When Athalia heard that her son, King Ahaziah had been killed, she immediately took action, killing all her grandsons in order to eliminate them from taking over the crown. She thought she murdered all the royal heirs, but she didn’t realize that Jehosheba, her stepdaughter, had intervened.
Jehosheba, also called Jehoshabeath, was not only the daughter of King Johoram, and half sister of King Ahaziah, but she was married to Jehoiada, the high priest.
2 Kings 11:2 tells us Jehosheba “took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus they hid him from Athaliah, so that he was not put to death.”
Jehosheba realized what Athaliah was doing and risked her own life in order to rescue her nephew, little Joash. She knew the kind of woman Athaliah was, and knew that if Athaliah was willing to kill her own flesh and blood, she’d have no qualms over killing Jehosheba, her stepdaughter. Jehosheba could have run in fear for her own life. Instead, she sought out Ahaziah’s young son and rescued him from death.
For six years Jehosheba and her husband hid Joash in the temple. During those six years, Jehoiada trained young Joash in the ways of the Lord. When Joash was seven years old, Jehoiada brought him out and anointed him king, and according to 2 Kings 12:2, he “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.”
Read about in Jehosheba in Scripture: 2 Kings 11:1-3, 2 Chronicles 22:10-12
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