Ahaziah, Athaliah, Joash (Southern kingdom, Davidic line)
Ahaziah, king of the south, had been killed along with Joram, king of the north took Jehu took command of the northern army and led a coup d'etat.
Back in the south, Ahaziah's mother, Athaliah heard of this. She immediately killed off the rest of the Davidic Royal family to rule as queen of the south. Her sister (probably right before being killed herself) hides a young infant boy Joash and his nurse in the temple. The high priest protects Joash for 6 years.
After 6 years, the high priest, Jehoida, leads a revolt against Athaliah and has a 7 year old Joash coronated as king. Jehoida first has all the soldiers in Jerusalem swear an oath to him before telling them his plan and revealing the boy. He then divides the soldiers on duty for the Sabbath into 3 groups of protection around the temple and palace. He also stations all the soldiers off-duty for the Sabbath in places to protect the corronation.
Why do this on the Sabbath? I don't think the text says why. There certainly was a lot of activity on the Sabbath by the temple, so the preparations would probably not raise immediate suspicions. It would also underscore the religious implications and authority of the revolt, for after all the high priest was doing it. It would also implicitly state to Jerusalem and the southern kingdom that God disapproves of Athaliah's reign.
I also find it interesting that there are soldiers stationed on-duty during the Sabbath. During the time of Moses, we saw a lot of things that the Israelites were not to do on the Sabbath, including a person being stoned to death for collecting firewood (the event also coincided with the first command of having a communal assembly for worship). We also saw a command for the priests to do work, in particular animal sacrifices. Likewise, Joshua's military campaign against Jericho straddled the Sabbath.
Note, 2 Chronicles 23 suggests that these soldiers guarding the temple were Levites.
Here, we have custom of work that had emerged - soldiers were on duty for the Sabbath. But not all of them, only some of them. Whether the soldiers took turns being on duty for the Sabbath, we are not told. But given Jehoida's role as high priest and what he does as regent, God approved of Jehoida's actions, for instance soldiers worked on the sabbath and a coup d'etat happens on the Sabbath.
It seems that, for ancient Israel, God was OK was societal necessary work on the Sabbath
Jehoida leads the revolt and has Athaliah killed. Jehoida then ruled as a pseudo-regent even though Joash was king. Jehoida even picked two wives for Joash. Jehoida suppressed the worship of Baal, killed the high priest, and tearing down their altars. Something similar had happened in the northern kingdom under Jehu. So, at this time, both the northern and southern kingdom are at least stamping out Baal worship.
Joash decides to collect taxes and restore the temple. The temple was restored and many of the gold utensils were replaced.
Joash followed God and had a peaceful reign while Jehoida was alive. When Jehoida died, things took a dark turn for Joash. He allowed the people to worship Ashereth poles. Jehoida's son, Zechariah, warns the people about all this and Joash even orders the stoning of Zechariah in the temple courtyard.
That must have been a heartbreaking moment. Jehoida was in many ways an adoptive father for Joash and raised him from infancy. Later on, after Jehoida is dead, Joash orders the stoning of Jehoida's son, Zechariah. Since Zechariah was a priest, it also shows that we have come full circle during the reign of Joash. Joash's reign was established in part as priests took killed the monarch, showing the religious authority is superior to political authority. Here, Joash's killing of Zechariah shows an attempt an usurpation political authority over religious authority.
I also think that Zechariah, son of Jehoida, is the first prophet stoned to death by the people. Christ refers to this legacy.
God is now angry with the southern kingdom and helped a small army of Arameans led by Hazeal (who Elijah anointed) to ravage the land. They plundered Jerusalem and the temple. Joash was severely wounded during the war. As he lay in his bed recovering from his wounds, several people who were angry with the Zechariah incident came and killed him. Perhaps they blamed him for the religious and political changes that happened after Jehoida died, symbolized most crucially by Zechariah's death.
His son Amaziah became the next king.
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