Joash, the Temple Chest and the Death of Zechariah

Joash gathers priests and Levites: "Go out unto the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God." A chest is set "without at the gate of the house of the LORD," and the people rejoice and give until it is full.

"But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; an hundred and thirty years old." The princes bow to the king, and he listens to them; they serve Asherim and idols. "And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest… Because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you. 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."

"Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The LORD look upon it, and require it." A small Aramean force defeats Judah's large army. Joash's servants kill him "for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest," and he is not buried in the tombs of the kings.

"From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias"

Jesus speaks of the blood of all the righteous "from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar" (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51 omits "son of Barachias"). Many identify him with Zechariah son of Jehoiada, the last murder in the Hebrew Bible if Chronicles is its last book; Matthew's "son of Barachias" matches the prophet Zechariah (Zechariah 1:1). See the passage page.

Two accounts

2 Kings 12 says nothing of Joash's apostasy, Zechariah or the reason for his murder; Chronicles explains his fall as the consequence of his turn after Jehoiada's death.