Kingdom of Judah

"Kingdom of Judea" redirects here. For the Judean polity of the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, see Hasmonean dynasty. For the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel, see Judea.
Not to be confused with Tribe of Judah.
Kingdom of Judah
𐤉𐤄𐤃
c. 930 BCE[1]–c. 587 BCE
LMLK seal (700–586 BCE) of Judah
LMLK seal (700–586 BCE)
The Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, produced by Edward Weller c. 1890
The Kingdoms of Judah and Israel, produced by Edward Weller c. 1890
StatusKingdom
CapitalJerusalem
Common languagesBiblical Hebrew
Religion
Demonym(s)Judahite, Judean
GovernmentMonarchy
King 
• c. 931–913 BCE
Rehoboam (first)
• c. 597–587 BCE
Zedekiah (last)
Historical eraIron Age
c. 930 BCE[1]
c. 587 BCE
 Succeeded by
Yehud (Babylonian province)

The Kingdom of Judah[a] was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem.[3] It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries.[4] Jews are named after Judah, and primarily descend from people who lived in the region.[5][6][7]

The Hebrew Bible depicts the Kingdom of Judah as one of the two successor states of the United Kingdom of Israel, a term denoting the united monarchy under biblical kings Saul, David, and Solomon and covering the territory of Judah and Israel. However, during the 1980s, some biblical scholars began to argue that the archaeological evidence for an extensive kingdom before the late 8th century BCE is too weak, and that the methodology used to obtain the evidence is flawed.[8][9] In the 10th and early 9th centuries BCE, the territory of Judah appears to have been sparsely populated, limited to small rural settlements, most of them unfortified.[10] The Tel Dan Stele, discovered in 1993, shows that the kingdom existed in some form by the middle of the 9th century BCE,[11][12][13] but it does not indicate the extent of its power. Recent excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, however, support the existence of a centrally organized and urbanized kingdom by the 10th century BCE, according to the excavators.[8][14]

In the 7th century BCE, the kingdom's population increased greatly, prospering under Neo-Assyrian vassalage, despite Hezekiah's revolt against the Assyrian king Sennacherib.[15] Josiah took advantage of the political vacuum that resulted from Assyria's decline and the emergence of Saite Egyptian rule over the area to enact his religious reforms. The Deuteronomistic history, which recounts the history of the people of Israel from Joshua to Josiah and expresses a worldview based on the legal principles found in the Book of Deuteronomy, is assumed to have been written during this same time period and emphasizes the significance of upholding them.[16]

With the final fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 605 BCE, competition emerged between Saite Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire over control of the Levant, ultimately resulting in Judah's rapid decline. The early 6th century BCE saw a wave of Egyptian-backed Judahite rebellions against Babylonian rule being crushed. In 587 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II engaged in a siege of Jerusalem, ultimately destroying the city and ending the kingdom.[17][16] A large number of Judeans were exiled to Babylon, and the fallen kingdom was then annexed as a Babylonian province.[16]

After the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenid Empire, the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews who had been deported after the conquest of Judah to return. They were allowed to autonomous rule under Persian governance. It was not until 400 years later, following the Maccabean Revolt, that Judeans fully regained independence.

  1. ^ Pioske, Daniel (2015). "David's Jerusalem: The Early 10th Century BCE Part I: An Agrarian Community". David's Jerusalem: Between Memory and History. Routledge Studies in Religion. Vol. 45. Routledge. p. 180. ISBN 978-1-317-54891-1.
  2. ^ Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2001). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts. The Free Press. pp. 240–243. ISBN 978-0-743-22338-6.
  3. ^ Finkelstein, Israel (2001). "The Rise of Jerusalem and Judah: the Missing Link". Levant. 33 (1): 105–115. doi:10.1179/lev.2001.33.1.105. ISSN 0075-8914. S2CID 162036657.
  4. ^ Lemaire, André (2018). "Israel and Judah". The Oxford Illustrated History of the Holy Land. Robert G. Hoyland, H. G. M. Williamson (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 61–85. ISBN 978-0-19-872439-1. OCLC 1017604304.
  5. ^ Spielvogel, Jackson J. (2008). Western Civilization: Volume A: To 1500. Wadsworth Publishing. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-495-50288-3. The people of Judah survived, eventually becoming known as the Jews and giving their name to Judaism, the religion of Yahweh, the Israelite God.
  6. ^ Legacy: a Genetic History of the Jewish People. Harry Ostrer. Oxford University Press. 2012. ISBN 978-1-280-87519-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ^ Adams, Hannah (1840). The history of the Jews: from the destruction of Jerusalem to the present time. Sold at the London Society House and by Duncan and Malcom, and Wertheim. OCLC 894671497.
  8. ^ a b Garfinkel, Yossi; Ganor, Sa'ar; Hasel, Michael (19 April 2012). "Journal 124: Khirbat Qeiyafa preliminary report". Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel. Israel Antiquities Authority. Archived from the original on 23 June 2012. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  9. ^ Finkelstein, Israel; Fantalkin, Alexander (May 2012). "Khirbet Qeiyafa: an unsensational archaeological and historical interpretation" (PDF). Tel Aviv. 39: 38–63. doi:10.1179/033443512x13226621280507. S2CID 161627736. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  10. ^ Mazar, Amihai. "Archaeology and the Biblical Narrative: The Case of the United Monarchy". One God – One Cult – One Nation. Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives, Edited by Reinhard G. Kratz and Hermann Spieckermann in Collaboration with Björn Corzilius and Tanja Pilger, (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 405). Berlin/ New York: 29–58. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  11. ^ Grabbe, Lester L. (2007-04-28). Ahab Agonistes: The Rise and Fall of the Omri Dynasty. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-567-25171-8. The Tel Dan inscription generated a good deal of debate and a flurry of articles when it first appeared, but it is now widely regarded (a) as genuine and (b) as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus.
  12. ^ Cline, Eric H. (2009-09-28). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-71162-8. Today, after much further discussion in academic journals, it is accepted by most archaeologists that the inscription is not only genuine but that the reference is indeed to the House of David, thus representing the first allusion found anywhere outside the Bible to the biblical David.
  13. ^ Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (2004). Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. Society of Biblical Lit. ISBN 978-1-589-83062-2. Some unfounded accusations of forgery have had little or no effect on the scholarly acceptance of this inscription as genuine.
  14. ^ Garfinkel, Yosef (May–June 2011). "The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism". Biblical Archaeology Review. 37 (3). Archived from the original on 2011-09-08. Retrieved 2012-07-05.
  15. ^ Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel, ed. (1976). A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-674-39731-6. Retrieved 12 October 2018. Sargon's heir, Sennacherib (705–681), could not deal with Hezekiah's revolt until he gained control of Babylon in 702 BCE.
  16. ^ a b c Lipschits, Oded (2005). The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule. Penn State University Press. pp. 361–367. doi:10.5325/j.ctv1bxh5fd. ISBN 978-1-575-06297-6.
  17. ^ Lipiński 2020, p. 94.


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