Bible Strands
2 Kings 12:6
By the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash, however, the priests had not yet repaired the damage to the temple.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator reports the stalled condition of temple repairs during the twenty-third year of King Joash’s reign, immediately after Jehoiada’s directive for priests to collect funds from their districts. This observation sets the stage for Joash’s subsequent command to the priesthood to cease withholding the designated money.
The words — The phrase בִּשְׁנַת עֶשְׂרִים וְשָׁלוֹשׁ (bi-shnat esrim ve-shalosh, "in the year twenty and three") fixes the delay at a precise chronological marker. The particle לֹא (lo, "not") directly negates the expected completion of the repair work, highlighting the gap between command and execution.
The thread — The theme of neglected sacred duties and delayed restoration appears in 1 Samuel 2:29 regarding contempt for prescribed offerings, 2 Chronicles 29:34 concerning insufficient priests for burnt offerings, and Isaiah 56:10 describing blind and mute watchmen.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that prolonged inaction on consecrated responsibilities violates established worship protocols. It requires the reader to assess whether institutional delay stems from oversight or deliberate withholding before corrective measures are applied.
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
But it was so, that in the three and twentieth year of king Jehoash the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house.
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 2:29 Why then do you kick at My sacrifice and offering that I have prescribed for My dwelling place? You have honored your sons more than Me by fattening yourselves with the best of all the offerings of My people Israel.’
- 2 Chronicles 29:34 However, since there were not enough priests to skin all the burnt offerings, their Levite brothers helped them until the work was finished and until the priests had consecrated themselves. For the Levites had been more diligent in consecrating themselves than the priests had been.
- Isaiah 56:10 Israel’s watchmen are blind, they are all oblivious; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they are dreamers lying around, loving to slumber.
- Malachi 1:10 “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle useless fires on My altar! I take no pleasure in you,” says the LORD of Hosts, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.
- Philippians 2:21 For all the others look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
- 1 Peter 5:2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed, but out of eagerness;