2 Chronicles 21 · a question people ask
Why would the LORD keep David's house for a king like Jehoram?
The chapter gives its own reason, and only one: "because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a lamp to him and to his children always" (21:7). The promise itself had spoken of wrong done by David's offspring. Through Nathan the LORD said of the offspring he would set up after David (2 Samuel 7:12), "If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men" (2 Samuel 7:14), "but my loving kindness will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you" (2 Samuel 7:15). The chapter doesn't point back to those verses; they are set beside it here. What the chapter tells is both at once: David's house is not destroyed (21:7), and Jehoram himself is judged, as the letter said (21:12-15) and as came to pass (21:16-19). By the end "there was no son left to him except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons" (21:17), and the next chapter tells of Joash the son of Ahaziah, hidden from Athaliah (22:11-12).
The verses
“However the LORD would not destroy David’s house, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a lamp to him and to his children always.”
“When your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your offspring after you, who will proceed out of your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men; but my loving kindness will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you.”
“But Jehoshabeath, the king’s daughter, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stealthily rescued him from among the king’s sons who were slain, and put him and his nurse in the bedroom. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest (for she was the sister of Ahaziah), hid him from Athaliah, so that she didn’t kill him. He was with them hidden in God’s house six years while Athaliah reigned over the land.”