Everyone knows someone who started well but did not finish well: a promising talent, a faith once on fire in the early years, that withered over time. The story of King Joash of Judah is the biblical version of this painfully common tale: a spectacular beginning followed by a tragic end.
Joash was just a baby when his grandmother Athaliah, seizing the throne by force, ordered the killing of the entire royal line (2 Kings 11:1). His aunt Jehosheba hid him, and for six years he grew up inside the temple, raised by the priest Jehoiada, while Athaliah reigned without knowing that the rightful heir was breathing under the same roof (2 Kings 11:2-3).
In the seventh year, Jehoiada carefully staged a coup. He brought out the seven-year-old boy, crowned him, and the people clapped and shouted: Long live the king! (2 Kings 11:12,21). Athaliah was executed, and Judah suddenly had a child king guided by a faithful priest.
As long as Jehoiada lived, Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD (2 Kings 12:2). He restored the temple, which had deteriorated through years of idolatry, and organized the collection of funds with a team so honest that no one asked them to account for it (2 Kings 12:15).
But Jehoiada died, and something in Joash died with him. Without his mentor, the king listened to other advisors, abandoned the temple he himself had restored, and returned to worshiping idols (2 Chronicles 24:17-18).
When Zechariah, Jehoiada’s own son, confronted him in God’s name, Joash had him stoned to death in the temple courtyard, the very place of his own coronation (2 Chronicles 24:20-22). Shortly after, wounded in battle against the Arameans, he was assassinated in his own bed by his officials (2 Chronicles 24:24-25).
Joash’s story challenges a comfortable idea: that a good upbringing alone guarantees good character. He had the best possible mentor and still chose poorly once he was on his own.
God does not judge us only by how we begin, but by how we persevere when the one who sustained us is no longer there. The faithfulness of one generation is not automatically passed on to the next; each heart, one day, answers for itself before God.
