Kingdom of Judah

The Kingdom of Judah (Hebrew מַלְכוּת יְהוּדָה, Standard Hebrew Malḫut Yəhuda, Tiberian Hebrew Malḵûṯ Yəhûḏāh) in the times of the Hebrew Bible, was the nation formed from the territories of the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin after the Kingdom of Israel was divided, and was named after Judah, son of Jacob (Israel). The name Judah itself means Praise of God.

Map of the southern Levant, c.800 B.C.E. The territory of the Kingdom of Judah is marked dark red.

Judah is often referred to as the Southern Kingdom to distinguish it from the Northern Kingdom (being the Kingdom of Israel) after the division of the Kingdom. Its capital was Jerusalem. See History of ancient Israel and Judah. Judah endured as an independent kingdom, with intermittant periods of vassalage to foreign powers, from the reign of Reheboam until the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.

The main source of our knowledge about the Kingdom of Judah is the Hebrew Bible, especially the Books of Kings and Chronicles, as well as references to historical events in the writings of the Prophets. In several cases, documents and monuments left by non-Judean rulers provide addition information and alternative perspectives to those provided by the biblical writers. The biblical story of Judah and Israel provides an important basis for the western view of history as a linear, as opposed to circular, process in which God's providence can be clearly discerned as a struggle between good and evil forces.

For information on the history of this geographical area after the 6th century B.C.E., please consult the article on Judea.

Foundations

The Kingdom of Judah's foundation is traditionally dated to the point at which Israel and Judah divided, shortly after the reign of King Solomon, which ended in 931/922 B.C.E. However, it should be noted that King David had earlier been anointed king of Judah at Hebron (2 Sam 2:4). A period of civil war followed, with a unified kingdom emerging several years later under the monarchy of David and Solomon, according to the biblical account.

After the end of Solomon's reign, a dispute arose between his son, Rehoboam, and Jeroboam, an Ehpraimite leader who had been a minister of forced labor under Solomon. Jeroboam urged the young king to relax the labor requirements that Solomon had forced on the northern tribes, saying, "Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you." Reheboam harshly rejected the reqest, and the northern tribes revolted (2 Chron 10).

While such may be the political and econonimc realities described in the Book of Chronicles, the author of 2 Kings makes it clear that the root cause of the division was spiritual, resulting from King Solomon's sin of idolatry. The Southern Kingdom thereafter represents his better half, demonstrating a greater degree of faithfulness to God, while the Norhtern Kingdom falls into a consistent pattern of tolerating and practicing idolatry.

Political Dimension

Northern Enmity and Alliance

Shortly after the schism, a raid of Shishak of Egypt forced Judah breifly into submission. Shishak's forces plundered both the city and the Temple but apparently did little lasting harm. For the next sixty years the kings of Judah aimed at re-establishing their authority over the other Israelite tribes. At first Judah's standing army, a vestige of the days of David and Solomon, gained success under brief reign of King Abijah (Abijam). However, the latter part of the reign of the next king, Asa, faced strong oppostion by Baasha of Israel. Asa then allied himself with the Aramean kingdom of Damascus. Nevertheless, before the death of Asa (873/870 B.C.E.), a lasting friendship was made with Israel, now under the new and powerful dynasty of Omri. A school of Yahwist prophets arose in opposition to this association, because of its corrupting effect on Judah's religious and moral purity. Judah assumed a subordinate role politically until Israel was crushed by the invading Assyrians.

During this time, Judah and Israel occasionally cooperated against their common enemies, especially the Syrian power centering on Damascus. Jehoshaphat (enthroned 873/870), the son of Asa, fought side by side with Ahab of Israel in the fateful battle of Ramoth-Gilead. Jehoshaphat strengthened the alliance by marrying his son Jehoram to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and his Phonecian queen, Jezebel. Later, he collaborated with Israel in ship-building and trade. Jehoshaphat's line came to an end with his grandson Ahaziah, who was assassinated by the zealot Jehu for his lack of devotion to Yahweh. Ahaziah's mother, the northern princess Athaliah, then undertook to govern in Jerusalem, thus becoming the first and only Queen of Judah. Because of Ataliah's devotion to the Phoenician deity Baal, the priests of the Temple of Yahweh engineered a coup against her, placing Jehoash, the young son of Ahaziah, on the throne. In the early days of Jehoash (c. 835), Hazael of Damascus ravaged the whole country up to the city of Jerusalem, which opened its gates to him and yielded up its spoil.

Prosperity and Power

The Syrian power soon declined, however, and Judah now began a period of prosperity which finally made it one of the area's leading kingdoms. Under Ahaziah's grandson, Amaziah, the reconquest of Edom, which had been lost under Jehoram, was effected. This secured a valuable trade route to western Arabia, as well access to Red Sea trade through the Gulf of Aqaba. Joash, King of Israel, soon began to percieve a threat in Amaziah and made war on Judah, capturing Amaziah and forcing the submission of Jerusalem and pludering its temple(c. 790).

With the advent of Uzziah (769) and the decline of Syrian Damascus, the prosperity of Judah was renewed. Uzziah conquered much of the Philistine country (today's Gaza Strip and its environs) and breifly brought even Moab to heel. He fortified Judah's towns, expanded its standing army and successfully developed the countries natural resources of his country. Jotham (738) continued the vigorous régime of his father, following the example of the mighty kings of the Assyrian empire.

The Assyrian Threat

During the reign of Jotham's son Ahaz(735), the great Assyrian empire came to the fore. The northern king, Pekah allied with Rezin of Damascus in the face of the Assyrian threat. Ahaz refused to join the league; under pressure, he called for help from the Assyrians. The Assyrian's eventually annexed the northern half of Israel, and Damascus itself fell. Judah was spared, but it became a vassal state of Assyria.

Hezekiah, son of Ahaz (719), is much praised by the biblical sources for enacting religious reforms that favored the Yahweh-only ethic of the Jerusalem priesthood and the prophet Isaiah. However, in 701 he unwisely joined in a military coalition against Assyria. Beofre the military might of Assyrian king Sennacherib all of Judah's fortified cities fell, with the sole exception of Jerusalem. Many Judeans were deported, and Jerusalem itself was spared only after a plague had broken out in the army of the invader. After Hezekiah died at a comparatively young age, the reign of his son, Manasseh (690), fared poorly. Manasseh relaxed the religious restriction instituted by his father, and Judah remained the vassal of Assyria. The situation did not improve under Manasseh's son Amon (641).

Josiah's Star Rises and Falls

In the early years of the boy-king Josiah (639,) the priestly party regained the upper hand. The young king accepted as valid the newly discovered "Book of the Law" of Moses (2 Kings 22). A blody purge of non-Yahwist priests soon followed, and even sacrifices to the Israelite God we banned outside of Jerusalem. Josiah presented himself as God's champion, aiming to purge the nation of the moral and spiritual corruption that had infested it as a result of "Canaanite" influence. If Josiah was the new Moses, The Egyptian ruler Necho II was the present-day Pharoah. As the head of the revived native monarchy of Egypt, Necho aimed to replace Assyria as the dominate force in western Asia. He passed through Palestine with an invading force in 608. Josiah, boldly offer him battle at Megiddo, and was slain.

Jehoahaz, second son of Josiah, reigned for three months, after which he was dethroned by Necho and exiled to Egypt. Josiah's eldest son, Eliakim, replaced him, ruling at Necho's pleasure as "Jehoiakim". Judah's vassalage to Egypt, however did not last long. In 607 Nineveh fell to the Medes, and much of the territory between Niniveh and the Mediterranean came under the new Babylonian monarchy. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar defeated Egypt at Carchemish in 604, and Jehoiakim soon became a Babylonian subject.

The Final Days

The prophet Jeremiah counseled submission, but in 598 Jehoiakim rebelled. He died soon thereafter with Jerusalem under seige. His son Jehoiachin (597) held out for three months and then surrendered. He and and his entire court, including leading figures of the priesthood such as the prophet Ezekiel, were deported. Many were sent to an agricultural colony in central Babylonia.

The third son of Josiah, Zedekiah, was now placed on the throne. Again Jeremiah urged submission to the Babylonian power, which he saw as God's chastizing agent for Judah's sins; but other prophets urged boldness against the foreign enemy. Once again the Judahites rebelled. The Babylonian army again marched to the gates of Jerusalem. The city was taken (July, 586)and the leaders of the rebellion were put to death. Zedekiah was blinded and taken to Babylon with with a large number of his Judean subjects. Jerusalem and other Judean cities were thoroughly despoiled. The Babylonians them set fire to both the Temple and city of Jerusalem. Thus ended the royal house of David.

The Kingdom of Judah maintained its independent existence for three hundred and eighty-nine years. It occupied an area of about 8,900 km² (3,435 square miles).

Spiritual Dimension

While the above summary of the history of Judah deals with the military and poliitcal vicissitudes of its course, the biblical account presents a story in which Judah's rise and fall relates to one central theme: its fidelity to God. In this version of Judah's story, the division of the Solomon's United Kingdom is due to the fact of his idolatry and is predicted by the prophet Ahijah long before the northern rebel Jeroboam confronts Rehoboam over Solomon's opressive labor policy.

Thereafter the kings of Judah prosper in war and peace when they "walk in the ways of [their] father David" and eschew to "sin of Jeroboam." This sin was not his rebellion against the anonited king, for that had been propecied and even endorsed by God through Ahijah. Instead, it was his erecting of a rival temple at Beth-El, a few miles north of Jerusalem, and his establishing of a golden image of a bull in its sanctuary. Although the bull was long associated with the biblical deity El, whom Abraham himself met at Beth-El (the place of El), to the biblical authors, Jeroboam's act became emblematic of northern tolerance of and even devotion to "other gods".

As a result, none of the northern Kings does right in God's eyes, and even miliary alliances between Israel and Judah are condemned by the authors of Kings and Chronicles. Even those relatively good kings who destroy the temples of Baal and tear down the Ashera poles do not go far enough, for they fail to destroy the "high places" of El and even of Yahweh where non-authorized priests make sacrifices in competetion with the central Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. In the end, Judah is simply not pure enough to stand in God's sight. Not even the reforms of the good King Hezekiah or the most righteous King Josiah can save Judah from its fate. It must be chastized, its temple destroyed, and it people taken into exile. Only then, after being thus purified and unified through the words of the prophets, will the Jews — for thus would the people of Judah be called henceforth — be allowed to return to Jerusalem, rebuild the temple, and await the coming of a true king, the Messiah, the anointed son of David.

Critical View

Bible critics hold that the sacred history presented in the above section is the product of a religious ideology that emerged around the time of King Josiah. The factual history of Judah and Israel must be painstakingly derived by reading in between the lines of this magnificent work of religious historiography, which was designed not so much to present real history as to pursuade the people of Judah to abhor any religious authority but that of the Jerusalem priesthood and its allied prophetic school.

The Kings of Judah

The following chart presents a timeline of the Kings of Judah. For this period, most historians follow the chronology established either by William F. Albright, Edwin R. Thiele, or Gershon Galil, all of which are shown below. All dates are BCE.

Albright dates	Thiele dates	Galil dates	Common/Biblical Name	Regnal name and style	Notes
1000–962		1010–970	David	דוד בן-ישי מלך ישראל Daud ben Yishai, Melekh Ysr’al	King of a united Israel despite several civil wars
962–922		970–931	Solomon	שלמה בן-דוד מלך ישראל Shelomoh ben Daud, Melekh Ysr’al	King of a united Israel; praised for his wisdom; condemned for idolatry
922–915	931–913	931–914	Rehoboam	רחבעם בן-שלמה מלך יהודה Rehav’am ben Shlomoh, Melekh Yehudah	loses northern tribes in labor dispute; attempts to retake north; Jerusalem sacked by Shishak;
915–913	913–911	914–911	Abijam Also called Abijah	אבים בן-רחבעם מלך יהודה ’Aviyam ben Rehav’am, Melekh Yehudah	Captured several northern towns
913–873	911–870	911–870	Asah	אסא בן-אבים מלך יהודה ’As’a ben ’Aviyam, Melekh Yehudah	Allied with Damascus against Israel but later allied with Northern Kingdom
873–849	870–848	870–845	Jehoshaphat	יהושפט בן-אסא מלך יהודה Yehoshafat ben ’As’a, Melekh Yahudah	Campaigned with Ahab of Israel against Syria; married his son to princess Athaliah
849–842	848–841	851–843	Jehoram	יהורם בן-יהושפט מלך יהודה Yehoram ben Yehoshafat, Melekh Yahudah	Killed his six brothers; married to Athaliah; lost control of territory in Edom
842–842	841–841	843–842	Ahaziah	אחזיהו בן-יהורם מלך יהודה ’Ahazyahu ben Yehoram, Melekh Yehudah	Allied with Israel; killed by Judean zealot Yehu, who later became King of Israel
842–837	841–835	842–835	Athaliah	עתליה בת-עמרי מלכת יהודה ‘Atalyah bat ‘Omri, Malkat Yehudah	Ahaziah's mother; infamous Baal worshipper; killed in a Yahwist coup
837–800	835–796	842–802	Jehoash	יהואש בן-אחזיהו מלך יהודה Yehoash ben ’Ahazyahu, Melekh Yehudah	Installed after Athaliah's death; Judah ravaged by Hazael of Damascus
800–783	796–767	805–776	Amaziah	אמציה בן-יהואש מלך יהודה ’Amatzyah ben Yehoash, Melekh Yehudah	Reconquers Edom. Begins period of renewed prosperity. Assassinated
783–742	767–740	788–736	Uzziah (Azariah)	עזיה בן-אמציה מלך יהודה ‘Uziyah ben ’Amatzyah, Melekh Yehudah עזריה בן-אמציה מלך יהודה ‘Azaryah ben ’Amatzyah, Melekh Yehudah	Syria declines. Conquers must of Philistia, strenghthens military, develops Judah's natural resources
742–735	740–732	758–742	Jotham	יותם בן-עזיה מלך יהודה Yotam ben ‘Uziyah, Melekh Yehudah	[[Properity contunes with Syrian decline
735–715	732–716	742–726	Ahaz	אחז בן-יותם מלך יהודה ’Ahaz ben Yotam, Melekh Yehudah	Allies with new Assyrian Empire against Israel and Damascus
715–687	716–687	726–697	Hezekiah	חזקיה בן-אחז מלך יהודה Hizqiyah ben ’Ahaz, Melekh Yehudah	Institutes strict religious laws; Sennacherib of Assyria conquers most of Judah (but see note 1, below)
687–642	687–643	697–642	Manasseh	מנשה בן-חזקיה מלך יהודה Menasheh ben Hizqiyah, Melekh Yehudah	Revokes religious reforms; Judah remains vassal of Assyria
642–640	643–641	642–640	Amon	אמון בן-מנשה מלך יהודה ’Amon ben Menasheh, Melekh Yehudah	Continues Manasseh's policies; assassinated
640–609	641–609	640–609	Josiah	יאשיהו בן-אמון מלך יהודה Yo’shiyahu ben ’Amon, Melekh Yehudah	Bible calls him the greatest king since David; died in battle at Megiddo against Necho II of Egypt.
609	609	609	Jehoahaz (Ahaz)	יהואחז בן-יאשיהו מלך יהודה Yeho’ahaz ben Yo’shiyahu, Melekh Yehudah אחז בן-יאשיהו מלך יהודה ’Ahaz ben Yo’shiyahu, Melekh Yehudah	Dethroned and exiled by Necho II after only three months
609–598	609–598	609–598	Jehoiakim (Eliakim)	יהויקים בן-יאשיהו מלך יהודה Yehoyaqim ben Yo’shiyahu, Melekh Yehudah	Installed by Necho II; becomes Babylonian vassal after theBattle of Carchemish but rebels and dies during seige of Jerusalem
598	598	598–597	Jehoiachin (Jeconiah)	יהויכין בן-יהויקים מלך יהודה Yehoyakhin ben Yehoyaqim, Melekh Yehudah יכניהו בן-יהויקים מלך יהודה Yekhonyahu ben Yehoyaqim, Melekh Yehudah	Deposed on March 16, 597 B.C.E. after Jerusalem falls to Babylon. Called 'Jeconiah' in Jeremiah and Esther
597–587	597–586	597–586	Zedekiah	צדקיהו בן-יהויכין מלך יהודה Tzidqiyahu ben Yo’shiyahu, Melekh Yehudah	The last king of Judah. Deposed, blinded and sent into exile. See note 2, below.

Notes

1. Hezekiah: contemporary with Sennacherib of Assyria, and Merodach-baladan of Babylon.
2. Zedekiah: King during the second rebellion (588–586 B.C.E.). Jerusalem was captured after a lengthy siege, the temple burnt, Zedekiah taken into exile and Judah was reduced to a province. Nebuchadnezzar had left Gedaliah as his governor, who was killed in one last revolt, and the few members of the ruling classes left from the kingdom of Judah took the prophets Jeremiah and Baruch with them as they fled to sanctuary in Egypt.

See also

• Judea
• Kingdom of Israel
• Israel
• Judah

External links

• Complete Bible Genealogy A synchronized chart of the kings of Judah and Israel

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