Bible Commentaries

2 Chronicles 23:21

And the city was quiet, after that they had slain Athaliah with the sword.

A wicked woman

Is it possible that a time may come when people will rejoice that we are dead? Will some pulpits be more honoured by emptiness man by occupancy? Will some businesses have a chance to recover their character when the principals are dead, but not so long as those principals initiate and conduct the policy of the house? Is it possible that a throne may be a fountain of mischief? Questions such as these, penetrating, unsparing, we should thrust into ourselves, that they may work first painfully and then curatively. Is there no explanation given of all this rejoicing over the death of Athaliah? The explanation is given in 2 Chronicles 24:7 --“that wicked woman.” This is an alliteration which the grammarian might detest, the rhetorician avoid as a vice in eloquence, but which the moralist must look at with a sense of ineffable shame. “Wicked woman”--it is impossible! It ought to be an affront to the very genius of creation; say dark sun, say waterless sea, say flowerless summer, and the irony might be tolerated, for it might be only a discord in words; but “wicked woman” indicates a possibility that makes all hell easy of belief. This is the moral explanation of the physical disaster. Athaliah was slain with the sword--cry, Murder then! Arrest the homicide, the regicide! But wait; you know not all; the explanatory word found in the context--“that wicked woman.” (J. Parker, D.D.)
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