Jehoiada

Jehoiada is a Hebrew personal name meaning "Yahweh knows," borne by several men in the Hebrew Scriptures, most prominently the priest who hid the infant Joash from Athaliah, crowned him king, and guided Judah through the early years of his reign. The name appears in Scripture of more than one figure: 2 Samuel 8:18 names Benaiah the son of Jehoiada among David's officials over the Cherethites and Pelethites, and Jeremiah 29:26 refers to a later "Jehoiada the priest" whose office Zephaniah had inherited, a figure distinct from the ninth-century priest of the Joash narrative.

The text says that in the seventh year of Athaliah, Jehoiada sent for the captains of the Carites and the guard, brought them into Yahweh's house, made a covenant with them, and showed them the king's son (2 Kings 11:4). He then set the boy on the throne, and 2 Kings 11:17 records that he made a covenant between Yahweh and the king and the people, that they should be Yahweh's people, and also between the king and the people. The parallel account in 2 Chronicles 23:16 describes the covenant as made between Jehoiada himself, all the people, and the king; the difference in wording between the two accounts is a genuine feature of the texts, not a modern variant.

In Chronicles, Jehoiada's influence defines the king's faithfulness: Joash did what was right in Yahweh's eyes all the days of Jehoiada the priest (2 Chronicles 24:2), and the temple vessels and continual burnt offerings are likewise dated by his lifetime (2 Chronicles 24:14). When he died he was buried in David's city among the kings, because he had done good in Israel and toward God and his house (2 Chronicles 24:16). The narrative turns immediately afterward: the princes of Judah came and bowed to the king, and he listened to them (2 Chronicles 24:17), and Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, filled with the Spirit of God, was killed for rebuking the people's disobedience, with Joash forgetting the kindness Jehoiada had shown him (2 Chronicles 24:20–22).

Christian readers have long connected that Zechariah with the words of Matthew 23:35, where Jesus speaks of "Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar." The identification is debated, since 2 Chronicles names Zechariah's father as Jehoiada, while the prophet of Zechariah 1:1 is called the son of Berechiah, and Luke's parallel leaves the father unnamed. Historically, some have read Matthew's patronymic as a conflation or as a second name, and Jerome reports that a Hebrew version of the Gospel read "son of Jehoiada." The traditions differ here: Catholic and Orthodox calendars commemorate a Zechariah variously identified with the Chronicler's martyr or with the prophet, and interpreters remain divided over whether Matthew names the same man at all. What is not disputed is the picture the Joash narrative gives of Jehoiada himself — the priest whose covenant, guardianship, and burial among the kings made his lifetime the measure of a king's fidelity.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.