Bible Stories…
AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN
BIBLE STORIES
THE SEVEN-YEAR-OLD KING
PART 1
Story taken from
2nd CHRONICLES 22 and 23
Hello my young friends.
Here I am again, ready to share another great Bible story with you.
Let me ask a question though?
Who is the youngest king ever in the Bible?
You have probably heard of many great kings who ruled Israel. There was King David, King Saul and of course the wise King Solomon.
However, do you know that there was a time when the whole of Israel was ruled by a boy who was only seven years old?
Yes, it is true!
God used a little boy to rule His people!
How old are you now? Are you seven years old or ten years old?
You too could be a king if God so wills it!
Actually you are never too young to be used by God. No one is ever too young to do good things for the Lord!
This young king’s name was Joash!
And today I am going to tell you his story, which is in two parts, and I hope you will be able to learn great lessons from it.
The story of Joash is in two parts: the good and the bad!
In this first part we are going to learn about the good King Joash, who was Israel’s youngest ever king!
A very long time ago, Israel was divided into tribes, and each tribe had a king.
There was a king named Ahaziah who reigned over the tribe of Judah. Ahaziah became king when he was twenty-two years old. However, Ahaziah only ruled as king for one year.
Just one year.
Do you know why Ahaziah’s reign lasted only one year?
Well, it was because King Ahaziah did not do things that pleased God. He did very evil things that did not please God.
Ahaziah’s mother was called Athaliah, and she did not worship God. She always gave very bad advice to her son Ahaziah to worship idols and not God. She advised him to be cruel to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Athaliah was a very bad mother, and she led her son astray. This was so bad that Ahaziah did things that God did not want him to do. As a result God did not bless Ahaziah, and no longer helped him.
At that time the king of the tribe of Israel was called Joram.
Ahaziah and Joram went to war against King Hazael of the tribe of Aram. God was not in favour of this war, and so King Joram became wounded in the war, and they returned.
Later, King Ahaziah went to visit his friend Joram, who was still wounded. When he got there, the weak King Joram welcomed him.
“Do you know that there’s a man of God out there who is trying to dethrone us?” Joram asked Ahaziah.
“What are you talking about?” Ahaziah asked angrily. “Such a man is dangerous. We should kill him. Tell me, who is this man who wants to destroy us?”
King Joram sighed unhappily.
“That man’s name is Jehu,” Joram finally replied. “All the tribes of Israel support him. People say he is a man who loves God very much, and so God has really blessed him. We can’t fight him!”
“Why should we be afraid of Jehu?” Ahaziah asked angrily. “I also have the gods of my mother behind me! Let’s go and find Jehu and kill him, then the whole of Israel will know our gods are also powerful!”
And so, sadly, Joram and Ahaziah decided to go and attack Jehu.
However, Jehu was a man who really loved God, and did everything that God told him to do, and so God had appointed him to destroy the kingdom of the wicked Ahaziah.
“I’m with you, my son!” Athaliah said to her son the king. “My gods are with you. Go and fight Jehu! My gods will give you power!”
However, the true God was with Jehu, and so Ahaziah and Joram were no match for Jehu. Jehu killed Joram, and when Ahaziah saw that indeed the true God was with Jehu, he fled and went to hide in a city called Samaria, but Jehu chased him, and caught him.
“You’re a very wicked king,” Jehu said to Ahaziah. “You have abandoned the true God and now you worship the gods of Baal. Today, God has taken the Kingdom of Judah from your hands!”
And so Jehu killed Ahaziah for all the wicked things he had done, and buried him.
At that time, a raiding army had also killed all of Ahaziah’s brothers, and so there was no one else to become the new king.
The news reached Athaliah that Jehu had killed her son Ahaziah.
It meant that the Tribe of Judah did not have a king now.
As custom demanded, a new king was supposed to be crowned from Ahaziah’s sons!
However, wicked Athaliah had other plans!
She did not want any of her own grandchildren to be the next king! She wanted to rule Judah herself! So do you know what she did? She did something really evil: she gathered all the sons of Ahaziah and killed them!
How terrible was that!
Ahaziah was her own son, and so Ahaziah’s children were her own grandchildren, but Athaliah simply did not care! She killed all her grandchildren so that she would become the ruler of Judah!
Yes, Athaliah killed all her grandsons, and she was now the ruler of Judah!
Do you think she was going to succeed?
No, she was not going to succeed because she was a wicked and evil idol worshipper who did not love God!
You see, there was one son amongst Ahaziah’s children whom God loved very much.
This son was only one year old when Athaliah decided to kill all of Ahaziah’s sons. He was just a baby, and his name was Joash. God loved Joash, and wanted Joash to be king of Judah, and so God saved him.
Do you know how God saved this baby boy?
Well, at that time there was a High Priest in Judah called Jehoiada. He was a very good man who loved and worshipped God. Jehoiada’s wife was called Jehoshabeath, and she was King Ahaziah’s sister.
Jehoshabeath ran to her husband Jehoiada with tears streaming down her face.
“My dear, why are you so sad?” Jehoiada asked with concern. “What’s troubling you? Why are you crying?”
“It’s my mother!” Jehoshabeath wept.
“And what has she done this time?” Jehoiada asked calmly.
“She wants to rule Judah, and so she’s gathering all my brother’s sons to kill them! One is just a baby! I can’t let her kill that boy!”
Jehoiada held his wife and comforted her.
“Please, go quickly and take the baby boy before Athaliah gets him!” Jehoiada said with sadness. “Just bring him to the Temple of God. We will hide him here!”
“Thank you very much, my dear husband,” Jehoshabeath said, and quickly left the temple.
She went and took the baby boy from his room and fled to the Temple of The true God. And so when Athaliah killed all her grandsons, she did not know that the baby Joash had been saved!
That is how God works!
Athaliah thought she had achieved her evil aim, but God had saved Joash!
The baby boy was hidden in the Temple of God, and Jehoaida and his wife Jehoshabeath brought him up!
Athaliah became the ruler of Judah.
She became the Queen of Judah, through her wickedness, and was the only woman mentioned in the Bible who reigned in Israel.
She reigned for six years.
However, she still forsook the ways of God and did very evil things! She forced the people of Judah to worship idols and to break God’s commandments! What a really awful woman she was!
However, her wicked reign was soon going to be over!
God had taken care of Joash through Jehoiada and his wife Jehoshabeath, and when Joash was seven years old, Jehoiada went to see the army commanders of Judah.
“You see how wicked Athaliah has become,” Jehoiada told them. “She is wicked to the people, and she reigns with an evil hand. She has forsaken Jehovah, and now forces the people to worship her idols and gods!”
“But what can we do?” the army leaders asked. “There is no son left to rule as king, but we need a leader, so she should remain as queen.”
“But there is a son!” Jehoiada said. “King Ahaziah’s son Joash is alive!”
The army commanders looked at one another with shock.
“Is this true?” they asked. “We thought Athaliah killed all her grandsons!”
“The true living God saved Joash!” Jehoiada said. “He has been living with us for six years now, and he’s now seven years. The true God Jehovah has chosen him as king!”
“Then surely he should be on the throne!” the army commanders said excitedly!
God was with Jehoiada, and the army commanders quickly accepted Joash.
Secretly, Jehoiada and the army officers travelled across Israel and brought back all the descendants of the land who had fled from Athaliah. They all gathered at the temple. Jehoiada divided the priests and the soldiers; he made some guard the temple, and some guarded the royal palace where Athaliah was. Others also guarded the important places, and all the rest assembled in the courtyard of God’s temple!
There were some spears and shields which King David had hidden in the Temple of God before he died, and so Jehoiada brought out all these weapons and handed them to the soldiers and priests so that Athaliah’s people could not attack them.
The people of Judah soon heard that young Joash was alive, and was going to be king!
A lot of people trooped to the courtyard of the temple to see this great event!
And then Jehoiada brought out Joash!
He was just a little boy of seven!
Jehoiada anointed Joash’s head with oil and put a golden crown on his head!
Judah now had a new king!
The people screamed with happiness!
They crashed their cymbals, beat their drums and blew their trumpets!
They praised God with a cheerful noise!
God had listened to their cries and delivered them from the evil reign of Athaliah!
Athaliah heard the great noise in her palace, and she stormed out of her room angrily.
“What is going on?” she screamed. “What’s all that noise about?”
Her servants bowed low to her, trembled with fear at her rage.
“Mighty Queen!” they said. “It seems one of your grandsons was kept alive by your daughter Jehoshabeath and her husband Jehoiada, the High Priest! The boy’s name we hear is Joash, and today Jehoiada has just crowned him the new king of Judah and Jerusalem!”
“What?” Athaliah screamed. “They betrayed me? I will deal with them! I will kill them!”
Athaliah went straight to the temple to confront the people and Jehoiada. She took several guards who were armed to the temple of God. She saw Joash in the courtyard, standing beside the pillar of Kings, dressed elegantly with the crown on his head.
He was surrounded by top army officials who were mightily armed. The people were singing happily and beating their drums.
Athaliah was so angry!
She tore the royal robe she was wearing into pieces. With fear and anger she screamed loudly:
“You traitors! You traitors!”
Jehoiada looked at her and shook his head.
“You brought this unto yourself, Athaliah!” he said. “Because you gave your son Ahaziah bad advice, he died only after one year of being king! You have turned from the true God and you now worship idols and other gods! God has taken the throne from you and given it to Joash!”
The army officers began to move towards Athaliah!
She commanded her soldiers to fight, but they were no match for the people! When Athaliah saw that her soldiers had been captured she tried to flee, but they caught her and dragged her outside the Temple of God, and killed her.
Jehoiada instructed all the altars of the god Baal to be broken down in the royal palace and everywhere, and all the priests of Baal were killed!
The seven-year-old Joash became king of Judah, just as God had said, and God was with him because he made the people worship only God! He prospered, the Judah also prospered, because they put their trust and belief in the true God!
All the Images used in this retelling is by kind courtesy of
Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleimages.org.
Visit their site by clicking the link below:
Remember:
Athaliah thought she could have her own way!
But her ways were not the ways of the true God, and so she failed.
She planned to kill all her grandsons, but God saved Joash.
If you rely on God, and trust and worship only Him, He will always deliver you from the evil plans of your enemies!
Finally, can you imagine just a boy of seven ruling all over the great kingdom of Israel? Isn’t that so amazing! Yes, when you rely on God, even if you are a child God can use you to achieve great and amazing things!
Nothing is impossible for Him!
Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash. Bible Stories. Joash.
KLEVER ARTICLES:: GARRETT MORGAN
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