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Context No. 1703 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

2 Chronicles 24:1-7: in context

1Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah, of Beersheba. 2Joash did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes all the days of Jehoiada the priest. 3Jehoiada took for him two wives, and he became the father of sons and daughters. 4After this, Joash intended to restore the LORD’s house. 5He gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, “Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather money to repair the house of your God from all Israel from year to year. See that you expedite this matter.” However the Levites didn’t do it right away. 6The king called for Jehoiada the chief, and said to him, “Why haven’t you required of the Levites to bring in the tax of Moses the servant of the LORD, and of the assembly of Israel, out of Judah and out of Jerusalem, for the Tent of the Testimony?” 7For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up God’s house; and they also gave all the dedicated things of the LORD’s house to the Baals.

Joash becomes king at seven, and does right in God's eyes throughout the lifetime of Jehoiada the priest. In time he resolves to restore the house of the LORD, which had fallen into disrepair, its dedicated things having been stripped by the sons of wicked Athaliah and given to the Baals. He orders the priests and Levites to collect money from the people and repair the temple, and to do it quickly. But the Levites do not hurry; and Joash has to summon Jehoiada to ask why the work is being neglected.

Two things in this passage are worth holding together. The first is Joash's good resolve: to restore the house of God that had been broken down and robbed for idols. It was a worthy purpose, to repair what had fallen into disrepair, to bring back to its proper use what had been neglected and plundered. There is always such work to be done, the restoring of what has fallen into disrepair, in a building, a practice, a relationship, a life, and it is good to set our hand to it as Joash did. But the second thing is the drag on that good work: the Levites did not do it quickly. Given a clear and worthy task, they were slow, in no hurry; and the repair that should have gone forward stalled, until the king had to prod them. Here is a very ordinary failure, not opposition to the good work, not refusal, but simply slowness, the tendency to put off and drag our feet on the good and needed thing we have been given to do. It is possible to agree that a thing should be done, to have no objection to it, and yet never quite get around to it, letting it slide while more urgent or more pleasant things crowd it out. The good work of restoration languishes not because anyone opposes it but because no one hurries to it. The passage gently rebukes that sluggishness. When God gives us a good work, the restoring of something broken, the repair of what has been neglected, the counsel is not only to agree that it should be done but to do it, and not to be slow. Joash said, expedite this matter; the Levites dawdled; and the lesson is to be prompt, not slow, in the good that is ours to do.

Is there a good and needed work I have been given, the restoring of something broken or neglected, that I agree should be done but keep putting off, dragging my feet as the Levites did, and can I heed the call to be prompt rather than slow in the good work that is mine to do?

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