Around the Altar and the House

• Anchor Bible Dictionary — “Jehoiada,” “Joash,” “Zechariah (son of Jehoiada),” “Amaziah,” “Uzziah,” “Jotham,” “Leprosy,” “Temple, Jerusalem,” “Gatekeeper,” “Crown,” “Warfare, Israelite.”
• Dictionary of the OT: Historical Books (IVP) — “Priests and Levites,” “Temple,” “Retribution,” “Prophets and Prophecy,” “Chronicler’s History.”
• NIDOTTE / TDOT — הֵיכָל (hêḵāl), נֵזֶר (nēzer), עֵדוּת (ʿēḏûṯ), חָזַק (ḥāzaq), דָּרַשׁ (dāraš), חִשָּׁבוֹן (ḥiššāḇōn).
• On the Greek — the NETS introduction to 2 Supplements, on the character of Paraleipomenon as a translation and on its handling of proper names and untranslated nouns.

• Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles (OTL); Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles (WBC); Ralph W. Klein, 2 Chronicles (Hermeneia); H. G. M. Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles (NCBC).
• For the Greek: Rahlfs’s Septuaginta, and the CATSS/CCAT digitization of it that this page measures against. No critical apparatus was consulted for this page — see Stage 5.

Temple guards were a real institution, not a narrative convenience. Ancient Near Eastern sanctuaries were staffed, gated, and controlled; access was graded by purity and by office, and gatekeepers were a named class with rosters. 23:19 is an administrative sentence — gatekeepers at the gates, so that no unclean thing enters — and it is placed immediately after a coup fought inside the precinct. The Chronicler’s point is procedural: the building has just been used as a fortress, and the first act of the restored order is to put the door back under discipline.

Elsewhere, kings burned incense as a matter of course. Egyptian and Mesopotamian royal iconography shows the king performing the cult; that is what a king was for. Israel divides the offices, and 26:18 states the division in as many words: it is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense — but for the priests. Uzziah’s offence is not exotic. It is the normal behaviour of a strong king in that world, performed in the one place where it was forbidden.

And 26:15 is describing hardware. Whatever חִשְּׁבֹנוֹת were — the word is unclear and the versions differ — they sit “on the towers and on the corners” and they throw arrows and large stones. Assyrian reliefs from the same century show siege towers, battering rams and stone-throwing crews in exactly that architectural position. The Greek translator read them as machines: μηχανὰς μεμηχανευμένας λογιστοῦ, “engines engineered by a reckoner.”

• Josephus, Antiquities 9.7.1–9.11.3 (Second-Temple — a witness, not Scripture) — he retells all four reigns. On Uzziah he adds an earthquake and a shaft of light through a broken temple roof striking the king’s face, which is not in Scripture. Cited as evidence of how the episode was being retold, not as information about the event.
• Assyrian palace reliefs and royal annals (royal propaganda — witnesses, not Scripture) — for siege engines on walls and corners, and for the ordinary royal performance of cultic acts. Cited for the practice that makes 26:16–18 an offence rather than a prerogative.
• 2 Kings 11–15 — not an external witness but the parallel account, and the single most important comparison on this page. Read 2 Kings 11 beside 2 Chronicles 23 and 2 Kings 14:8–14 beside 2 Chronicles 25:17–24.
• Leviticus 13–14 and Numbers 12 — not external witnesses but the law and precedent behind 26:19–21: the diagnosis on the forehead, the exclusion, and Miriam.

• In the Greek column the murdered man is called Azariah. Rahlfs at 2 Paraleipomenon 24:20 reads τὸν Αζαριαν τὸν τοῦ Ιωδαε τὸν ἱερέα where the Masoretic Text reads אֶת־זְכַרְיָה בֶּן־יְהוֹיָדָע הַכֹּהֵן; 24:22 then says only “his son” and never names him again. A reader working only from this Greek book would find no Zechariah murdered here — the only Zechariah put to death anywhere in it is one of Jehoshaphat’s six sons, killed with all his brothers at 21:2–4. Azariah and Zechariah are both extremely common priestly names in this book — counted in the Greek column, Αζαρι- occurs eleven times across 2 Paraleipomenon and Ζαχαρ- nine, and 23:1 alone carries two Azariahs — so confusion in either direction is easy; this page prints the difference and does not decide which reading is prior. It also does not pretend the difference is unimportant — it sits on the one verse in the unit that the New Testament names.
• 26:5 has a Hebrew/Greek divergence in the middle of a compliment. The Masoretic Text says Zechariah instructed Uzziah בִּרְאֹת הָאֱלֹהִים, “in the seeing of God”; the Greek reads ἐν φόβῳ κυρίου, “in the fear of the Lord.” The ESV prints neither column exactly — “in the fear of God,” the Greek’s fear with the Hebrew’s God. The consonants are close and the page names the divergence rather than choosing.
• The zero in this unit. Screened Hebrew-side with single words not counted — so that 0 means “shares no two consecutive words with any other verse in the Masoretic corpus,” not “shares nothing” — exactly one of these 108 verses comes out at zero: 2 Chronicles 26:14, Uzziah’s armoury list (shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, slingstones). It shares plenty of individual words with the rest of the Bible. It shares no two in a row with anything.

• 2 Chronicles 23:10 → Luke 11:51 — run 5, tie band 1. του θυσιαστηριου και του οικου. The equal-deepest contact this unit makes with the Greek New Testament — one of four rows in this unit that reach five, and the only New Testament verse that carries the sequence. The same five words occur in just two of the 30,348 screened Greek Old Testament verse units held here — this verse and 4 Kingdoms 11:11 (2 Kings 11:11), which is the same scene. Counter-measurement, printed beside it: 2 Chronicles 24:21, the verse Luke 11:51 is actually about, measures a run of 1 against it — και. And 24:20 and 24:22 also measure 1. The unit’s deepest Greek run is not its New Testament citation, and its New Testament citation is not measurable as a run at all.
• 2 Chronicles 23:10 → Matthew 23:35 — run 2. Matthew has μεταξὺ τοῦ ναοῦ καὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, “between the naós and the altar,” where Luke has τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου καὶ τοῦ οἴκου. The two Gospels use different nouns for the same building, and the difference is measurable: against 23:10 Luke runs 5 and Matthew runs 2. τοῦ ναοῦ καὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου occurs in none of the 30,348 screened Greek Old Testament verse units held here.
• 2 Chronicles 25:18 → 2 Kings 14:9 — run 29, tie band 1. Twenty-nine consecutive identical Hebrew word forms, the whole thistle-and-cedar fable. This is by a wide margin the deepest Hebrew run anywhere in these five chapters; the next deepest are 23:10 at 13 and 23:8 and 25:21 at 12, each with a tie band of 1. The two Greek columns then diverge on the very first noun — ὁ αχουχ against ὁ ακαν — which is why a reader who only compares Greek will underrate how close the Hebrew is.
• 2 Chronicles 25:4 → Deuteronomy 24:16 — run 5. אבות על בנים ובנים לא. The Chronicler names his source in the verse itself — “as it is written in the Law, in the Book of Moses” — which is what makes this the control case for the whole page: this is what a citation looks like when a text tells you it is citing.
• 2 Chronicles 26:16 and 27:2 → Ezekiel 8:16. אֶל־הֵיכַל יְהוָה occurs three times in the Masoretic corpus and these are all three. Uzziah goes in; Jotham does not; and in Ezekiel men stand at its entrance, “between the porch and the altar,” facing the wrong way. In Greek, Ezekiel 8:16 carries both Gospel nouns at once — ναός and θυσιαστήριον — and it measures a run of 2 against Luke 11:51 and 2 against Matthew 23:35. That is the best evidence on this page that these are simply the ordinary words for the two ordinary objects.
• 2 Chronicles 26:15 → Ecclesiastes 7:29. חִשְּׁבֹנוֹת, twice in the Hebrew Bible and nowhere else. Reported as a lexical fact. The Greek does not carry it across.
• 2 Chronicles 27:8 — absent from Rahlfs, and measurably the most repetitive verse in its chapter. The Masoretic 27:8 shares 11 consecutive word forms, tie band 1, with 2 Kings 15:33, and 6 consecutive word forms with 2 Chronicles 27:1, seven verses earlier in its own chapter. Both facts are measurements; the inference that a translator declined to copy a regnal formula twice is an inference, and this page marks it as one. What is a datum is that the Greek runs 27:7 to 27:9.
• 2 Chronicles 23 → 2 Kings 11, verse by verse. Fifteen of the twenty-one verses of chapter 23 find their single deepest Masoretic match in 2 Kings 11, and they do it in order: 11:4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Chapter 25 does the same with 2 Kings for 15 of its 28 verses, fourteen of them in 2 Kings 14. Chapter 24 does it for 3 of 27.

• Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles (OTL) — on the Chronicler’s handling of the Joash and Amaziah narratives and on his theology of access to the temple.
• Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles (WBC) — on the two-phase reign pattern (faithful start, unfaithful end, prophet at the hinge) that Joash, Amaziah and Uzziah all receive.
• Ralph W. Klein, 2 Chronicles (Hermeneia) — the technical work, including the minus at 27:8 and the Greek name at 24:20.
• H. G. M. Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles (NCBC) — on the relationship of chapters 23 and 25 to the Kings account.

• No critical apparatus was consulted, and that limits every Greek statement here. The Greek column is one edition — Rahlfs, as digitized by CATSS. When this page says “27:8 is not in Rahlfs” or “the Greek reads Azariah,” it means exactly that and no more. The manuscript evidence behind those readings was not examined, the Lucianic and Antiochene traditions were not consulted, and it is entirely possible that other Greek witnesses read Zechariah at 24:20 or carry a verse 8. A reader who needs to know should go to Göttingen and to Klein’s notes.
• The five-word run is the weakest strong-looking thing on this page, and it is meant to be read that way. τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου καὶ τοῦ οἴκου is four common words and an article. Its rarity across 30,348 verse units is a real measurement; its significance is not a measurement. If this page has an overreach in it, it is here, and the counter-measurement (24:21 → Luke 11:51 = 1) is printed in three separate places on purpose.
• The Odes are excluded from every Greek Old Testament figure. The corpus held here is 64 CATSS files totalling 30,637 verse units; a run screen sees 30,348, because the Odes are held out. That exclusion is deliberate: Ode 9 is Luke 1 and Ode 13 is Luke 2 copied into a Greek Old Testament manuscript, and ten further Odes are second copies of Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32, 1 Samuel 2, Habakkuk 3, Isaiah 26, Jonah 2, Daniel 3, Isaiah 5 and Isaiah 38. Leaving them in would inflate every “this phrase occurs N times” count on the shelf. Every Greek Old Testament figure on this page is therefore a figure over 30,348 units, and is stated that way.
• The two-phase pattern is an observation about arrangement, not a claim about events. Dillard’s shape fits Joash, Amaziah and Uzziah closely enough to look like the Chronicler’s theology organising his material. Whether it also reflects what happened is a separate question that neither the text nor this page addresses.
• The numbers were not converted or defended. 300,000 chosen men and 307,500 in the army (25:5; 26:13), 100,000 mercenaries hired for a hundred talents (25:6), 10,000 Edomites thrown from a rock (25:12). The standing question about the sense of אֶלֶף applies and is not settled. This page prints none of those verses as codex rows and makes no argument from them.
• What Josephus adds was not treated as evidence. The earthquake and the shaft of light at Uzziah’s presumption are in Antiquities 9 and not in Scripture. Named as a witness to first-century retelling; never levelled with the text.
• Chronicles and Kings are not harmonised anywhere on this page. Where they differ, both are printed. The verse-by-verse Hebrew profile in Stage 4 shows where the wording overlaps and says nothing whatever about which account is prior or whether either writer saw the other.
• And no direction of influence is asserted between any Old and New Testament text here. Not for the five-word run, not for ἐκζητηθήσεται, not for the courtyard. Luke 11:51 and Matthew 23:35 name a murder that 2 Chronicles 24 reports; that much the New Testament says out loud. Everything past it on this page is a count.

• The safest place in the book became the murder scene. Jehoiada filled the ground between the altar and the house with armed men so that one child would live. Decades later, inside the same forty-year reign, that child, now king, had that man’s son stoned on the same paving. Nothing about the place protected anyone. The people in it changed.
• The measurement will not do your reading for you. The deepest verbatim link between these chapters and the Greek New Testament is five words that mean nothing, and the real connection — the murder Jesus names — measures one word. A number can tell you a phrase is rare. It cannot tell you a text is being quoted. That is worth knowing every time somebody shows you a chart of parallels.
• Strength is the hinge, in both directions. Uzziah was helped “till he was strong” — and the very next clause is his ruin. Jotham “became mighty, because he ordered his ways.” Same Hebrew root, opposite outcomes, one chapter apart. The question was never how strong, but what the strength was ordered toward.
• One concrete response. Jotham’s whole verdict is that he did everything his father did except the one thing his father got wrong. Name, this week, one specific thing you watched go wrong in someone you otherwise admire — and decide, out loud to one other person, that you will not repeat it. 27:2 gives that verdict in a single clause and that is the entire content of it.