Kingdom of Judah
See History of ancient Israel and Judah.
Kingdom of Judah
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 (Josh. 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 B.C.) 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
King Josiah died in the chronology accepted by most scholars in 609 BC in battle against Necho II of Egypt
Zedekiah rebelled twice, in the first rebellion (597 BC) Jerusalem was taken and most of its leaders were taken. In the second rebellion in 586 BC Jerusalem was taken, the temple burnt, the king taken and Judah utterly lost its independence to Nebuchadnezzar II.
605 or 604 commonly used for the accession of Nebuchadnezzar.
The kings of Israel (for cross-reference)
Pekah was deposed in 732 BC by:
Hosheah paid tribute to the Assyrian King Shalmaneser V[?] (727-722)
but rebelled in 728 BC. Shalmaneser besieged the capital, Samaria.
He died shortly before the fall of the city Shalmaneser died and his brother Sargon II (722-705) completed the siege with success in 722, making Judah the sole Hebrew kingdom. The ten tribes were migrated to other parts of the Assyrian Empire and never heard from again. A small group of peolpe fled south to assimilate into Judah.
In the first regnal year of Joash (836/798 BC) the High priest of Baal, Mattan was killed (2 Chronicles, 24: 17). Refer to the chronology of the Phoenicians for this event.
(Georgios Syncellus wrote that the First Olympiad[?] took place in his 48th regnal year.)
See details for absolute dating under him. He was contemporary with King Sennacherib of Assyria, and Merodach-Baladan king of Babylonia. However, the latter kings cannot provide a reliable absolute date 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. 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. Also, he often arbitrarily fudged astronomical data in order to support his own theories. Refer to Robert R. Newton, The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, 1977. Unfortunately many authorities still accept his list of rulers as the base of a perfect chronology.
General, staunch supporter of Jahweh, called by Elijah to end Ahab's dynasty. He was a contemporary of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858-824) (Ahab died in battle against Shalmaneser), and paid tribute to him.
He paid tribute to King Adad-nirari III of Assyria (810-783).