Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)

This article is about one of the two historical Israelite kingdoms. For the biblical Israelite kingdom that is described as preceding this one, see Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy). For other uses, see Kingdom of Israel.

Kingdom of Israel
𐤉𐤔𐤓𐤀𐤋[1]
c. 930 BCE–c. 720 BCE
StatusKingdom
Capital
Common languagesHebrew (Biblical, Israelian)
Religion
Yahwism, other Semitic religions
Demonym(s)Israelite
GovernmentMonarchy
King 
• 931–910 BCE
Jeroboam I (first)
• 732–c. 720 BCE
Hoshea (last)
Historical eraIron Age
• Established
c. 930 BCE
c. 720 BCE
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Twelve Tribes of Israel
Samerina (Assyrian province)
Today part of

The Kingdom of Israel (Hebrew: מַמְלֶכֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎ Mamleḵeṯ Yīśrāʾēl), also called the Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Its beginnings date back to the first half of the 10th century BCE.[2] It controlled the areas of Samaria, Galilee and parts of Transjordan; the former two regions underwent a period in which a large number of new settlements were established shortly after the kingdom came into existence.[3] It had four capital cities in succession: Shiloh, Shechem, Tirzah, and the city of Samaria. In the 9th century BCE, it was ruled by the Omride dynasty, whose political centre was the city of Samaria.

According to the Hebrew Bible, the territory of the Twelve Tribes of Israel was once amalgamated under a Kingdom of Israel and Judah, which was ruled by the House of Saul and then by the House of David. However, upon the death of Solomon, who was the son and successor of David, there was discontent over his son and successor Rehoboam, whose reign was only accepted by the Tribe of Judah and the Tribe of Benjamin. The unpopularity of Rehoboam's reign among the rest of the Israelites, who sought Jeroboam as their monarch, resulted in Jeroboam's Revolt, which led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel in the north (Samaria), whereas the loyalists of Judah and Benjamin kept Rehoboam as their monarch and established the Kingdom of Judah in the south (Judea), ending Israelite political unity. While the existence of Israel and Judah as two independent kingdoms is not disputed, many historians and archaeologists reject the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah.[Notes 1]

Around 720 BCE, Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[4] The records of Assyrian king Sargon II indicate that he deported 27,290 Israelites to Mesopotamia.[5][6] This deportation resulted in the loss of one-fifth of the kingdom's population and is known as the Assyrian captivity, which gave rise to the notion of the Ten Lost Tribes. Some of these Israelites, however, managed to migrate to safety in neighbouring Judah,[7] though the Judahites themselves would be conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire nearly two centuries later. Those who stayed behind in Samaria following the Assyrian conquest mainly concentrated themselves around Mount Gerizim and eventually came to be known as the Samaritans.[8][9] The Assyrians, as part of their historic deportation policy, also settled other conquered foreign populations in the territory of Israel.[9]

  1. ^
    • Rollston, Chris A. (2010). Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age. Society of Biblical Literature. pp. 52–54. ISBN 978-1-58983-107-0.
    • Compston, Herbert F. B. (1919). The Inscription on the Stele of Méšaʿ.
  2. ^ Arie, Eran (2023). "Canaanites in a Changing World: The Jezreel Valley during the Iron Age I". In Koch, Ido; Lipschits, Oded; Sergi, Omer (eds.). From Nomadism to Monarchy?: Revisiting the Early Iron Age Southern Levant. Penn State Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-64602-270-0. [T]he growing proto-Israelite power in the central hill country, out of which would emerge the Northern Kingdom of Israel, [that] should be dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE.
  3. ^ Killebrew, Ann E., (2014). "Israel during the Iron Age II Period", in: The Archaeology of the Levant, Oxford University Press, p. 733: "In the Lower Galilee [...] during the Iron IIA, earlier Iron I settlements were deserted and appear to have been replaced by new large fortified sites [and] Zertal's landmark survey of northern Samaria [...] demonstrates a doubling of the number of sites from the Iron I to II [...] Finkelstein and Lederman's survey of the territory of Ephraim revealed [the] settlement density peaks in the later Iron II period, with over 200 sites identified [...]"
  4. ^ Hasegawa, Levin & Radner 2018, p. 55.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference fink was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Younger, K. Lawson (1998). "The Deportations of the Israelites". Journal of Biblical Literature. 117 (2): 201–227. doi:10.2307/3266980. ISSN 0021-9231. JSTOR 3266980.
  7. ^ Finkelstein, Israel (28 June 2015). "Migration of Israelites into Judah after 720 BCE: An Answer and an Update". Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 127 (2): 188–206. doi:10.1515/zaw-2015-0011. ISSN 1613-0103. S2CID 171178702.
  8. ^ Shen et al. 2004.
  9. ^ a b Finkelstein, Israel (2013). The forgotten kingdom : the archaeology and history of Northern Israel. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 158. ISBN 978-1-58983-910-6. OCLC 949151323.


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