2 Kings 11:11

And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, from the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple, along by the altar and the temple.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) The guard.—Literally, the Couriers; not therefore the Levites.

Corner.—Rather, side.

Along by.—At.

And the temple.—And at the Temple. The guard formed in two lines, extending from the south wall to the north wall of the court, one line standing at the altar of burnt offering, which was near the entrance, the other at the sanctuary itself. The words “round about the king” are anticipative.

Benson Commentary

2 Kings 11:11. The guard stood from the right to the left corner of the temple — From the south-east to the north-east side. Along by the altar — Of burnt-offerings, which was by the great eastern gate of the temple. The meaning is, they defended the temple on all sides.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:1-12 Athaliah destroyed all she knew to be akin to the crown. Jehoash, one of the king's sons, was hid. Now was the promise made to David bound up in one life only, and yet it did not fail. Thus to the Son of David, the Lord, according to his promise, will secure a spiritual seed, hidden sometimes, and unseen, but hidden in God's pavilion, and unhurt. Six years Athaliah tyrannized. Then the king was brought forward. A child indeed, but he had a good guardian, and, what was better, a good God to go to With such joy and satisfaction must the kingdom of Christ be welcomed into our hearts, when his throne is set up there, and Satan the usurper is cast out. Say, Let the King, even Jesus, live, for ever live and reign in my soul, and in all the world.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

From the right corner ... - Rather, "from the right side of the temple buildings to the left side" - i. e., right across the temple court from the one side to the other, by the altar of burnt offerings, etc. This altar stood exactly in front of the temple-porch. Here the king was stationed; and before him and behind him, ("round about" him) stood the soldiers, drawn up several ranks deep across the entire court, just in front of the sacred building.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2Ki 11:4-12. He Is Made King.

4. the seventh year—namely, of the reign of Athaliah, and the rescue of Jehoash.

Jehoiada sent and fetched the rulers, &c.—He could scarcely have obtained such a general convocation except at the time, or on pretext, of a public and solemn festival. Having revealed to them the secret of the young king's preservation and entered into a covenant with them for the overthrow of the tyrant, he then arranged with them the plan and time of carrying their plot into execution (see on [336]2Ch 22:10-23:21). The conduct of Jehoiada, who acted the leading and chief part in this conspiracy, admits of an easy and full justification; for, while Athaliah was a usurper, and belonged to a race destined by divine denunciation to destruction, even his own wife had a better and stronger claim to the throne; the sovereignty of Judah had been divinely appropriated to the family of David, and therefore the young prince on whom it was proposed to confer the crown, possessed an inherent right to it, of which a usurper could not deprive him. Moreover, Jehoiada was most probably the high priest, whose official duty it was to watch over the due execution of God's laws, and who in his present movement, was encouraged and aided by the countenance and support of the chief authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical, in the country. In addition to all these considerations, he seems to have been directed by an impulse of the Divine Spirit, through the counsels and exhortations of the prophets of the time.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

From the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple; from the south-east to the north-east side. By the altar; the altar of burnt-offerings, which was by the great and eastern gate of the temple.

And the temple, i.e. by and towards the other parts of the temple, which they defended on all sides.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king,.... As ordered, 2 Kings 11:8.

from the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple from the northeast to the southeast:

along by the altar and the temple: the altar of burnt offering, which stood in the court.

Geneva Study Bible

And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, from the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple, along by the altar and the temple.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. And the guard stood] These are the ‘runners’, the foot-soldiers, whose duty was on the outside of the temple.

round about the king, &c.] The R.V. changes the order of words here, as well as the rendering, to that which is adopted for the same Hebrew in 2 Chron. They are thus translated, from the right side of the house to the left side of the house along by the altar and the house, by the king round about. To understand how these guards were ranged it must be remembered that the altar stood in the court in front of the temple porch. Hence from each corner of the porch, on the right and left, the men were ranged in lines between the temple and the altar, so that when the king came forth he could advance between them, and the lines gradually came towards each other as they neared the altar, so that it can be said of them that they were along by the altar and by the house. The space enclosed by them would be somewhat triangular in form, the base being the width of the temple porch. Into this space Joash was brought forth, and there proclaimed and anointed in the sight of the people who in 2 Chronicles are said to have been gathered in the temple courts.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, from the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple. "Corner" is a wrong word used in this connection. The Hebrew כָתֶף is literally, "shoulder," and must mean here, not "corner," but "side" (so our Revisers). The guard was drawn up right across the temple court from wall to wall, probably in several ranks, both before and behind the king (see ver. 8). Along by the altar. The "altar" intended is, of course, the altar of burnt offering, which stood in the great court, a little way from the porch, right in front of it; not the altar of incense, which was inside the sanctuary. No one, it must be remembered, was ever allowed to enter inside the sanctuary but the priests and officiating Levites (see 2 Chronicles 23:6). And the temple. "The temple" is here the sanctuary, as in the passage of Chronicles just quoted. The guard occupied a position at the upper end of the court, immediately in front of the altar and the temple porch. 2 Kings 11:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The execution of these plans. The high priest gave the captains "the spears and shields (שׁלטים: see at 2 Samuel 8:7) which (belonged) to king David, that were in the house of Jehovah," i.e., the weapons which David had presented to the sanctuary as dedicatory offerings. Instead of החנית we ought probably to read החניתת (cf. Micah 4:3; Isaiah 2:4), after the החניתים of the Chronicles, since the collective force of הנית is very improbable in prose, and a ת might easily drop out through a copyist's error. Jehoiada gave the captains weapons from the temple, because, as has been already observed, they had come unarmed, and not, as Thenius imagines, to provide them with old and sacred weapons instead of their ordinary ones. In 2 Kings 11:11 the position of all the divisions is given in a comprehensive manner, for the purpose of appending the further course of the affair, namely, the coronation of the king. "Thus the halberdiers stood, every one with his weapons in his hand, from the right wing of the house to the left wing, towards the altar (of burnt-offering) and the (temple-) house, round about the king," i.e., to cover the king on all sides. For it is evident that we are not to understand סביב על־המּלך as signifying the encircling of the king, from the statement in 2 Kings 11:12, according to which Jehoiada did not bring out the king's son till after the men had taken up their positions. The use of הרצים, to signify the captains with the armed priests and Levites put under their command for this purpose, is an uncommon one, but it may be explained from the fact that רצים had retained the general meaning of royal halberdiers; and the priests and Levites under the command of the captains of the royal body-guard by this very act discharged the duty of the royal body-guard itself. The chronicler has used the indefinite expression כּל-haa`aam, the whole of the people assembled in the temple-court.