It is impossible not to hope that his deeds were less black than the Chronicler painted. He had made the priests feel his power and resentment, and their Levitic recorder was not likely to take a lenient view of his offences. He says that though Joash was buried in the City of David, he was not buried in the sepulchres of his fathers. The historian of the Kings, however, expressly says that "they buried him with his fathers in the City of David," and he was peaceably succeeded by Amaziah his son. There is a curious, though it may be an accidental, circumstance about the name of the two conspirators who slew him. They are called "Jozacar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants." The names mean "Jehovah remembers," the son of "Hearer," and "Jehovah awards," the son of "Watcher"; and this strangely recalls the last words attributed in the Book of Chronicles to the martyred Zechariah. "Jehovah look upon it, and require it!" The Chronicler turns the names into "Zabad, the son of Shimeath, an Ammonitess, and Jehozabad, the son of Shimrith, a Moabitess." Does he record this to account for their murderous deed by the blood of hated nations which ran in their veins? FOOTNOTES: [233] 2 Chron. xxi. 2-4. [234] 2 Chron. xxi. 17. [235] ὁμοπάτριος ἀδελφή (Jos.). [236] 2 Chron. xxii. 11. There are undoubted difficulties about the statement (see _infra_). There is no other instance of the marriage of a princess with a priest. [237] Jos., _Antt._, IX. vii. 1: τὸ ταμιεῖον τῶν κλινῶν. The chamber of beds was a sort of unoccupied wardrobe-room. [238] 2 Kings xi. 4: "The centurions of the Carians and of the runners." [239] This is the second time that the word "Sabbath" occurs, or that the institution is alluded to, in the history of either monarchy. [240] Nothing is known of סוּר, Sur, or יְסוֹד _y'sôd_, the Foundation (2 Chron. xxiii. 5). They are not mentioned elsewhere. LXX., εν τῇ πύλῃ τῶν ὁδῶν, and (in Chronicles) ἐν τῇ πύλῃ τῇ μέσῃ. [241] Not as in A.V., "that it be not broken down." [242] In reading side by side the narratives in the Books of Kings and Chronicles (2 Chron. xxiii.), it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the main anxiety of the Chronicler is to leave the impression that the work in the Temple was chiefly done by the Levites, and that the sacred precincts were not polluted by the presence of alien troops. He evidently stumbled at the notion, conveyed by the older narrative, that Carians and suchlike semi-heathen mercenaries should have stood by the altar at a high priest's command; so he substitutes Levites for guardsmen, and the profane laymen are relegated outside. In details the two accounts are only reconcilable by a special pleading which would reconcile _any_ discrepancy. [243] 1 Kings vii. 21. Comp., however, 2 Kings xxiii. 3.