the joyful surprise flashing in their eyes, the exultation of the
faithful women that had watched him so lovingly, the stern facing of
the dangers ahead. Most of the assembly must have thought that none of
David's house remained, and that thought would have had much to do
with their submitting to Athaliah's usurpation. Now that they saw the
true heir, they could not hesitate to risk their lives to set him on
his throne. Show a man his true king, and many a tyranny submitted to
before becomes at once intolerable. The boy Joash makes Athaliah look
very ugly.

Jehoiada's plans are somewhat difficult to understand, owing to our
ignorance of the details as to the usual arrangements of the guards of
the palace, but the general drift of them is plain enough. The main
thing was to secure the person of the king, and, for that purpose, the
two companies of priests who were relieved on the Sabbath were for
once kept on duty, and their numbers augmented by the company that
would, in the ordinary course, have relieved them. This augmented
force was so disposed as, first, to secure the Temple from attack;
and, second, to 'compass the king'--in his chamber, that is. We learn
from 2 Chronicles that it consisted of priests and Levites, and some
would see in that statement a tampering with the account in this
passage, in the interests of a later conception of the sanctity of the
Temple and of the priestly order. Our narrative is said to make the
foreign mercenaries of the palace guard the persons referred to; but
surely that cannot be maintained in the face of the plain statement of
verse 7, that they kept the watch of the Temple, for that was the
office of the priests. Besides, how should foreign soldiers have
needed to be armed from the Temple armoury? And is it probable on the
face of it that the palace guard, who were Athaliah's men, and
therefore antagonistic to Joash, and Baal worshippers, should have