7 Oct. King Joash repairs the Temple in Jerusalem
“Joash became king of Judah in Jehu’s seventh year as king of Israel. His mother’s name was Zibiah, and she was from Beersheba. Joash did what the LORD said was right as long as Jehoiada the priest taught him. But the places where gods were worshipped were not removed; the people still made sacrifices and burned incense there.”
“Joash said to the priests, ‘Take all the money brought as offerings to the Temple of the LORD. This includes the money each person promises or brings freely to the LORD. Each priest will take the money from the people he serves. Then the priests must repair any damage they find in the Temple.’”
“But by the twenty-third year Joash was king, the priests still had not repaired the Temple. So King Joash called for Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, ‘Why aren’t you repairing the damage of the Temple? Don’t take any more money from the people you serve, but hand over the money for the repair of the Temple.’”
“The priests agreed not to take any more money from the people and not to repair the Temple themselves. Jehoiada the priest took a box and made a hole in the top of it. Then he put it by the altar, on the right side as the people came into the Temple of the LORD. The priests guarding the doorway put all the money brought to the Temple of the LORD into the box.”
“Each time the priests saw that the box was full of money, the king’s royal secretary and the high priest came. They counted the money that had been brought to the Temple of the LORD, and they put it into bags. Next they weighed the money and gave it to the people in charge of the work on the Temple.”
“With it they paid the carpenters and the builders who worked on the Temple of the LORD, as well as the bricklayers and stonecutters. They also used the money to buy timber and cut stone to repair the damage of the Temple of the LORD. It paid for everything.”
(2 Kings 12:1-12)
On the death of King Ahaziah of Judah in 842BC (see 2 Kings 9:27-28), Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, and daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, grabbed power in Judah. She murdered all the princes except Joash, the baby son of Ahaziah, who was hidden in the Temple by his nurse (see 2 Kings 11:1-10).
When he was seven years old, Joash was proclaimed King of Judah by Jehoiada the priest. Joash and Jehoiada made a covenant promise with the LORD and destroyed the temple of Baal in Jerusalem (see 2 Kings 11:11-21).
During his reign (835BC-795BC), Joash supervised extensive repairs to the Temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem. During the first 23 years of his reign, Joash followed the established practice of allowing the priests to collect money directly from the people, and to use some of this money to repair the damage to the Temple.
Unfortunately, there rarely seemed to be enough left over from the priest’s own living expenses to carry out the repairs to the Temple. So Joash devised a new plan to speed up the repairs to the Temple.
He authorised Jehoiada the priest to install the first collection box in the Temple so that worshippers could make an offering directly towards the cost of the Temple repairs. This money was counted by the king’s royal secretary and then distributed directly to the workers – carpenters, bricklayers and stonemasons – who then completed the job.
The photo shows a plan of Solomon's Temple drawn in 1905 (Internet Archive Book Images).
You can read more about King Joash of Judah @ https://thebiblejourney.org/biblejourney2/32-the-divided-kingdom-amp-journey-into-exile/king-joash-repairs-the-temple-in-jerusalem/