This conspiracy may have been due to the popular reaction against the extreme idolatry which the young king had established.

The servants of Amon conspired - What their reason was for slaying their king we cannot tell. It does not seem to have been a popular act, for the people of the land rose up and slew the regicides. We hear enough of this man when we hear that he was as bad as his father was in the beginning of his reign, but did not copy his father's repentance.

And the servants of Amon conspired against him,.... Some of his domestic servants, and perhaps his courtiers, not on account of his idolatry, but for some ill usage of them:

and slew the king in his own house: which they had an opportunity to do, being his servants.

His servants conspired against him and slew him in his palace; whereupon the people of the land, i.e., the population of Judah (הארץ עם equals יהוּדה עם, 2 Chronicles 26:1), put the conspirators to death and made Josiah the son of Amon king, when he was only eight years old.

And the servants of Amon conspired against him, and slew the king in his own house.

21:19-26 Amon profaned God's house with his idols; and God suffered his house to be polluted with his blood. How unrighteous soever they were that did it, God was righteous who suffered it to be done. Now was a happy change from one of the worst, to one of the best of the kings of Judah. Once more Judah was tried with a reformation. Whether the Lord bears long with presumptuous offenders, or speedily cuts them off in their sins, all must perish who persist in refusing to walk in his ways.