JOASH jō’ ăsh (יﯴאָ֣שׁ; LXX ̓Ιωας; an Arabic or Protoaramaic root meaning give, has been suggested [for Joash and Josiah]; alternatively, a similar root meaning strength has been sought in the Assyrian [Torrey, BASOR, LXXIX, p. 28; LXXXII, pp. 16ff.; LXXXIV, pp. 17ff.]; Albright [ibid.] finds this insufficiently supported, and notes that Ugaritic ’usn is a synonym of ytnt, gift; the meaning would thus be let the Lord give). Also JEHOASH twelve times in Kings, for Joash of Judah (seven times) and of Israel (five times); Albright, JBL, XLIII (1924), 370ff.; XLIV (1925), 158ff., attributes this to a drive by the “deuteronomic” writers to establish the fuller form of the name; but the shorter form has been left in a similar number of places, not only where the two kings are distinguished (2 Kings 13:10), but even for the same person in the same v. (13:25). Noth points out that both forms are found on seal inscrs., and that the longer form was usual at Elephantine but is not found in Chronicles—Nehemiah (Israelitische Personennamen, pp. 106, 171). The name was borne by Gideon’s father (Judg 6:11, 29-31); the ancestor of a Judahite family, who lived in Moab for a time (1 Chron 4:22); a head of a Benjamite clan (2 Chron 7:8); a Benjamite of Gibeah who joined David at Ziklag (12:3); one of David’s chief storekeepers (27:28); a son of Ahab of Israel (1 Kings 22:26; 2 Chron 18:25); a king of Israel (below, 2).

1. Joash ben Ahaziah,king of Judah following Athaliah’s six-year usurpation of the throne. As an infant he was saved from the massacre of the royal family, which Athaliah perpetrated on the death of her son Ahaziah. He owed his life to the courage and devotion of his aunt Jehosheba, the wife of the priest Jehoiada, who conveyed him away, concealed him and brought him up in their own home (2 Kings 11:1-3).

a. Coronation. In 837 b.c., when Joash was seven years old, Jehoiada took him to the Temple court (prob. by the pillar Jachin—R. Scott, JBL LVIII [1939], pp. 43ff.), and crowned him before a congregation of Levites, Temple guards, and elders and people from the country towns. As he was acclaimed king, his grandmother appeared in the court and was swiftly removed to her death. With due ceremony Jehoiada inaugurated a fresh covenant of kingship, acknowledging the Lord’s dominion; and the temple of Baal was destroyed by the crowd.

The definition of the “people of the land” as a political force is not so clear in this context as in the closing years of the monarchy (see Jehoahaz). Montgomery’s assessment (ICC, p. 417) that they were “tempering for the remainder of the history of Judah the power of the monarchy” may be an overstatement, for whereas the people elevated Uzziah to the kingship (in his father’s lifetime, if Thiele is right), they seem to have had relatively little to do with making policy in the ensuing hundred years. Neither is it clear how “the people” could have maintained control from the accession of their chosen king until his majority. The “conservative circles of country nobility” postulated by von Rad appear largely hypothetical, and it is doubtful whether they can be equated with the “princes of Judah” who seem to have gravitated to Jerusalem.

The concept of “the people,” however, comes to the fore at the coronation of Joash, and von Rad is undoubtedly right in drawing attention to the related phrases “people of the land” and “people of the Lord.” They were a free people who had almost been enslaved, and a covenant people who had neglected the covenant; for conservatism had not kept them from petty idolatry. This situation sufficiently explains the twin covenants made by Jehoiada, to the first of which (the one related in Chronicles) the king and the people stood as one party (2 Chron 23:16; cf. Gen 17:7). In the second covenant, there was a return to the traditional concept of the kingship; it is probable that the testimony (perhaps an inscribed stone or tablet, JBL LVII [1938], p. 181) was related to this. So Joash was enthroned, with Jehoiada as his tutor and regent (see Jehoiada).

b. Reign and death. His reign lasted forty years from 835 to 796 b.c. (so Thiele; Albright puts the death of Joash in 800 b.c.). The reign was not very distinguished, and it ended miserably; for after Jehoiada’s death, Joash was persuaded to allow the revival of pagan worship, which led to much opposition from the prophets. In the end, he was responsible for the martyrdom of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada; and at the end of the year (for the phrase in 1 Chron 24:23; cf. Exod 34:22), after a disastrous raid by Hazael of Syria in which Joash was badly wounded and lost many of his leading men, he was assassinated by two of his servants—Jozacar (so Kings; Chron “Zabad”) and Jehozabad, sons of an Ammonitess and a Moabitess respectively (2 Kings 12:20f.; 2 Chron 24:17-27). The circumstances are not altogether clear; RSV obscures the difficulty in the text of 2 Kings 12:21 by inserting “in the way”; “Silla” is not known. Various emendations have been suggested; Gray, following Thenius, restores mesillah, “road”; but Keil considers this “arbitrary,” and takes a hint from the Syr. to insert “while he was” going down. The Chronicler, working evidently from another source, connects the assassination directly with the raid and may be taken to mean that he was deserted by his guards on the field of battle, or in his palace afterward. In this case the words “going down” (Kings) would hardly be appropriate unless Joash were being carried. “The house of Millo” is also obscure; the phrase is elsewhere used only of what was apparently an enclosed quarter of Shechem (Judg 9). The Millo of Jerusalem (always with the article) is well-known as a made-up part of the fortified city; this is normally rendered “citadel” in LXX, which merely transliterates in 2 Kings 12:20. Gray renders “barracks.”

According to Chronicles, Joash was not buried in the existing royal tombs; the phrase in Kings “with his fathers” is capable of a wider meaning than “in their tombs”; and Chronicles agrees on his burial in the city, as befitted a king (see S. Yeivin, JNES, VII [1948], pp. 32, 36).

c. Temple repairs. The Syrian expedition (2 Kings 12:17f.) appears to have taken place some fifteen years before the death of Joash, at the beginning of the Syrian domination of the coastal plain; their interest at that time was in the trade route to Egypt. This was prob. before the rebuilding of the Temple, which was the main achievement of Joash, and which began in the twenty-third year of his reign.

After years of neglect, and of spoliation by the Baalists, the Temple—well past its century when Joash came to the throne—was in need of structural repairs. It was first arranged that these should be financed, as particular defects were observed, from the taxes that the priests were to collect and from the general fund of freewill offerings; but by 813 b.c. it was evident that nothing effective had been done, and it may be inferred from 2 Kings 12:13 that any available money had been spent on furniture and utensils. The makkarim of the priests (only mentioned in this passage) may have been minor officials, as Gray suggests (p. 531); ERV tr. “acquaintance”; similarly BDB, citing “recognize,” but with caution; Montgomery, ICC, pp. 429, 432, prefers to derive the word “trade.” Keil points out that the priests need not be charged with embezzlement, since no specific obligation was laid down; the fault lay in the system in the first place, though it might be regretted that the Temple fabric was always left as the last call on the priests’ income, so that in practice nothing was ever begun. Perhaps it seemed too big a problem for ad hoc treatment, and so was always put off. For the tax, Myers cites Exodus 30:12-16; 38:25-28; this relates to a census, but the Chronicler’s phrase “tax levied by Moses”

The king imposed a reform by which the priests were relieved of responsibility for maintenance, and in return gave up their right to collect and dispose of the taxes, retaining only the dues or contributions directly relating to the service of the sanctuary. A special fund was launched, controlled jointly by the king and high priest, and the people responded with enthusiasm; indeed, when work on the building had been completed, there was a surplus available for equipment.

2. Joash ben Jehoahaz,third king of Jehu’s line. He reigned sixteen years, from the thirty-seventh of Joash of Judah to the fifteenth of Amaziah (2 Kings 13:10-19, 25; 14:8-16, 23). The cross references (particularly 14:1; Amaziah’s reign began in the second year of Joash) corroborate Thiele’s hypothesis of a return to postdating by this time in the source chronicles of both kingdoms; the second year of Joash of Israel was the thirty-ninth of Joash of Judah, and his last, conformably with the statement (12:1) that he reigned forty years (by the traditional method of inclusive reckoning). The sixteen years of Joash of Israel, the first reign in the northern kingdom to be postdated, are reckoned exclusive of the accession year and run from 798-782 b.c. Thiele (pp. 82ff., 2nd ed.) further argues that Jeroboam was co-regent from 793/2 b.c.; for when Amaziah died, fifteen years after Joash, his son Azariah succeeded him in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam (2 Kings 15:1). The general problem of the co-regencies of Jeroboam II and Azariah (Uzziah), which is fundamental to the dating of the preceding kings, is discussed by Albright (BASOR, C [1945], 18-22) and Thiele (Mysterious Numbers, 1st ed. [1951], 259-264).

For the situation at the beginning of the reign, see Jehoahaz. Adadnirari III of Assyria (810-782) had already forced the Syrians to submit and pay heavy tribute (ANET, 281f.). Hazael died, and his son Ben-hadad III was not in the same class as a military leader. Joash inflicted three defeats on him which marked the beginning of Israel’s political revival. The story is preserved of how this was prophesied by Elisha as he lay dying (2 Kings 13:14-25). Joash obviously had a great regard for Elisha, although he retained allegiance to the cult of Bethel; he showed more concern at losing Elisha than faith in Elisha’s God. Consequently, his response to the prophet’s demand for symbolic action was halfhearted. With Elisha’s hands on his, in token of the power of God in a human instrument, he shot an arrow; and Elisha assured him of victory. Then the prophet told him to take arrows and pitch them into the ground. Joash was not entering into the spirit of the thing; he pitched three and waited. Very disappointed, Elisha foresaw that the answer to prayer would be limited by the king’s uncertainty, which betrayed his lack of earnestness and faith. The passage illustrates James 1:7f.

It is interesting that at least one battle was fought in Aphek, almost certainly in the valley running eastward from Lake Chinnereth toward Bashan (the other sites of this name, SE of Samaria and N of Carmel, are unlikely). This shows that Syria was still very much concerned with the Trans-Jordan trade route, and that Israel had not abandoned the Gilead-Bashan area either. Defeat of the Syrians relieved pressure on Galilee.

In 2 Kings 14:8-14 is recorded the defeat of Amaziah by Joash at Beth-Shemesh, which may well have occasioned the start of Uzziah’s co-regency (791/0 b.c.). Some background to this affair is given in 2 Chronicles 25; Amaziah had hired men from Israel to join him against Edom, and had sent them home before the campaign, at the behest of a prophet. They got their pay, but no booty; and they vented their resentment on the border towns. It may have been for this reason that Amaziah, confident in the flush of victory, challenged Joash to defend his border at the western end; but the Israelites won the battle and sacked Jerusalem. Joash took hostages; it is not clear whether these were in addition to, or in exchange for, Amaziah himself. Keil’s interpretation is prob. right, that he was more concerned with political security than with plunder; hence, also his destruction of a length of wall not adjoining the Temple, so that the breach was not defensible from the flank. These events may be dated to 791 or perhaps a little earlier; but it is not at all certain that Joash made his son co-regent as a precaution against his own death in the battle, as Schedl suggests; the regency began not later than 793/2 b.c., and it does not appear that the campaign was planned far ahead. The immediate reason for making Jeroboam co-regent so early in the reign is thus obscure, though the general aim of securing the dynasty is not in doubt.

Bibliography C. Keil, Kings (n.d.); J. Montgomery, Kings (ICC), (1951); E. Thiele, Vet Test 4 (1954), 193, 194; J. Pritchard, ANET² (1955), 281f.; D. W. Thomas (ed.), Documents of OT Times (1958), 50; W. Hallo, BA, XXII (1960), 42; B. Mazar, BA, XXV (1962), 114; C. Schedl, Vet Test, XII (1962), 97; H. Tadmor, IEJ, XII (1962), 114ff.; J. Gray, Kings (1964); V. Pavlovsky, E. Vogt, Biblica, XLV (1964), 326ff.; E. Thiele, Mysterious Numbers² (1965), 72-86; Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible (1966), 315-324.