Bible Strands
2 Chronicles 24:21
But they conspired against Zechariah, and by order of the king, they stoned him in the courtyard of the house of the LORD.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The text records conspirators executing Zechariah by stoning in the temple courtyard under King Joash’s direct order, immediately following Zechariah’s public denunciation of the people’s covenant failure. This violent act concludes the narrative sequence where the Spirit of God comes upon Zechariah to confront the nation’s abandonment of divine commandments.
The words — The Hebrew וַ/יִּקְשְׁרוּ (va/i.yik.she.Ru) describes a coordinated conspiracy, while וַ/יִּרְגְּמֻ֥הוּ (va/i.yir.ge.Mu./hu) specifies the execution method as stoning. Both actions are explicitly governed by בְּ/מִצְוַ֣ת הַ/מֶּ֑לֶךְ (be./mitz.Vat ha./Me.lekh), the king’s command, which dictates the location within בַּ/חֲצַ֖ר בֵּ֥ית (ba./cha.Tzar beit), the courtyard of the house.
The thread — This pattern of killing prophets in sacred or public spaces appears in Nehemiah 9:26, where rebels fling God’s law aside and slay His messengers, and in Acts 7:58, where witnesses prepare garments for a stoning outside the city. Jeremiah 11:19 also mirrors the scene through the imagery of an innocent lamb led to slaughter against a hidden plot.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that institutional authority can pervert sacred spaces into sites of violence when they reject prophetic correction. It requires the reader to observe how the deliberate rejection of divine warning directly precedes the loss of covenant protection and the failure of remembered kindness.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord.
Cross-references
- Nehemiah 9:26 But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.
- Acts 7:58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
- Jeremiah 11:19 For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more.”
- Jeremiah 18:18 Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.”
- Jeremiah 38:4 Then the officials said to the king, “This man ought to die, for he is discouraging the warriors who remain in this city, as well as all the people, by speaking such words to them; this man is not seeking the well-being of these people, but their ruin.”
- Matthew 21:35 But the tenants seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.
- Matthew 23:34 Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town.