THE KING WHO WOULD NOT DIE
THE
KING WHO WOULD NOT DIE
By
Robert Allen
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Now that Joash knew he would one day
be king his training meant much more to him.
He listened more closely when Iddo taught them. He practiced much harder when one of the
temple musicians gave them singing lessons.
He fought mightily when a guard from the palace arrived to teach them
how to use a sword. Of course, none of
the teachers knew the real identity of Joash.
They all thought that both boys were sons of Jehoiada the priest. But Joash knew, and he wanted to be his very
best when it came time for him to be the new king.
The boys protected their secret
carefully. Sometimes it proved very
hard, like the day Iddo told the story of Ahaziah in class. The boys had jumped to attention that day and
then settled down for the story when Joash and Zechariah realized what was
happening. Iddo began telling them the
same story Jehoiada had told them several weeks before. At first they were afraid he would reveal
their secret, but then they remembered that he did not know their secret. The story sounded just the same until he came
to the night the children were killed.
“The guards came into the palace
nursery,” Iddo whispered in his storytelling voice. “Every guard held a sword in his hand and
Queen Athaliah stood right there with them.
In spite of the pleading of the mothers, the guards marched from crib to
crib and killed every last one of the king’s sons.”
When Iddo said that, Joash looked
out of the side of his eyes toward Zechariah.
The other boy glanced sideways toward Joash at the same time. When they caught each other’s eyes, they
giggled.
“What’s going on back there?” Iddo spoke sharply and immediately the two
boys sat up straighter. They would not
know what to tell him if he asked why they were laughing.
After he had everyone’s attention,
Iddo continued with the story. “Do you
know what this means for our nation?
Many years ago God gave a promise to King David that one of his
descendants would be the Messiah. The
Messiah, when He comes, will have a kingdom that extends to the whole
world. He will rule over everyone and
every land. But now Athaliah has killed
every descendant of King David. There is
no one living through whom God’s promise concerning the giving of a Messiah can
be fulfilled. This is indeed a sad day
for the people of God.”
This time the boys did not
laugh. They had known that Joash would
one day be the king. But they had not
known anything about the promise of a Messiah.
God Himself had kept Joash from dying so he could not only be king, but
also make sure that the promise of a Messiah could one day be fulfilled.
The boys had many friends among the
children who attended Iddo’s class at the temple, but most of the time they
played by themselves. None of the other
priests actually lived in the temple area.
They lived in other places throughout the city of Jerusalem and their
sons came up to the temple only for classes.
About a year after the boys first
learned the real identity of Joash, a new boy started attending class. Iddo introduced him as Mattaniah Bar-Mattan,
but the boy quickly informed them that he wanted to be called Matt. His face shone with friendliness and Joash
and Zechariah liked him immediately.
Soon Matt started staying after class or even coming up to the temple to
play with them on days when they didn’t have class. He came up with ideas for play which they had
never even considered.
“Hey fellows,” Matt said one day
after class. “Let’s go out to the camel
caravans and tease the camels.”
Running out through the temple gates
they made their way through the Tyropean valley and out the Valley Gate to
where the caravans camped on their route from Babylon to Egypt. Men in strange-colored robes sat on the ground
talking in languages the boys couldn’t understand and selling merchandise to
the women of the city. Behind them lay
the camels. When the drivers arrived at
the outskirts of the city they would have the animals kneel and then they would
simply drop the lead rope to the ground.
The camels never wandered off.
They never even rose back up until commanded by their drivers. So the boys would climb up onto the camel
saddles and pretend they were traveling through the desert. Or they would stand face to face with a camel
and try to chew their cud like the animals did.
That was great fun. But one thing
bothered the boys. They noticed that
Matt had sticky fingers. When they left
the place of the caravans he sometimes had objects hidden in his pockets which
did not belong to him.
Matt also showed them the largest
swimming pool they had ever seen. When
Joash and Zechariah needed to cool off on a hot summer’s day they would
scramble down to the Brook Kidron and go wading. But wading didn’t satisfy Matt.
“I’ll show you where we can really
swim,” he said. “It is the neatest place
you have ever seen.”
He led them up the valley and around
to the north side of the temple area where no one lived. Calling them to stay close he approached some
low cliffs where rocks seemed to rise right up out of the ground. “Careful now.
You don’t want to get lost.”
Darting between two stones he
stepped into the entrance of a cave, both boys right on his tail. Light faded to darkness and they paused until
their eyes acclimated to the dim light.
“Almost there, fellows. Watch
your feet. It can get slippery.”
The cave narrowed and then suddenly
opened into a large cavern. But it was
not empty. It was full of water.
“Where are we?” said Joash.
“These are the cisterns that supply
water for the temple,” Matt said, pulling off his shirt. “Come on, let’s go swimming.”
Matt jumped off a rock next to the
path where they were standing and splashed them with a great cannonball. Quickly they shucked their shirts and joined
him. This was much more fun than wading
in Kidron.
Matt seemed to know every corner of
the city of Jerusalem. The more time
they played together, the better they liked him. But they didn’t tell Jehoshabeath and Jehoiada
because of the sticky fingers they had seen back in the camel enclosure. Somehow they knew the priest and his wife
would not approve and they didn’t want to lose him as a friend. If they had told their parents they might
have learned something they didn’t know.
During those years when Joash grew
up in the temple, Athaliah had been placing her mark on the land. She raised people’s taxes until almost no one
could afford to pay them. She used the
money to build another temple to Baal right in Jerusalem, even bigger than the
one her husband King Jehoram had built.
All the people were required to go to the temple and bring
offerings. She wanted to shut the gates
of God’s temple permanently, but not even the queen could do that. Instead she passed a law that worshippers
could go to the holy temple only one day a week. On every other day they had to worship at her
Baal temple.
Athaliah had help in all these
changes from a large number of Baal worshippers from the north. They had moved to Jerusalem just before Jehu
killed all the Baal worshippers up in Samaria.
These northerners followed the lead of a priest named Mattan. What Joash and Zechariah didn’t know was that
Mattan was Matt’s father.
Queen Athaliah, of course, believed
that all of the heirs to the throne of David had been killed. So she was not suspicious that one of the
boys might have escaped, but at the same time she did not trust the High Priest
Jehoiada. She knew he did not approve of
her being the queen. Her spies reported
to her from all parts of the land, but she didn’t know how to get a spy into
the temple. Those who worshipped Jehovah
would not spy for her. Mattan had the
idea of using his son.
“No one will ever suspect a little
boy,” he told Queen Athaliah. “It’s
perfect. That silly Iddo is so conceited
he will accept anyone into his class. He
just wants to have more students than any of the other teachers so everyone
will believe he is the best when he tells them he is. I will enroll Matt in Iddo’s class and then
he can come and go in the temple as he pleases.
He will tell me everything that happens and I will tell you.”
Queen Athaliah hated the idea, mainly
because it had not been hers. But she
also hated children with a passion and didn’t trust them at all. Besides that, she wanted her spies to report
to her and not to someone else, even if he was priest of Baal. But she could not come up with a better idea.
“All right. Give it a try. Enroll the little brat in Iddo’s class. I do hope he has his wits about him. Jehoiada cannot be trusted any further than
from here to the bottom of my chair.
Your little monster had better be a good spy.”
So every day Matt went to the temple
and every night he returned home and told his father all about the day, except
for his stealing from the caravan traders, of course. What Mattan felt to be important he shared
with the queen, but it really never amounted to much. Usually he didn’t report to the queen at all.
One day after the boys had been
playing together for several months Matt suggested exploring Solomon’s quarry.
“We’ll have to carry torches,” he
told the others. “Some people say that
the other end comes out way down in Jericho.”
“Jericho?” gasped Zechariah. “That’s way down by the Jordan River.”
“I know. But we won’t go that far. I just know it will be dark unless we bring
torches. Solomon’s quarry is where they
cut out the rocks for the temple.”
So the boys assembled torches from
long pieces of dry grass wound real tight so it would not burn too
quickly. The entrance to the cave on the
west side of the city consisted of a large opening in the side of a hill but
once inside they realized why the torches were needed. They stood in a large room, so tall they
couldn’t see the ceiling even with the light the torches provided.
“Wow!” said Joash. “Amazing.”
“All man-made,” explained Matt. “When they were building the temple they came
down here and cut stones out of the solid rock.
Since Solomon built the temple they called it Solomon’s Cave.”
“Awesome,” said Zechariah.
“Awesome,” said Zechariah.
The three boys explored the quarry
for over an hour and then started looking for something else to do.
“Let’s pretend to be Solomon when he
built the temple,” suggested Zechariah.
“Great idea,” said Matt. “You two can be slaves cutting out the rock
and I’ll be King Solomon telling you what to do.”
“No,” said Zechariah. “I get to be Solomon. It was my idea.”
“Neither one of you can be Solomon,”
Joash interrupted. “I’m the king.”
As soon as he said it Joash knew he
had said the wrong thing. “I mean. I want to be king.” But that didn’t sound right either. “I mean, I want to play King Solomon.”
“I don’t know,” said Matt. “It’s getting pretty late. Maybe we can come and play some other
day. I think I had better go home. There’s something I need to tell my father.”
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