Joash was one of the few good kings, doing what was right. However, he did not remove the high places. These high places were where the Lord was worshipped, but not in accordance with His instructions. Why was this so serious? Why did so many good kings do lots of right things but fail to remove the high places? The high places had been set up before the temple was built, now the temple was here they should no longer be used. Instead of acting as a place of worship they posed a risk of being a doorway for pagan practices, a risk that was realised on many occasions. Man was seeking to maintain control of worship. If you think about it, this is a contradiction in terms, but the rebellion in our hearts goes deep. God is God and only He has the right to decide how things are done. The same pattern was seen in the New Testament with the Judaisers wanting to cling to traditional Jewish practices, and this was why Paul was so vociferous in his arguments against circumcision etc.
Note that Joash received instruction from the priest. Our governments are quickly rejecting any notion of receiving guidance from religious leaders. Given the quality of some of our religious leaders they may not be missing much, but the principle is dangerous.
Joash set about organising the restoring of the temple, which had evidently been left to go into a state of disrepair. This work was taking an inordinately long time, much longer than it took to build the temple in the first place! It seems (v8) as though the priests were using the money for themselves instead of its proper purposes. So action was taken to correct this. In churches the collection and use of money needs to be handled in a proper and efficient manner. There is nothing wrong or worldly about a church managing its finances in an effective manner.
So the work started to progress properly. Hazael attacked Gath and threatened to attack Jerusalem, but Joash bought him off with the temple treasures. Joash was assasinated.
We will read more about Joash in Chronicles.
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