8: "and they took each his men," &c. The words are
taken from 2Kings xi. 9, but there refer to the captains, while
here the antecedents are the Levites and all the men of Judah--as
if each one of these last had a company of his own which entered
upon service, or left it, every Sabbath day.
The comparison of 2Chronicles xxiv. 4-14 with 2Kings xii. 5-17
[4-16] is not much less instructive. According to 2Kings xii.
Joash enjoined that all the money dues payable to the temple
should in future fall to the priests, who in turn were to be under
obligation to maintain the building in good repair. But they took
the money and neglected the other side of the bargain, and when
they and Jehoiada in particular were blamed by the king on that
account, they gave up the dues so as not to be liable to the
burden. Thereupon the king set up a kind of sacred treasury, a
chest with a hole in the lid, near the altar, "on the right hand
as one goes into the temple," into which the priests were to cast
the money which came in, with the exception of the sin and
trespass moneys, which still belonged to them. And as often as
the chest became full, the king's scribes and the chief priest
removed the money, weighed it, and handed it over to the
contractors for payment of the workmen; that none of it was to be
employed for sacred vessels is expressly said (ver.
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