Kingdom of Judah

Conventional long name	Kingdom of Judah
Common name	Judah
Status	Kingdom
Continent	Asia
Region	Ancient Near East
Country
Era	Levantine Iron Age
Status
Status text
Empire
Government type	Monarchy
P1	Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)|Kingdom of Israel
Flag p1	Kingdom of Israel 1020 map.svg
S1	Yehud Medinata
Year start	930 BC
Year end	586 BC
Image map caption	Map of the region in the 9th century BC
Capital	Jerusalem
Common languages	Hebrew
Religion	Judaism

The Kingdom of Judah ( ISO 259-3 Mamlekt Yhuda) was one of several states which emerged in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age.

There is no definite answer to the question of when Judah emerged, although it seems to have occurred no earlier than the 9th century BCE. In the 7th century BCE Jerusalem became a city with a population many times greater than before and clear dominance over its neighbours, probably as the result of a cooperative arrangement with the Assyrians, who wished to establish Judah as a pro-Assyrian vassal state controlling the valuable olive industry. Judah prospered under Assyrian vassalage, (despite a disastrous rebellion against the Assyrian king Sennacherib), but in the last half of the 7th century BCE Assyria suddenly collapsed, and the ensuing competition between the Egyptian and Neo-Babylonian empires for control of Palestine led to the destruction of the kingdom in a series of campaigns between 597 and 582. but his successor Manasseh of Judah (698-642 BC) and Amon (642-640 BC) revived idolatry, drawing down on the kingdom the anger of Yahweh. King Josiah (640-609 BC) returned to the worship of Yahweh alone, but his efforts were too late, and Israel's unfaithfulness caused God to permit the kingdom's destruction by the Babylonians in c.587/586 BCE.

Relations with the Northern Kingdom

For the first sixty years, the kings of Judah tried to re-establish their authority over the northern kingdom, and there was perpetual war between them. Israel and Judah were in a state of war throughout Rehoboam's seventeen year reign. Rehoboam built elaborate defenses and strongholds, along with fortified cities. In the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign Pharaoh Shishaq of Egypt, brought a huge army and took many cities. When they laid siege to Jerusalem, Rehoboam gave them all of the treasures out of the temple as a tribute, and Judah became a vassal state of Egypt. Rehoboam's son and successor, Abijah continued his father's efforts to bring Israel under his control. He waged a major battle against Jeroboam of Israel, and was victorious with a heavy loss of life on the Israel side, Abijah and his people defeated them with a great slaughter, so that 500,000 chosen men of Israel fell slain after which Jeroboam posed little threat to Judah for the rest of his reign and the border of the Tribe of Benjamin was restored to the original tribal border.

Abijah's son and successor, Asa maintained peace for the first 35 years of his reign, during which time he revamped and reinforced the fortresses originally built by his grandfather Rehoboam. An invasion by the Egyptian-backed chieftain Zerah the Ethiopian and his million men and 300 chariots was defeated by Asa's 580,000 men (these figures come from 2 Chronicles) in the Valley of Zephath, near Mareshah. The Bible does not state whether Zerah was a pharaoh or a general of the army. The Ethiopians were pursued all the way to Gerar, in the coastal plain, where they stopped out of sheer exhaustion. The resulting peace kept Judah free from Egyptian incursions until the time of Josiah, some centuries later.

In his 36th year Asa was confronted by Baasha of Israel, Asa tore down the unfinished fortress and used its raw materials to fortify Geba and Mizpah, on his side of the border.

Asa's successor, Jehoshaphat changed the policy towards Israel and instead pursued alliances and co-operation with the northern kingdom. The alliance with Ahab was based on marriage. This alliance led to disaster for the kingdom with the Battle of Ramoth-Gilead. He then entered into an alliance with Ahaziah of Israel for the purpose of carrying on maritime commerce with Ophir. But the fleet that was then equipped at Ezion-Gever was immediately wrecked. A new fleet was fitted out without the cooperation of the king of Israel, and although it was successful, the trade was not prosecuted. He subsequently joined Jehoram of Israel in a war against the Moabites, who were under tribute to Israel. This war was successful, with the Moabites being subdued. However, on seeing Mesha's act of offering his own son in a human sacrifice on the walls of Kir-haresheth filled Jehoshaphat with horror, and he withdrew and returned to his own land.

Jehoshaphat's successor, Jehoram formed an alliance with Israel by marrying Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab. Despite this alliance with the stronger northern kingdom, Jehoram's rule of Judah was shaky. Edom revolted, and he was forced to acknowledge their independence. A raid by Philistines, Arabs and Ethiopians looted the king's house, and carried off all of his family except for his youngest son Jehoahaz.

Destruction of Israel

In c. 732 BCE, Pekah of Israel allied with Rezin of Aram and threatened Jerusalem. Ahaz of Judah appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria for help and paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser Tiglath-Pileser sacked Damascus and Israel, annexing Aram and large parts of Israel. According to and , the population of Aram and the annexed part of Israel was deported to Assyria.

Israel continued to exist within the reduced territory as an independent kingdom until around 720 BCE, when it was again invaded by Assyria and the rest of the population deported. The Bible relates that the population of Israel was exiled, becoming known as the Ten Lost Tribes. However, other writers estimate that only a fifth of the population (about 40,000) were actually resettled out of the area during the two deportation periods under Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon II. Many also fled south to Jerusalem, which appears to have expanded in size fivefold during this period, requiring a new wall to be built, and a new source of water (Siloam) to be provided by Hezekiah.

Clash of empires

Besides witnessing the destruction of Israel and the deportation of its population, Ahaz and his co-regent son Hezekiah were vassal to Assyria and forced to pay an annual tribute. After Hezekiah became sole ruler in c. 715 BC, he re-captured Philistine-occupied lands in the Negev desert, formed alliances with Ashkelon and Egypt, and made a stand against Assyria by refusing to pay tribute. (; ) In response, Sennacherib of Assyria attacked the fortified cities of Judah. () Hezekiah paid three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold to Assyria — requiring him to empty the temple and royal treasury of silver and strip the gold from the doorposts of Solomon's Temple. () () in 701 BC, though the city was never taken.

During the long reign of Manasseh (c. 687/686 - 643/642 BC), Judah was a vassal of Assyrian rulers - Sennacherib and his successors, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal after 669 BC. Manasseh is listed as being required to provide materials for Esarhaddon's building projects, and as one of a number of vassals who assisted Ashurbanipal's campaign against Egypt. Taking the coast route Via Maris into Syria at the head of a large army, Necho passed the low tracts of Philistia and Sharon. However, the passage over the ridge of hills which shuts in on the south of the great Jezreel Valley was blocked by the Judean army led by Josiah, who may have considered that the Assyrians and Egyptians were weakened by the death of the pharaoh Psamtik I only a year earlier (610 BC). Necho then joined forces with the Assyrian Ashur-uballit II and together they crossed the Euphrates and lay siege to Harran. The combined forces failed to capture the city, and Necho retreated back to northern Syria. The event also marked the disintegration of the Assyrian Empire. On his return march to Egypt in 608 BC, Necho found that Jehoahaz had been selected to succeed his father, Josiah. Necho deposed Jehoahaz, who had been king for only three months, and replaced him with his older brother, Jehoiakim. Necho imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver (about 3 3/4 tons or about 3.4 metric tons) and a talent of gold (about 75 pounds or about 34 kilograms). Necho then took Jehoahaz back to Egypt as his prisoner, never to return.

Jehoiakim ruled originally as a vassal of the Egyptians, paying a heavy tribute. However, when the Egyptians were defeated by the Babylonians at Carchemish in 605 BC, Jehoiakim changed allegiances, paying tribute to Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. In 601 BC, in the fourth year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar unsuccessfully attempted to invade Egypt and was repulsed with heavy losses. This failure lead to numerous rebellions among the states of the Levant which owed allegiance to Babylon. Jehoiakim also stopped paying tribute to Nebuchadnezzar and took a pro-Egyptian position. Nebuchadnezzar soon dealt with these rebellions. According to the Babylonian Chronicles, after invading "the land of Hatti (Syria/Palestine)" in 599 BC, he lay siege to Jerusalem. Jehoiakim died in 598 BC during the siege, and was succeeded by his son Jeconiah at an age of either eight or eighteen. The city fell about three months later, on 2 Adar (March 16) 597 BC. Nebuchadnezzar pillaged both Jerusalem and the Temple, carting all his spoils to Babylon. Jeconiah and his court and other prominent citizens and craftsmen, along with a sizable portion of the Jewish population of Judah, numbering about 10,000 were deported from the land and dispersed throughout the Babylonian Empire. () Among them was Ezekiel. Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, king of the reduced kingdom, who was made a tributary of Babylon.

Destruction and dispersion

Despite the strong remonstrances of Jeremiah and others, Zedekiah revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, ceasing to pay tribute to him and entered into an alliance with Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt. In 589 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II returned to Judah and again besieged Jerusalem. During this period, many Jews fled to surrounding Moab, Ammon, Edom and other countries to seek refuge. The city fell after an eighteen month siege and Nebuchadnezzar again pillaged both Jerusalem and the Temple, after which he destroyed them both. After killing all of Zedekiah's sons, Nebuchadnezzar took Zedekiah to Babylon, putting an end to the independent Kingdom of Judah. In addition to those killed during the siege, over time, some 4,600 Jews were deported after the fall of Judah. By 586 BCE much of Judah was devastated, and the former kingdom suffered a steep decline of both economy and population.

Jerusalem apparently remained uninhabited for much of the 6th century, This was standard Babylonian practice: when the Philistine city of Ashkalon was conquered in 604 BCE, the political, religious and economic elite (but not the bulk of the population) was banished and the administrative centre shifted to a new location.

Gedaliah was appointed governor of the Yehud province, supported by a Chaldean guard. The administrative centre of the province was Mizpah, and not Jerusalem. On hearing of the appointment, the Jews that had taken refuge in surrounding countries returned to Judah. () However, before long Gedaliah was assassinated by a member of the royal house, and the Chaldean soldiers killed. The population that was left in the land and those that had returned fled to Egypt fearing a Babylonian reprisal, under the leadership of Johanan, son of Kareah, ignoring the urging of the prophet Jeremiah against the move. (, ) In Egypt, the refugees settled in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros, () and Jeremiah went with them as moral guardian.

The numbers that were deported to Babylon and those who made their way to Egypt and the remnant that remained in the land and in surrounding countries is subject to academic debate. The Book of Jeremiah reports that a total of 4,600 were exiled to Babylon. The Books of Kings suggest that it was ten thousand, and then eight thousand. Israel Finkelstein, a prominent archaeologist, suggests that the 4,600 represented the heads of households and 8,000 was the total, whilst 10,000 is a rounding upwards of the second number. Jeremiah also hints that an equivalent number may have fled to Egypt. Given these figures, Finkelstein suggests that 3/4 of the population of Judah had remained.

The House of David

The House of David continued to be respected and recognised as leaders of the Babylonian Jewish community as Exilarchs.

Epilogue

In 539 BC the Persians conquered Babylon and allowed the exiled Jews to return to Yehud and rebuild the Temple, which was completed in in the sixth year of Darius (515 BC) () under Zerubbabel, the grandson of the second to last king of Judah, Jehoiachin. Yehud province was a peaceful part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire until the fall of the Empire in c. 333 BC to Alexander the Great. The period under Persian rule after the construction of the second Temple, though being helped by its kings and tolerated the Jewish Religion, is regarded as the Jewish Dark Age, because there is no contemporary historic material for that period.

An independent Jewish kingdom was revived by the Maccabees in 164 BC.

Kings and prophets of Judah

Amos, born in Judah but prophesied in Israel

Habakkuk

Isaiah, cousin of king Uzziah

Jeremiah

Joel

Micah

Obadiah

Zechariah

Zephaniah

See also

Government of ancient Israel

History of ancient Israel and Judah

Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)

Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)

Kings of Judah

Yehud Medinata

Judea

References

Bibliography

Judah, Kingdom of Category:Former theocracies Category:Historic Jewish communities Category:Knanaya Community Category:Fertile Crescent Category:States and territories established in 930 BC Category:586 BC disestablishments Category:Books of Kings