The conjunction And at the beginning of this verse renders the Hebrew verbal transition that is sometimes rendered “Now it came to pass” (King James Version), but it is ignored by most modern English versions.
Whenever the chest was brought to the king’s officers by the Levites: The phrase day after day at the end of this verse shows that the chest was brought every day. Good News Translation brings this information forward to the beginning of the verse. The text does not clearly indicate if the box was taken to the king’s officers each day whether it was full or not. The passive verb was brought will have to be made active in some languages. By the Levites (literally “by the hand of the Levites)” clearly indicates the agent for this verb. Therefore most versions make “the Levites” the subject of an active verb here (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation, New Century Version, God’s Word, La Bible du Semeur). However, Bible en français courant and Parole de Vie indicate that the box was taken “to the Levites,” but this translation does not seem to express the meaning of the Hebrew.
The king’s officers is literally “the appointment/supervision of the king.” The Hebrew noun translated officers comes from a root whose basic meaning is “to attend to.” Here it refers to someone who is in a position of authority. It may refer to a supervisory body, in which case the plural word officers (also Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje) is an acceptable translation. Since the Hebrew word translated when they saw has a plural subject suffix, the plural word officers seems preferable to the singular word “official” (Good News Translation). For this whole phrase An American Translation says “the appointed officials of the king.”
When they saw that there was much money in it: As noted above, the pronoun they refers to the king’s officials.
The king’s secretary and the officer of the chief priest would come and empty the chest and take it and return it to its place: Whenever the box was full, two officials would come and empty it and return it to its place near the Temple gate. The king’s secretary was apparently an important person through whom King Joash was able to control what happened in the Temple. Since the writing ability of this person is relatively unimportant in this context, it may be acceptable in some languages to translate “the representative of the king” (see the comments on 1 Chr 18.16). The officer of the chief priest may be rendered “the High Priest’s representative” (Good News Translation). For the chief priest, see the comments on 2Chr 24.6 and 1 Chr 19.11.
Thus they did day after day, and collected money in abundance: The pronoun they probably refers to the royal secretary and the representative of the High Priest. This sentence may be rendered “They would do this every day, so they collected a lot of money” (God’s Word).
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .