“The Lord isn’t slow…as some people think” (2 Pet 3:9, GWT). The wait may be long, but He’s never late.
If you were going to hide something (or someone!) from Athaliah, the wicked monarch of Judah, where would you put it? In “the house of God,” of course (2 Chron 22:12). She never went near the place. And that’s where little prince Joash resided with his nurse for six long years. As James Russell Lowell portrayed it, “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.” Now the time had come. “In the seventh year Jehoiada strengthened himself, and made a covenant with the captains of hundreds” (23:1). So first he took stock of his own commitment before he aligned his cause with the military leaders. Then “they went throughout Judah and gathered the Levites from all the cities of Judah, and the chief fathers of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem” (v 2). With the religious and civic leaders now on board, “all the assembly made a covenant with the king in the house of God. And he said to them, ‘Behold, the king’s son shall reign, as the Lord has said of the sons of David’” (v 3). The plan? To keep from being too obvious through doubling the number, they would act at the changing of shifts. “And each man took his men who were to be on duty on the Sabbath, with those who were going off duty” (v 8). He distributed “the spears and the large and small shields which had belonged to King David” (v 9). Then the moment came. “And they brought out the king’s son, put the crown on him, gave him the Testimony, and made him king. Then Jehoiada and his sons anointed him, and said, ‘Long live the king!’” (v 11). The crown and the Testimony link heaven and earth in common cause. Thankfully, our King lives forever!