another historical outline similarly associates him with victories over the Syrians, the recovery of lost cities, Elisha’s death, and Amaziah’s defeat.[8]

Outside these narrative retellings, the inscription naming Ia'asu of Samaria supplies a separate reference to Jehoash in the context of Assyrian tribute.[3] Its subject is his relationship with Adad-Nirari III, rather than the encounter with Elisha or the detailed course of the war against Amaziah.[3] The biblical accounts portray an Israelite king involved in wars with Aram and Judah,[1][2] while the inscription names him among rulers making payments to Assyria.[3]

Absolute dates for Jehoash’s reign differ across chronological reconstructions, although the biblical regnal notice assigns him sixteen years.[1][9] The consulted reference works give date ranges of 801–785 B.C.E. and 798–782 B.C.E.[3][9] These should be distinguished from the biblical method of dating his accession to the thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah.[1] Proposed periods of joint rule with Jehoahaz at the beginning of his reign and with Jeroboam near its end are chronological reconstructions rather than explicit statements in the accession and succession notices.[1][3]

Older historical schemes place the reign substantially earlier.[7] One dates Jehoash’s rule to 845–830 B.C.E.; a related chronological table places him under 845 B.C.E., the capture of Amaziah and ransacking of Jerusalem under 840 B.C.E., and Jeroboam’s succession under 830 B.C.E.[7][10] Another historical outline places Jehoash under 802 B.C.E.[8] These differing schemes cannot be combined into a single sequence of absolute dates without choosing between their underlying chronologies.[7][8]

The personal relationship between Jehoash and Amaziah before their war remains unclear, and a prior alliance against Edom is a hypothesis rather than an established antecedent to the battle.[3] The account of Amaziah’s employment of Israelite troops belongs to a separate, later narrative in Chronicles.[3] Likewise, the Elisha episodes present prophecy, divine agency, and a return to life as elements of the biblical narrative; the material assembled here does not independently establish those supernatural events.[1][5] The Assyrian tribute inscription names Jehoash, but it does not independently verify those episodes or the detailed account of his campaign against Judah.[3]