Athaliah

“ Moreover, of the various accounts of the massacre of the princes of Judah, the Judaean ascribes it not to Jehu and the reforming party (2 Kings x. 13 seq.) but to Athaliah (q.v.) . Only the babe Jehoash was saved, and he remained hidden in the Temple adjoining the palace itself. The queen, Athaliah, despite the weak state of Judah after the revolt in Philistia and Edom, actually appears to have maintained herself for six years, until the priests slew her in a conspiracy, overthrew the cult of Baal, and crowned the young child. ”

“ But despite everything, Athaliah’s image did not disappear. She stood before him in all her beauty, with her radiant eyes, and that glance which penetrated into his bones and his very brain. He looked at her with ire and scorn; he even spat in disgust. All this was of no avail to banish the vision.
He lay calm, free of thoughts, and pretending to see nothing. His scorn of the feminine form knew no bounds. Soon, however, he arose and lighted a candle. The light must surely banish the evil vision. ”

“ Informed that Ochoziah's son still lives, The murderess, Athaliah, soon will rush, To hurry him again into the tomb. Already, without knowing him, she pants To ruin sacred ministers 'tis yours To anticipate her fury; now 'tis time To end the shameful slavery of the Jews, To avenge our princes' deaths, exalt our laws, And make our king be owned by our two tribes. The enterprize is great and dangerous; Attacking on her throne a haughty queen, Who sees a numerous camp of hardy strangers And traitorous Hebrews march beneath her standards! ”

“ The high priest, Aaron—Josabet is still The last king's sister. Mathan, besides, Mathan— Apostate priest—more vile than Athaliah, Is importuning her at every hour; Mathan, the base deserter from our altars, And persecutor of all righteous zeal. 'Tis not enough his brow's encircled with A foreign mitre; e'en his ministry This Levite lends to Baal: this temple frets him, And his impiety doth wish to crush The God he has abjured. To ruin you No snare he can devise will be unwrought. Sometimes he pities you, and frequently He even praises, and affects for you A treacherous gentleness ”

“ When this was erected is not known, perhaps under Jehoram (xxi. 6) or Ahaziah (xxii. 3) , but it was doubtless intended for the worship of the Tyrian Baal, for Athaliah was probably grand-daughter of a Tyrian king (compare 2 Kings viii. 18 with 1 Kings xvi. 31) . It is interesting to see that the revolt against Athaliah in Jerusalem, like the revolution led by Jehu against her parents, Ahab and Jezebel, in the Northern Kingdom, was fostered, if not indeed caused, by religious antipathy. ”

“ I am all-powerful; you know that. Your life is in my hands, and the life of your sweetheart, [Pg 121] and the life of all those near and dear to you.”
Athaliah now regained her voice. “No! No!” she shrieked. “Kill me! Slay me alone!”
“You shall belong to me. I do not wish your death. I desire you in your living beauty. I am very wealthy,—the richest of all our people. I will clothe you in gold and silver, and bedeck you with precious stones. Ask what you wish and it shall be granted. Why do you fear me so? I am old in years, but strong in body, and I wish to enjoy that strength. ”

“ Doubt you that Athaliah, at the word First spread abroad—that Ochoziah's son Is here concealed—will fail her barbarous troop Of strangers to collect about the temple, And violate its gates? Will it suffice 'Gainst them to place your sacred ministers, Who never scattered but their victims' blood; Who, raising to the Lord their harmless hands, [18] Can only groan and pray for our offences? Perhaps, when in their arms, Joas pierced with wounds— JOAD. Then count you God for nought who fights for us! God, who protects the orphans' innocence, And in their weakness testifies His power ”

“ The race of David, Athaliah hate! Joas will affect them with his modesty, Through which appears to glow his royal blood, And our example, by His very voice The Lord supporting, will moreover speak Within His temple straight unto their hearts. Two unbelieving kings in turns have braved Him; Tis now imperative a king be raised Upon the throne, who shall avow hereafter That, to the honour of his ancestors, God caused him, by the influence of His priests, To re-ascend; and, by their hands, hath snatched Him, Joas, from the oblivion of the tomb, To light again the fire of David's ashes. ”

“ Judah must have sunk very low, and the talents of Athaliah must have been commanding, or she could never have established a precedent hitherto undreamed of, by imposing on the people of David for six years the yoke of a woman, and that woman a half-Phœnician idolatress. Yet so it was! Athaliah, like her cousin Dido, felt herself strong enough to rule.
But a woman's ruthlessness was outwitted by a woman's cunning. Ahaziah had a half-sister on the father's side, [235] the princess Jehosheba, or Jehoshabeath, who was then or afterwards (we are told) married to Jehoiada, the high priest. ”

“ For over an hour Hough paced the floor of the cave, listening to his captain's gentle breathing, and recalling the violent death of Athaliah, slain by order of Jehoiada, and the fate of Jezebel, cast from an upper window at the command of Jehu; for such a man as the Puritan regulated all the actions of his life by the light revealed to him from the Bible. ”

“ But very soon the priests surrounded us— They caused us to withdraw. Of all the rest I'm ignorant, and I returned to tell You of this woeful uproar. JOSABET. [29] She came, no doubt, to tear him from our arms; Her fury came to seek him at the altar! Perhaps, the object of so many tears Is at this moment—God, who seest my grief, Do Thou remember David! SALOMITH. What is the reason of your flooding tears? ZACHARIAH. Ah! Is Eliacin's life in danger? SALOMITH. Has he attracted Athaliah's rage? ZACHARIAH. What! does she fear a child without support, And fatherless? JOSABET. Ah! here she is. ”

“ Athaliah destroys all that remain of the seed royal of Judah, [202] . Jehosheba hides Joash the son of Ahaziah, and he remains hidden in the house of the Lord six years; and Athaliah reigns over the land, [203] , [204] . Jehoiada, the high priest, calls the nobles privately together into the temple, shows them the kings son, takes an oath of them, arms them, places guards around the temple, and around the young king's person; they anoint and proclaim him, [205] . Athaliah is alarmed, comes into the temple, is seized, carried forth, and slain, [206] . ”

“ He was blessed in his aunt—for it was his aunt who took him, the daughter of Ahab, but not by the mother of Athaliah—and Joash did good all the days of Jehoiada, the priest. See the influence of a noble life. See how religion may help royalty, and how that which is morally true lifts up patriotism to a higher level. No country is sound at heart—through and through good and likely to endure—that draws not the inspiration of its patriotism from the loftiness and purity of its religion.
All these tragedies are making the Earth reek with abomination today. Athaliah lives in a vigorous progeny. ”

“ Yet some of the feelings of the woman, the tenderness of the wife, the fondness of the mother, still seem to linger in her proud heart. Unprincipled as she was, she did not abandon herself to utter selfishness. In her most atrocious acts she seems to have had some regard to the aggrandizement of her family and to the gratification of her husband. The daughter was more depraved than her mother. Athaliah was utterly selfish, devoid even of the instinct of natural affection. A character more revolting is not presented to us in the pages of the historian, sacred or profane. ”

“ A woman rioting in blood that she might gratify her ambition! A mother destroying her offspring that she might possess their [214] inheritance! Jezebel was a depraved woman, but Athaliah was a monster—a woman destitute of all the feelings of humanity, working all evil, and only evil, from the mere love of self. With selfish desires which absorbed all consideration, and in their intensity prompted to unnatural crimes, having no object in view beyond her personal gratification or aggrandizement, there was not even the extenuation to be offered for Athaliah which could be urged for Jezebel ”

“ In Judaean history, Jehu’s reform and the overthrow of Jezebel in the north (ix., x. 15–28) find their counterpart in the murder of Athaliah and the destruction of the temple of Baal in Judah (xi. 18) . But the framework is incomplete. The editorial conclusion of the reign of Ahaziah, the introduction to that of Athaliah, and the sources for both are wanting. A lengthy Judaean document is incorporated detailing the accession of Joash and the prominence of the abruptly introduced priest Jehoiada. The interest in the Temple and temple-procedure is obvious ”

“ He seats Joas on the throne, and immediately after Athaliah arrives. At her approach Joad draws a curtain, by which Joas and the Levites are hid from view. JOAS, JOAD, JOSABET, ZACHARIAH, SALOMITH, AZARIAH, TROUPES OF PRIESTS AND LEVITES, THE CHOIR. JOAD. Ye saintly Levites, ministers of God, Surround this place, concealed on every side; And, leaving to my charge to guide your zeal, Wait till my voice commands you to appear. (They all conceal themselves.) King, I believe this hope's allowed your vows; You come to see your foes fall at your feet. ”

“ The kingdom of Judah, on the other hand, was purified from the destructive consequences of the alliance with the dynasty of Ahab through the overthrow by the high priest Jehoiada of the godless Athaliah, who had murdered the royal children after the death of Ahaziah and seized upon the government, and, with the renewal of the covenant and the extermination of the worship of Baal under the young king whom Jehoiada had trained, was brought back to the theocratic path ”

“ Now as soon as what concerned Athaliah was by this stratagem, after this manner, despatched, Jehoiada called together the people and the armed men into the temple, and made them take an oath that they would be obedient to the king, and take care of his safety, and of the safety of his government; after which he obliged the king to give security [upon oath] that he would worship God, and not transgress the laws of Moses. ”

“ By corrupting the rulers of Judah and by her own misgovernment, she exercised an evil influence over the nation; and as the people suffered, not for their sins only, but also for those of their kings, Athaliah brought misfortunes and calamity upon Judah. Unfortunately such experiences are not confined to royal families; the peace and honour, and prosperity of godly families in all ranks of life have been disturbed and often destroyed by the marriage of one of their members with a woman of alien spirit and temperament. ”

“ How could the still smaller and weaker kingdom of Judah keep itself from vassalage to Egypt and from the encroachments of Philistines on the west and Moabites on the east? Could anything but ruin be imminent, if these two nations of Israel and Judah—one in land, one in blood, one in language, in tradition, and in interests—were perpetually to destroy each other with internecine strife? The kings determined to make a league with one another, and to bind it by mutual affinity. It was proposed that Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, should marry Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat. ”

“ Their Idols, and their Groves he quite destroy’d;
In every place their Altars overthrew,
78 [4] And Chemarims he banished or slew.
Since when (except in Athaliah’s Reign,
Who for a space, set Idols up again,
Tormenting those to Death who would not turn,
And did the Jewish Rabbins slay or burn)
These crafty Priests, by Plots did never cease,
To spoil the Beauty of Judea’s Peace.
Whilst Joash reign’d, by sly and subtil Arts,
They first estrang’d from him his Peoples Hearts. ”

“ Ahaziah, 6th king of Judah, was the son of Jehoram and Ahab’s daughter Athaliah, and reigned one year. He is described as a wicked and idolatrous king, and was slain by Jehu, son of Nimshi. He is variously called Jehoahaz and Azariah. ”

“ Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings.
14:022:001 And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned.
14:022:002 Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri. ”

“ And there is nothing to frighten anybody in seeing clearly, is there?"
"No, dear."
"People make me so cross," continued Athalie,—"and so ashamed when they ask so many questions. What is there to be surprised at if sometimes I see things inside my mind. They are just as real as when I see them outside. They are no different."
Her mother nodded, encouragingly.
"When papa was in New York," went on Athalie, "and I saw him talking to some men in a hotel there, why should it be surprising just because papa was in New York and I was here when I saw him?" ”

“ So clear and sweet and confident in his understanding were her eyes that the quick emotion that leaped responsive left only a ruddy trace on his face and a slight quiver on his lips.
He said: "Nothing shall ever threaten your trust in me. No man can ask for more than you give, Athalie."
"I give you all I am. What more is there?"
"I ask no more."
"Is there more to wish for? Are you really satisfied, Clive?"
"Perfectly;"—but he looked away from her.
"And you don't imagine that you love me, do you?" ”