Joash King of Israel: The Thistle That Answered the Cedar

Who he was, and when

Joash, also written Jehoash, was a king of the northern kingdom of Israel, the son of Jehoahaz and the grandson of Jehu (2 Kings 14:8; 2 Chronicles 25:17). He belongs to the era of the divided kingdom, which the dossier places around 975 BC to 586 BC (era placed on Ussher's chronology, 1650). His reign is dated by a neighbouring throne: "In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz began to reign over Israel in Samaria for sixteen years" (2 Kings 13:10). His name reaches beyond the books of Kings and Chronicles; it stands also in Hosea 1:1 and in Amos 1:1, a single verse in each.

He comes to the throne

The first word about him is a burial and a succession: "Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria; and Joash his son reigned in his place" (2 Kings 13:9). Samaria is his capital, and Samaria will be his grave. Further notices of his reign stand at 2 Kings 13:25, 2 Kings 14:1, and 2 Kings 14:23 and 14:27.

At the bedside of Elisha

The one scene in which we see this king's heart is a sickroom. "Now Elisha became sick with the illness of which he died; and Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over him, and said, 'My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!'" (2 Kings 13:14). A king comes down to a dying prophet. He weeps. He calls him father, and he names him the true military strength of the nation, chariots and horsemen, which is a strange thing for a man with an army to say. Whatever else is true of Joash, he knew where Israel's defence actually lay, and he grieved when it was being taken away.

The thistle and the cedar

The second scene is a quarrel between kings. Amaziah king of Judah sent the challenge: "Come, let's look one another in the face" (2 Kings 14:8; the parallel in 2 Chronicles 25:17 adds that Amaziah first consulted his advisers). Joash answered with a fable, and the contempt in it is not hidden: "The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, 'Give your daughter to my son as wife. Then a wild animal that was in Lebanon passed by, and trampled down the thistle" (2 Kings 14:9; 2 Chronicles 25:18). Judah's king is the thistle, presuming on the cedar, and something larger will simply walk over him.

The answer did not end the matter. "So Joash king of Israel went up, and he and Amaziah king of Judah looked one another in the face at Beth Shemesh, which belongs to Judah" (2 Chronicles 25:21; see also 2 Kings 14:11). The meeting Amaziah asked for was granted, and it was granted on Judah's own soil. Further details of that day are recorded at 2 Kings 14:13, 2 Chronicles 25:23 and 2 Chronicles 25:25.

The end of his reign

His obituary is given twice, and both times his reputation is fighting. "Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might with which he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, aren't they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat on his throne. Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel" (2 Kings 13:12-13). The second account adds the succession and a measure of time: "Jeroboam his son reigned in his place. Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah lived after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel fifteen years" (2 Kings 14:16-17).

Where he failed

The war he is remembered for was war against his own kinsmen in Judah, and it ended on Judah's ground at Beth Shemesh (2 Chronicles 25:21). Scripture is honest that Amaziah issued the challenge (2 Kings 14:8), but Joash chose scorn as his reply, a fable that reduced a brother king to a weed underfoot (2 Kings 14:9). Might is what the chroniclers record of him twice over (2 Kings 13:12; 2 Kings 14:15), and might is a thin thing to be remembered for from a man who had wept for the chariots and horsemen of Israel.

What we are not told

The passages gathered here name his father and his son but not his mother, and they give no birth date and no age at accession. They record no words of his to God, no prayer, no reform, no altar. Apart from the sickroom at Elisha's bedside, we are given his politics and his battles and nothing of his inner life. The dossier lists no New Testament references for this Joash, so no line is drawn here from him into the New Testament; he is left standing where the books of Kings and Chronicles leave him, buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel (2 Kings 13:13).