Kingdom of Judah

This article is about what the Bible says. For how this relates to history, see The Bible and history.

When the disruption took place at Shechem, at first only the tribe of Judah followed the house of David. But very soon after the tribe of Benjamin joined the tribe of Judah, and Jerusalem became the capital of the new kingdom (Joshua 18:28), which was called the kingdom of Judah.

For the first sixty years the kings of Judah aimed at re-establishing their authority over the kingdom of the other ten tribes, so that there was a state of perpetual war between them. For the next eighty years there was no open war between them. For the most part they were in friendly alliance, co-operating against their common enemies, especially against Damascus. For about another century and a half Judah had a somewhat checkered existence after the termination of the kingdom of Israel till its final overthrow in the destruction of the temple (586 BC) by Nebuzar-adan, who was captain of Nebuchadnezzar's body-guard (2 Kings 25:8-21).

The kingdom maintained a separate existence for three hundred and eighty-nine years. It occupied an area of 8,900 km² (3,435 square miles).

The kings of Judah

922 931 - 915 913 Rehoboam

915 913 - 913 911 Abijam

913 911 - 873 870 Asa

873 870 - 849 848 Jehoshaphat

849 848 - 842 841 Jehoram

842 841 - 842 841 Ahaziah

842 841 - 837 835 (Queen Mother, wife of Jehoram) Athaliah

837 835 - 800 796 Jehoash (Joash, son of Ahaziah).

800 796 - 783 767 Amaziah

783 767 - 742 740 Uzziah

(George Syncellus wrote that the First Olympiad took place in Uzziah's 48th regnal year.)

742 740 - 735 732 Jotham

735 732 - 715 716 Ahaz

The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III records he received tribute from Ahaz; this event is mentioned in 2 Kings 16:7-9.

715 716 - 687 687 Hezekiah

Hezekiah was contemporary with king Sennacherib of Assyria, and king Merodach-baladan of Babylonia. There is some question whether these kings can provide a reliable synchronism for his reign: Al-Biruni and Bar-Hebraeus mention a "King Sennacherib the Less" as well. Furthermore, there was another king named Merodakh Baladan ben Baladan, also known as Mardokempad. (Ptolemy assumed, without any reason, that Mordac Empadus was contemporary with King Hezekiah.) These two Baladans remained pretenders during Sennacherib's reign, therefore it is not easy to identify their regnal years as Ptolemy attempted. According to Robert R. Newton (The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, 1977), this ancient scholar frequently attributed some observations to certain years of some kings for the sake of simplicity in his tabulation, but those were not part of the original observations. Newton also asserts Ptolemy often arbitrarily fudged astronomical data in order to support his own theories.

687 687 - 642 643 Manasseh

642 643 - 640 641 Amon

640 641 - 609 609 Josiah

King Josiah died in a battle against Necho II of Egypt.

609 609 Jehoahaz

609 609 - 598 598 Jehoiakim

The Battle of Carchemish occured in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 46:2).

598 598 Jehoiachin (Perhaps from March to May as 2 Chronicles 36:10 suggests.)

597 597 - 587 586 Zedekiah

Zedekiah rebelled twice: in the first rebellion (597 BC), Nebuchadnezzar II captured Jerusalem, and took most of its leaders into exile. In the second rebellion (588 - 586 BC), 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.

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