And when they were departed from him, (for they left him in great diseases,) his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on his bed, and he died: and they buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings.
They left him in great diseases. The close of his life was embittered by a painful malady, which long confined him to bed.
His own servants conspired against him. These two conspirators (whose fathers were Jews, but their mothers aliens) were probably courtiers, who, having constant access to the bed-chamber, could the more easily execute their design.
For the blood of the sons - read 'the son' of Jehoiada. Public opinion seems to have ascribed the disasters of his life and reign to that foul crime; and as the king had long lost the esteem and respect of his subjects, neither horror nor sorrow was expressed for his miserable end.
They buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings. The sepulchres of the kings, hewn out of the rock, and situated about a mile to the northwest of the modern Jerusalem, have long presented a scene of interest to travelers in that famous city. Of course, it is a question whether those sepulchres were the tombs of the Jewish sovereigns; because it is expressly said that the real Sepulchres were in "the city of David." But there are none now to be seen on mount Zion; and yet, in favour of these tombs being "the sepulchres of the kings," it must be borne in mind that, though they are considerably removed from the northern wall of the town, they seem to have been included within the wall of the ancient city, which is universally allowed to have extended far in that direction (cf. 2 Kings 12:20; Sepp's 'Jerusalem and the Holy Land,' in which the site of Millo is fixed, according to the Septuagint, at the extreme north of the city, where he locates also the city of David).