Six years bloody Athaliah had tyrannised; in this chapter we have her deposed and slain, and Joash, the rightful heir, enthroned. We had the story before nearly as it is here related, 2 Kings 11:4–21, &c. I.

We may well imagine the bad posture of affairs in Jerusalem during Athaliah’s six years’ usurpation, and may wonder that God permitted it and his people bore it so long; but after such a dark and tedious night the returning day in this revolution was the brighter and the more welcome.

Here we have, I. The people pleased, 2 Chron. 23:12–13. When the king stood at his pillar, whose right it was to stand there, all the people of the land rejoiced to see a rod sprung out of the stem of Jesse, Isa. 11:1.