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YEHOVAH’s Tithe in Scripture 77

guered city, took his eldest son and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall, II Kings 3:27.
Again, the prophet Jonah is thought to have lived about this time; and if so, the proposal to offer to
the gods their passenger as a sacrifice, by casting him overboard, would not be an abnormal or
strange notion to Jonah’s shipmates. Moreover, observing that after so doing the sea became calm,
they deemed their prayer answered, feared YEHOVAH exceedingly, offered a sacrifice, and made
vows, Jonah 1:15-16.

This mixing up of true and false religious worship and offerings is further illustrated by
Jehu, who proclaimed that he had a great sacrifice to do to Baal, then put to death Baal’s priests, II
Kings 10:19-25.

We now come to the days of the youthful Joash, who did right so long as he was directed by
Jehoiada the priest. Even the wicked Athaliah, who had broken up the house of God, bestowed the
dedicated things upon the Baalim, II Chronicles 24:2-7. Joash accordingly proposed to the priests
that all the money of the dedicated things brought into the house of the LORD, and all voluntary
gifts, should be taken for temple repairs. But the priests did not forward the matter: whereupon
Joash asked why the repairs were not done; after which the priests consented to receive no more
money of the people; but neither did they consent to make good the repairs, II Kings 12:4-8.

The king, however, being minded to restore the house of the Lord, gathered the priests and
Levites, and said to them: “Go out unto the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair
the house of your God from year to year." But the Levites did not bestir themselves, II Chronicles
24:5.

Then the king commanded, and they made a chest, bored a hole in the lid, and set it beside
the altar; and the priests that kept the door put therein all the money that was brought into the house.
This money was given to the workmen for repairs, but not expended for making sacred vessels.
Also the trespass-money and sin-money were not brought into the house of the Lord: it was the
priests, II Kings 12:9-16. We read again of this chest, or one like it, set without, at the gate of the
house of the Lord, II Chronicles 24:8, concerning which they made a proclamation, throughout Ju-
dah and Jerusalem, to bring in for the Lord the tax (presumably the half shekel, Exodus 30:13), that
Moses the servant of YEHOVAH God laid upon Israel in the wilderness. Thus they gathered money
in abundance. The workmen wrought, and when they had finished the house, they made of the rest
of the money vessels for the temple, after which, we read, they offered burnt offerings in the house
of the Lord continually all the days of Jehoiada, II Chronicles 24:4-14.

But after the death of Jehoiada, Joash forsook the house of Jehovah, and, with the princes,
fell away to idols, so that wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for their guiltiness, II Chronicles
24:17-18.

Nor do things appear to have been any better at this time in Israel, if we may judge from the
ironical and derisive words of Amos, who prophesied some few year later:

Come to Bethel and transgress; to Gilgal and multiply transgression; and bring your sacri-
fices every morning, and your tithes every three days; and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving

The Berean Voice July-August 2002