In this article (video) UsefulCharts will show us the family tree of the ancient Israelite kings.
Starting with the kings of the legendary 'United Monarchy', which include David and Solomon, and then through both the family tree of the kings of Israel in the North and the kings of Judah in the South. Many of these kings are known to be historical so along the way, some of the archaeological evidence of their existence will be pointed out.
The most famous king of ancient Israel is King David. But David was not the first king of Israel. The first king was a man named Saul. Prior to Saul, the twelve tribes of Israel were said to have been ruled by a series of judges, who were basically temporary leaders who led armies during times of crisis.
But according to the Bible, the people eventually got tired of that system and demanded to have a king. So they are lots and in the end, Saul from the Tribe of Benjamin was chosen.
This marked the beginning of what's referred to as the 'United Monarchy' which means that all twelve tribes of Israel were united under a single king.
As mentioned in Part 1, there's no evidence outside of the Bible that a united Israelite kingdom ever actually existed. When we look at the archaeological record for this time period, what we find is a bunch of small Israelite villages with seemingly no centralized government.
This greatly contrasts with the biblical description of the period, which paints Israel as being a large powerful, and extremely wealthy nation. The most likely conclusion is that these first few kings are more legendary than historical. This means that they likely did exist but were perhaps more akin to local tribal chieftains than mighty kings and that the bible exaggerates their power.
During Saul's reign, a young hero named David, from the Tribe of Judah, starts to grow in popularity after an incident which David was able to kill an enemy giant named Goliath. After that event, David joins Saul's army, becomes best friends with Saul's eldest son, Jonathan and even marries one of Saul's daughters, named Michal.
He then does on to be very successful in several battles against the Israelites main enemy - the Philistines. Eventually, Saul becomes jealous of David and tries to have him killed, forcing David to go into hiding. Then, both Saul and Jonathan die in battle against the Philistines.
At this point, the tribe of Judah declares David to be their king but the rest of the tribes choose Saul's only remaining son, Ish-bosheth.
There's a seven-year civil war between the two sides, and eventually, Abner, who was Saul's main general as well as his first cousin, switches sides and supports David.
Soon thereafter, Ish-bosheth is killed by his own men and David becomes king of all Israel. He makes Jerusalem his capital and in total, he reigns 40 years.
Let's now look at David's tree in more details.
David was the youngest son of a man named Jesse, who in turn, was the son of Obed. And Obed was the son of Boaz and Ruth, the two main characters from the Book of Ruth. Basically was David's great-grandmother. David also has a nephew named Joab, who was the son of his sisters'. He becomes David's main general and features quite prominently in the story of David's life.
Jonathan, David's best friend had a disabled son named Mephibosheth who David adopts after he becomes king. It has already been mentioned that David married one of Saul's daughters. But, he also married seven other women and had at least 18 children.
His firstborn son and heir were named Amnon, but there's a story in the Bible in which Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar, who was the full sister of Absalom. Absalom seeks revenge and has Amnon killed.
Later, Absalom instigates a coup against his father David and tries to take the throne. But following a battle, Absalom gets his long, beautiful hair stuck in the branches of a tree. Joab finds Absalom and disobeying David's orders to take him alive, kills him, for which Joab ends up losing his job.
Another famous story associated with David is the story of David and Bathsheba. in which David sees Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop and conspires to have her husband killed in battle so that he could marry her.
As literary figures, gom David is a pretty complicated character. He does a lot of good things but he does a bunch of bad things too. But generally, he's seen as a good guy because he always seems to repent and learn from his mistakes.
He has a son with Bathsheba named Solomon and it is Solomon that ends up becoming the next king. Now there are two other sons of David. Adonijah, who when David dies, attempted to take the throne but failed. And Nathan, who, according to the Gospel of Luke, it is through Nathan that Jesus links back to David.
Solomon is mostly remembered as being the one who builds the First Temple as well as for being really wise, really rich, and for supposedly having 1000 wives. One of his wives was possibly the Queen of Sheba.
She's mentioned only briefly in the Bible but in the Ethiopian tradition, the story is told in more detail. There, she is said to have had a son named Menelik, who becomes the king of Ethiopia and the progenitor of the Solomonic dynasty.
Like his father, David, Solomon reigns for a total of 40 years. The fact that both these kings have a nice round, very symbolic, reign lengths is further evidence that they are likely legendary figures as opposed to strictly historical ones.
After the reign of Solomon, the kingdom splits in two.
The tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the South continued to be ruled by the House of David in Jerusalem, and are known as the Kingdom of Judah. Whereas in the North, the ten remaining tribes declare independence and became known as the Kingdom of Israel.
The Kingdom of Israel's first king is a man named Jeroboam, who was from the Tribe of Ephraim, which was the largest of the 12 tribes.
In Israel, we get several ruling dynasties. Jeroboam is followed by his son, Nadab, but two years into his reign, Nadab is killed by one of his army captains named Baasha and Baasha becomes king instead. Baasha was from the tribe of Issachar.
But then history repeats itself, he has a decently long reign and passes things on to his son Elah, but then, after just two years, Elah is assassinated by one of his army commanders - a man named Zimri. But Zimri is unable to hold on to power and commits suicide after just 7 days of being a king.
At this point, there's a civil war. Some of the people support Tibni, who was probably a relative of Zimri, but others support Omri, who was likely from the tribe of Issachar, like Baasha and Elah. Eventually, Omri's side winds and he becomes the sole king.
Omri is a very important figure. Strangely, unlike many other bible characters, his name is not well known today. However, he was one of the most important kings in ancient Israel. He holds the distinction of being the earliest known person in the entire Bible for which we have evidence in the archaeologist record.
Notice that Omri has a red checkmark on his name, on this chart, the red checkmark means that we have a source outside of the Bible that confirms the existence of that person in real life.
How do we know that Omri was a real, historical king?
In Paris, there is an artifact in the Louvre called the Mesha Stele and it comes from the ancient Kingdom of Moab, which today would be part of Jordan. It dates to just a few decades after the reign of Omri and describes Omri, King of Israel, capturing some Moabite territory.
The name Omri also shows on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, which is now housed at the British Museum in London.
It clearly shows the phrase 'House of Omri', indicating that other nations at the time knew that the Kingdom of Israel was being ruled by a dynasty that started with Omri.
Omri is also important because he founded the city of Samaria, which went on to be the capital of the northern kingdom for the rest of his existence.
Omri was followed by his son, Ahab, and the Bible talks a lot more about him and also about his wife, Jezabel. Ahab and Jezabel were the king and queen of Israel at the time that the prophet Elijah lived. Elijah, being one of the more famous prophets in Jewish history.
The Bible paints Ahab as being a very wicked king, influenced strongly by his wife, Jezebel, who was a Phoenician and thus not an Israelite. From a literary point of view, Jezebel is an interesting figure because in most cases, she is portrayed as the ultimate evil seductress. But on the other hand, those who see the evil seductress trope as being a dangerous stereotype and an attempt to discredit strong, confident women, Jezebel has actually become somewhat of a feminist icon.
We do not have any corroborating evidence for the existence of Jezebel, but we do have mention of her father and brother in a now lost history of Tyre that was quoted by Josephus. Her brother, Baal-Eser II was supposedly the grandfather of the legendary Queen Dido, who is said to have found the city of Carthage.
One thing to keep in mind about the biblical account of the Northern Kingdom is that it was primarily written and edited much later by scribes from the Southern Kingdom. So there's an obvious bias toward the monotheistic religion that developed at Jerusalem and that went on to evolve into Second Temple Judaism, which, in turn, led to the development of the better known Rabbinical Judaism, as well as Christianity and Islam.
'Basically, from the Southern kingdom's perspective, the Northern kingdom was seen as being disobedient to the one true God, HaShem. Ahab and Jezebel were famous for promoting the worship of the God, Baal instead of HaShem, so whenever something went wrong, the Southerners blamed it on the fact that the Northerners worshipped the wrong god or gods.
Ahad has a red check mark because he shows up ina set of Assyrian monuments known as the Kurkh monoliths, currently located at the British Museum.
In those inscriptions, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III claims that he defeated "2000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers of Abag the Israelite".
According to the Bible, Ahab was killed during a war with the kingdom of Judah and is followed by his sons Ahaziah and Jehoram.
Jehoram's name appears on an artifact known as the Tel Dan Stele, discovered in the 1990s and currently housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. That inscription confirms a story told in the Bible, in which Jehoram, king of Israel and Ahaziah, king of Judah, are defeated by Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus.
In the Bible's version, a man named Jehu ends up replacing Jehoram as king of Israel. It's at this point that Jezebel is killed by being pushed out of a window Although the Bible doesn't make it clear, it's possible that Jehu was a descendant of Omri through a junior branch. In fact, his name appears on the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, where he is described as 'Jehu, Son of Omri', most likely meaning, Jehu, from the House of Omri.
But the Black Obelisk is even more important because it actually includes an image of Jehu, bowing down and giving gifts to Shalmaneser. This is the first and only contemporary image we have on an ancient Israelite king.
Thigs seemed to have stabilized at this point because after Jehu's reign, we get a series of four father-son successions.
Jehoash's name appears in the archaeological record as well. He is mentioned in the stele of Adad-Nirari III, now located in Baghdad at the Iraq Museum. There, he is referred to as the King of Samaria, which is the earliest reference we have outside of the Bible of that particular city.
We don't have any direct evidence outside of the Bible for a king named Jeroboam II, however, in Amis 1:1, it describes an earthquake that occurred during Jeroboam II's reign and according to the geological record, we know that there was a big earthquake in the region around 760BCE, which fits.
Following Jeroboam II, things start to go downhill. His son, Zachariah is assassinated in his first year and replaced with an army commander, who in turn, is assassinated after just one month and replaced with another army commander named, Menahem.
Menahem is mentioned in the annals of Tiglath Pileser III as being one of the many who ρáíd him tribute. He was eventually followed by his son, Pekahiah, who, like so many ancient Israelite kings, was eventually assassinated and replaced with one of his army commanders. That king, named Pekah, is also mentioned in Assyrian records as paying tribute to Tiglath Pileser. And Pekah again was assassinated and replaced by one of his army commanders. This fact was confirmed in Assyrian records.
That king named Hoshea would be the last king of Israel. He made a deal with Egypt in the hopes of avoiding paying tribute to Assyria. That was a bad move because Assyria, now led by Shalmaneser V, responded by conquering the kingdom for good and destroying their capital at Samaria.
In the chart, there listed several of the Assyrian kings, and unlike the ancient Israelite kings, the existence of all of them can be confirmed by the archaeological record. Instead of them having a red checkmark, the ones that are mentioned in the Bible were given a blue checkmark.
Let's now look at the Southern Kingdom of Judah. There, King Solomon was followed by his son, Rehoboam, whose mother was a non-Israelite named Naamah. She came from the nearby Kingdom of Ammon, now located in Jordan. And interestingly, Rehoboam married a grand-daughter of Absalom, so, in a way, Absalom's line did end up on the throne in the end. He was followed by their son Bijah, and then by Asa, who had a long and peaceful reign.
Generally, the Bible describes the kings of Judah as being good kings, who destroyed idols and encouraged the worship of the one true god. In contrast with the kings of Israel, who did the opposite and were therefore punished with more internal conflict.
Next comes Jehoshaphat, who was contemporary with Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel. In fact, his son, Jehoram, married a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. Together, that couple had Ahaziah, who as mentioned earlier, allied with his uncle, King Jehoram of Israel against the King of Aram-Damascus.
Which, brings us back to the Tel Dan Stele, which describes the incident. In that inscription, it appears to read, "[Amaz]iah, son of [Jehoram], of the House of David".
This is important because it is the earliest reference in the archaeological record to the House of David. But note that it doesn't directly reference David as a king, nor does it describe anything that David did. Instead, it simply references the existence of a royal dynasty named after someone called David.
This is a bit different from the reference to the House of Omri, being that Omri lived just a few decades before the earliest mention of his name, whereas David lived over a hundred years before the earliest mention of his. This is why David is still considered to be more of a legendary figure, whereas Omri is considered more of a historical one.
Ahaziah died following the conflict with Aram-Damascus. At this point, his mother, Queen Athaliah, became the ruling monarch - the only monarch of the Kingdom of Judah that was a female and the only one that did not belong to the paternal line of David for she was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. She proceeded to kill all the possible claimants to the throne of Judah, but she was missed one because unbeknownst to her, a relative smuggled away and hid one of Ahaziah's sons, who was just a baby at the time.
When the child, named Hoash, was seven, he was revealed and with the help of the priests, he was made king, thus re-establishing the line of Judah. He would be the first of two child kings who feature prominently in the biblical story of ancient Israel. He was followed by Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah - most of whom are attested to somehow in the archaeological record.
A royal seal has been found belonging to Ahaz, son of Jotham, thus confirming the names of these two kings. Hezekiah is generally considered to be one of the greatest kings in the history of ancient Israel. He reigned shortly after the fall of the Northern Kingdom and he used the opportunity to re-organize and strengthen the Kingdom of Juda. Prior to this, the Kingdom of Israel was by far the larger and more important of the two kingdoms.
This is why the idea of a united monarchy ruled by a southern dynasty (the House of David) is most likely just a legend that was created later on in order to make Judah seem more important. Either way, it was definitely at this point that the Kingdom of Judah did become larger and more important. One can imagine that there were likely lots of refugees streaming down from the ruins of the northern cities and that this led to a population boom in the southern cities.
There is certainly a lot of archaeological findings from this period, both from Assyrian records as well as from evidence found in Jerusalem. For example, we know that Hezekiah rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem in preparation for an Assyrian attack. Remnants of these walls can still be seen today. It is also thought that he is the one who ordered the construction of the Siloam tunnel, another feature in Jerusalem that still exists today.
The Bible also mentions two major historical figures who existed at the same time as Hezekiah: Sennacherib, King of Assyria and Taharqa, King of Kush(who was also a Pharoah of Egypt).
It was during the reign of Hezekiah that the prophet Isaiah lived, the first of the four so-called 'major prophets'. It is thought that Isiah was probably a grandson of King Josiah and thus a member of the royal family. It is also possible that he was Hezekiah's father-in-law.
However, the most important thing to mention about Hezekiah is that the Assyrians did, in fact, attack the Kingdom of Judah during his reign, which was a logical next step after having destroyed the Kingdom of Israel. However, Hezekiah was able to hold them off and thus Judah survived and went on to become the main power in the Levant over the next century.
Hezekiah was followed by his son, Manasseh, who is also mentioned in Assyrian records, and then by Ahaz, who was assassinated after just two years on the throne. This led to an eight-year-old named Josiah becoming king. Although Josiah is not nearly as famous as kings David and Solomon, There is an argument that he was much more important. For it was Josiah who laid the foundation for what became Second Temple Judaism, which in turn, as mentioned earlier, was the religion from which Rabbinical Judaism, Christianity and Islam all stemmed from.
Biblical scholars have concluded that it was during the reign of Josiah that the original parts of the Book of Deuteronomy were written. And some scholars even believe that this core part of Deuteronomy was actually the earliest part of the Bible to be written.
One theory is that the story of Joshua's conquest of Canaan was invented in order to inspire the people living during Josiah's time to conquer the lands to the north that had recently been laid waste by the Assyrians and that the story of the United Monarchy was invented in order to legitimize the House of David's rule over the entire land of Israel.
Whether or not this is true, we do know for certain that Josiah did try to conquer the northern areas during his reign. But unfortunately, he failed and died in the process. According to the Bible, he was killed by a Pharoah named Necho, who we know from Egyptian records, was in fact a historical Pharoah that had just come to power at that exact time.
After the death of Josiah, Judah started to decline rapidly. Three of his sons and one of his grandsons followed him as king and it was his third son, Zedekiah who would be the final king of Judah. By this point, the Babylonians had conquered Assyria and were now the major power in the Middle East. Their famous king, Nebuchadnezzar, defeated the Kingdom of Judah and destroyed Jerusalem, along with its temple, in 586BCE. At this point, most of the Jews were transported to Babylon, where they then lived in exile.
The second and third of the four major prophets are Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They both lived during the final days of Judah and during the early part of the exile. Jerimiah was the son of the High Priest Hilkiah, who served during the reign of King Josiah.
The fourth and final major prophet is Daniel. He is thought to be a literary invention, not a historical figure. According to most scholars, the Book of Daniel was the last book of the Hebrew Bible to be written and is usually dated to the Maccabean period. However, the story places Daniel and his three companions Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as members of the Jewish royal family living in exile in Babylon, and later, Persia.
Although the reign of the House of David officially came to an end in 586BCE, there was a position known as the exilarch that survived much longer. The exilarch was basically the leader of the Jewish community in Babylon. Early exilarchs include Jeconiah's son, Shealtiel and grandson, Zerubbabel. The genealogy given in the Gospel of Matthew traces the line leading to Jesus back to Zerubbabel.
Information on the exilarchs after Zerubbabel and their exact genealogy are pretty sketchy, however, they are mentioned on and off in historical records all the way up to the year 1258CE, which is when Bagdhad fell to the grandson of Ghengis Khan.
Another title that has been used throughout Jewish history, both in the Levant and the European diaspora is 'nasi' which means 'prince'. Whether or not certain individuals who used the name nasi (or anyone else for that matter) are direct male-line descendants of the House of David is something that cannot be proved one way or another.
There are lots of fanciful theories that try to connect various dynasties back to the Davidic line, such as the Merovingians, but none of these are taken seriously by historians.
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This is a partial transcription of UsefulChart's video on YøùTùbé, titled, 'Kings of Israel & Judah Family Tree | What's the Archaeological Evidence?'
Watch it here. LINK
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I highly suggest that you just watch the video. Everything's easier to understand in video format.
Starting with the kings of the legendary 'United Monarchy', which include David and Solomon, and then through both the family tree of the kings of Israel in the North and the kings of Judah in the South. Many of these kings are known to be historical so along the way, some of the archaeological evidence of their existence will be pointed out.
The most famous king of ancient Israel is King David. But David was not the first king of Israel. The first king was a man named Saul. Prior to Saul, the twelve tribes of Israel were said to have been ruled by a series of judges, who were basically temporary leaders who led armies during times of crisis.
But according to the Bible, the people eventually got tired of that system and demanded to have a king. So they are lots and in the end, Saul from the Tribe of Benjamin was chosen.
This marked the beginning of what's referred to as the 'United Monarchy' which means that all twelve tribes of Israel were united under a single king.
As mentioned in Part 1, there's no evidence outside of the Bible that a united Israelite kingdom ever actually existed. When we look at the archaeological record for this time period, what we find is a bunch of small Israelite villages with seemingly no centralized government.
This greatly contrasts with the biblical description of the period, which paints Israel as being a large powerful, and extremely wealthy nation. The most likely conclusion is that these first few kings are more legendary than historical. This means that they likely did exist but were perhaps more akin to local tribal chieftains than mighty kings and that the bible exaggerates their power.
During Saul's reign, a young hero named David, from the Tribe of Judah, starts to grow in popularity after an incident which David was able to kill an enemy giant named Goliath. After that event, David joins Saul's army, becomes best friends with Saul's eldest son, Jonathan and even marries one of Saul's daughters, named Michal.
He then does on to be very successful in several battles against the Israelites main enemy - the Philistines. Eventually, Saul becomes jealous of David and tries to have him killed, forcing David to go into hiding. Then, both Saul and Jonathan die in battle against the Philistines.
At this point, the tribe of Judah declares David to be their king but the rest of the tribes choose Saul's only remaining son, Ish-bosheth.
There's a seven-year civil war between the two sides, and eventually, Abner, who was Saul's main general as well as his first cousin, switches sides and supports David.
Soon thereafter, Ish-bosheth is killed by his own men and David becomes king of all Israel. He makes Jerusalem his capital and in total, he reigns 40 years.
Let's now look at David's tree in more details.
David was the youngest son of a man named Jesse, who in turn, was the son of Obed. And Obed was the son of Boaz and Ruth, the two main characters from the Book of Ruth. Basically was David's great-grandmother. David also has a nephew named Joab, who was the son of his sisters'. He becomes David's main general and features quite prominently in the story of David's life.
Jonathan, David's best friend had a disabled son named Mephibosheth who David adopts after he becomes king. It has already been mentioned that David married one of Saul's daughters. But, he also married seven other women and had at least 18 children.
His firstborn son and heir were named Amnon, but there's a story in the Bible in which Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar, who was the full sister of Absalom. Absalom seeks revenge and has Amnon killed.
Later, Absalom instigates a coup against his father David and tries to take the throne. But following a battle, Absalom gets his long, beautiful hair stuck in the branches of a tree. Joab finds Absalom and disobeying David's orders to take him alive, kills him, for which Joab ends up losing his job.
Another famous story associated with David is the story of David and Bathsheba. in which David sees Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop and conspires to have her husband killed in battle so that he could marry her.
As literary figures, gom David is a pretty complicated character. He does a lot of good things but he does a bunch of bad things too. But generally, he's seen as a good guy because he always seems to repent and learn from his mistakes.
He has a son with Bathsheba named Solomon and it is Solomon that ends up becoming the next king. Now there are two other sons of David. Adonijah, who when David dies, attempted to take the throne but failed. And Nathan, who, according to the Gospel of Luke, it is through Nathan that Jesus links back to David.
Solomon is mostly remembered as being the one who builds the First Temple as well as for being really wise, really rich, and for supposedly having 1000 wives. One of his wives was possibly the Queen of Sheba.
She's mentioned only briefly in the Bible but in the Ethiopian tradition, the story is told in more detail. There, she is said to have had a son named Menelik, who becomes the king of Ethiopia and the progenitor of the Solomonic dynasty.
Like his father, David, Solomon reigns for a total of 40 years. The fact that both these kings have a nice round, very symbolic, reign lengths is further evidence that they are likely legendary figures as opposed to strictly historical ones.
After the reign of Solomon, the kingdom splits in two.
The tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the South continued to be ruled by the House of David in Jerusalem, and are known as the Kingdom of Judah. Whereas in the North, the ten remaining tribes declare independence and became known as the Kingdom of Israel.
The Kingdom of Israel's first king is a man named Jeroboam, who was from the Tribe of Ephraim, which was the largest of the 12 tribes.
In Israel, we get several ruling dynasties. Jeroboam is followed by his son, Nadab, but two years into his reign, Nadab is killed by one of his army captains named Baasha and Baasha becomes king instead. Baasha was from the tribe of Issachar.
But then history repeats itself, he has a decently long reign and passes things on to his son Elah, but then, after just two years, Elah is assassinated by one of his army commanders - a man named Zimri. But Zimri is unable to hold on to power and commits suicide after just 7 days of being a king.
At this point, there's a civil war. Some of the people support Tibni, who was probably a relative of Zimri, but others support Omri, who was likely from the tribe of Issachar, like Baasha and Elah. Eventually, Omri's side winds and he becomes the sole king.
Omri is a very important figure. Strangely, unlike many other bible characters, his name is not well known today. However, he was one of the most important kings in ancient Israel. He holds the distinction of being the earliest known person in the entire Bible for which we have evidence in the archaeologist record.
Notice that Omri has a red checkmark on his name, on this chart, the red checkmark means that we have a source outside of the Bible that confirms the existence of that person in real life.
How do we know that Omri was a real, historical king?
In Paris, there is an artifact in the Louvre called the Mesha Stele and it comes from the ancient Kingdom of Moab, which today would be part of Jordan. It dates to just a few decades after the reign of Omri and describes Omri, King of Israel, capturing some Moabite territory.
The name Omri also shows on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, which is now housed at the British Museum in London.
It clearly shows the phrase 'House of Omri', indicating that other nations at the time knew that the Kingdom of Israel was being ruled by a dynasty that started with Omri.
Omri is also important because he founded the city of Samaria, which went on to be the capital of the northern kingdom for the rest of his existence.
Omri was followed by his son, Ahab, and the Bible talks a lot more about him and also about his wife, Jezabel. Ahab and Jezabel were the king and queen of Israel at the time that the prophet Elijah lived. Elijah, being one of the more famous prophets in Jewish history.
The Bible paints Ahab as being a very wicked king, influenced strongly by his wife, Jezebel, who was a Phoenician and thus not an Israelite. From a literary point of view, Jezebel is an interesting figure because in most cases, she is portrayed as the ultimate evil seductress. But on the other hand, those who see the evil seductress trope as being a dangerous stereotype and an attempt to discredit strong, confident women, Jezebel has actually become somewhat of a feminist icon.
We do not have any corroborating evidence for the existence of Jezebel, but we do have mention of her father and brother in a now lost history of Tyre that was quoted by Josephus. Her brother, Baal-Eser II was supposedly the grandfather of the legendary Queen Dido, who is said to have found the city of Carthage.
One thing to keep in mind about the biblical account of the Northern Kingdom is that it was primarily written and edited much later by scribes from the Southern Kingdom. So there's an obvious bias toward the monotheistic religion that developed at Jerusalem and that went on to evolve into Second Temple Judaism, which, in turn, led to the development of the better known Rabbinical Judaism, as well as Christianity and Islam.
'Basically, from the Southern kingdom's perspective, the Northern kingdom was seen as being disobedient to the one true God, HaShem. Ahab and Jezebel were famous for promoting the worship of the God, Baal instead of HaShem, so whenever something went wrong, the Southerners blamed it on the fact that the Northerners worshipped the wrong god or gods.
Ahad has a red check mark because he shows up ina set of Assyrian monuments known as the Kurkh monoliths, currently located at the British Museum.
In those inscriptions, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III claims that he defeated "2000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers of Abag the Israelite".
According to the Bible, Ahab was killed during a war with the kingdom of Judah and is followed by his sons Ahaziah and Jehoram.
Jehoram's name appears on an artifact known as the Tel Dan Stele, discovered in the 1990s and currently housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. That inscription confirms a story told in the Bible, in which Jehoram, king of Israel and Ahaziah, king of Judah, are defeated by Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus.
In the Bible's version, a man named Jehu ends up replacing Jehoram as king of Israel. It's at this point that Jezebel is killed by being pushed out of a window Although the Bible doesn't make it clear, it's possible that Jehu was a descendant of Omri through a junior branch. In fact, his name appears on the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, where he is described as 'Jehu, Son of Omri', most likely meaning, Jehu, from the House of Omri.
But the Black Obelisk is even more important because it actually includes an image of Jehu, bowing down and giving gifts to Shalmaneser. This is the first and only contemporary image we have on an ancient Israelite king.
Thigs seemed to have stabilized at this point because after Jehu's reign, we get a series of four father-son successions.
Jehoash's name appears in the archaeological record as well. He is mentioned in the stele of Adad-Nirari III, now located in Baghdad at the Iraq Museum. There, he is referred to as the King of Samaria, which is the earliest reference we have outside of the Bible of that particular city.
We don't have any direct evidence outside of the Bible for a king named Jeroboam II, however, in Amis 1:1, it describes an earthquake that occurred during Jeroboam II's reign and according to the geological record, we know that there was a big earthquake in the region around 760BCE, which fits.
Following Jeroboam II, things start to go downhill. His son, Zachariah is assassinated in his first year and replaced with an army commander, who in turn, is assassinated after just one month and replaced with another army commander named, Menahem.
Menahem is mentioned in the annals of Tiglath Pileser III as being one of the many who ρáíd him tribute. He was eventually followed by his son, Pekahiah, who, like so many ancient Israelite kings, was eventually assassinated and replaced with one of his army commanders. That king, named Pekah, is also mentioned in Assyrian records as paying tribute to Tiglath Pileser. And Pekah again was assassinated and replaced by one of his army commanders. This fact was confirmed in Assyrian records.
That king named Hoshea would be the last king of Israel. He made a deal with Egypt in the hopes of avoiding paying tribute to Assyria. That was a bad move because Assyria, now led by Shalmaneser V, responded by conquering the kingdom for good and destroying their capital at Samaria.
In the chart, there listed several of the Assyrian kings, and unlike the ancient Israelite kings, the existence of all of them can be confirmed by the archaeological record. Instead of them having a red checkmark, the ones that are mentioned in the Bible were given a blue checkmark.
Let's now look at the Southern Kingdom of Judah. There, King Solomon was followed by his son, Rehoboam, whose mother was a non-Israelite named Naamah. She came from the nearby Kingdom of Ammon, now located in Jordan. And interestingly, Rehoboam married a grand-daughter of Absalom, so, in a way, Absalom's line did end up on the throne in the end. He was followed by their son Bijah, and then by Asa, who had a long and peaceful reign.
Generally, the Bible describes the kings of Judah as being good kings, who destroyed idols and encouraged the worship of the one true god. In contrast with the kings of Israel, who did the opposite and were therefore punished with more internal conflict.
Next comes Jehoshaphat, who was contemporary with Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel. In fact, his son, Jehoram, married a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. Together, that couple had Ahaziah, who as mentioned earlier, allied with his uncle, King Jehoram of Israel against the King of Aram-Damascus.
Which, brings us back to the Tel Dan Stele, which describes the incident. In that inscription, it appears to read, "[Amaz]iah, son of [Jehoram], of the House of David".
This is important because it is the earliest reference in the archaeological record to the House of David. But note that it doesn't directly reference David as a king, nor does it describe anything that David did. Instead, it simply references the existence of a royal dynasty named after someone called David.
This is a bit different from the reference to the House of Omri, being that Omri lived just a few decades before the earliest mention of his name, whereas David lived over a hundred years before the earliest mention of his. This is why David is still considered to be more of a legendary figure, whereas Omri is considered more of a historical one.
Ahaziah died following the conflict with Aram-Damascus. At this point, his mother, Queen Athaliah, became the ruling monarch - the only monarch of the Kingdom of Judah that was a female and the only one that did not belong to the paternal line of David for she was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. She proceeded to kill all the possible claimants to the throne of Judah, but she was missed one because unbeknownst to her, a relative smuggled away and hid one of Ahaziah's sons, who was just a baby at the time.
When the child, named Hoash, was seven, he was revealed and with the help of the priests, he was made king, thus re-establishing the line of Judah. He would be the first of two child kings who feature prominently in the biblical story of ancient Israel. He was followed by Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah - most of whom are attested to somehow in the archaeological record.
A royal seal has been found belonging to Ahaz, son of Jotham, thus confirming the names of these two kings. Hezekiah is generally considered to be one of the greatest kings in the history of ancient Israel. He reigned shortly after the fall of the Northern Kingdom and he used the opportunity to re-organize and strengthen the Kingdom of Juda. Prior to this, the Kingdom of Israel was by far the larger and more important of the two kingdoms.
This is why the idea of a united monarchy ruled by a southern dynasty (the House of David) is most likely just a legend that was created later on in order to make Judah seem more important. Either way, it was definitely at this point that the Kingdom of Judah did become larger and more important. One can imagine that there were likely lots of refugees streaming down from the ruins of the northern cities and that this led to a population boom in the southern cities.
There is certainly a lot of archaeological findings from this period, both from Assyrian records as well as from evidence found in Jerusalem. For example, we know that Hezekiah rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem in preparation for an Assyrian attack. Remnants of these walls can still be seen today. It is also thought that he is the one who ordered the construction of the Siloam tunnel, another feature in Jerusalem that still exists today.
The Bible also mentions two major historical figures who existed at the same time as Hezekiah: Sennacherib, King of Assyria and Taharqa, King of Kush(who was also a Pharoah of Egypt).
It was during the reign of Hezekiah that the prophet Isaiah lived, the first of the four so-called 'major prophets'. It is thought that Isiah was probably a grandson of King Josiah and thus a member of the royal family. It is also possible that he was Hezekiah's father-in-law.
However, the most important thing to mention about Hezekiah is that the Assyrians did, in fact, attack the Kingdom of Judah during his reign, which was a logical next step after having destroyed the Kingdom of Israel. However, Hezekiah was able to hold them off and thus Judah survived and went on to become the main power in the Levant over the next century.
Hezekiah was followed by his son, Manasseh, who is also mentioned in Assyrian records, and then by Ahaz, who was assassinated after just two years on the throne. This led to an eight-year-old named Josiah becoming king. Although Josiah is not nearly as famous as kings David and Solomon, There is an argument that he was much more important. For it was Josiah who laid the foundation for what became Second Temple Judaism, which in turn, as mentioned earlier, was the religion from which Rabbinical Judaism, Christianity and Islam all stemmed from.
Biblical scholars have concluded that it was during the reign of Josiah that the original parts of the Book of Deuteronomy were written. And some scholars even believe that this core part of Deuteronomy was actually the earliest part of the Bible to be written.
One theory is that the story of Joshua's conquest of Canaan was invented in order to inspire the people living during Josiah's time to conquer the lands to the north that had recently been laid waste by the Assyrians and that the story of the United Monarchy was invented in order to legitimize the House of David's rule over the entire land of Israel.
Whether or not this is true, we do know for certain that Josiah did try to conquer the northern areas during his reign. But unfortunately, he failed and died in the process. According to the Bible, he was killed by a Pharoah named Necho, who we know from Egyptian records, was in fact a historical Pharoah that had just come to power at that exact time.
After the death of Josiah, Judah started to decline rapidly. Three of his sons and one of his grandsons followed him as king and it was his third son, Zedekiah who would be the final king of Judah. By this point, the Babylonians had conquered Assyria and were now the major power in the Middle East. Their famous king, Nebuchadnezzar, defeated the Kingdom of Judah and destroyed Jerusalem, along with its temple, in 586BCE. At this point, most of the Jews were transported to Babylon, where they then lived in exile.
The second and third of the four major prophets are Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They both lived during the final days of Judah and during the early part of the exile. Jerimiah was the son of the High Priest Hilkiah, who served during the reign of King Josiah.
The fourth and final major prophet is Daniel. He is thought to be a literary invention, not a historical figure. According to most scholars, the Book of Daniel was the last book of the Hebrew Bible to be written and is usually dated to the Maccabean period. However, the story places Daniel and his three companions Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as members of the Jewish royal family living in exile in Babylon, and later, Persia.
Although the reign of the House of David officially came to an end in 586BCE, there was a position known as the exilarch that survived much longer. The exilarch was basically the leader of the Jewish community in Babylon. Early exilarchs include Jeconiah's son, Shealtiel and grandson, Zerubbabel. The genealogy given in the Gospel of Matthew traces the line leading to Jesus back to Zerubbabel.
Information on the exilarchs after Zerubbabel and their exact genealogy are pretty sketchy, however, they are mentioned on and off in historical records all the way up to the year 1258CE, which is when Bagdhad fell to the grandson of Ghengis Khan.
Another title that has been used throughout Jewish history, both in the Levant and the European diaspora is 'nasi' which means 'prince'. Whether or not certain individuals who used the name nasi (or anyone else for that matter) are direct male-line descendants of the House of David is something that cannot be proved one way or another.
There are lots of fanciful theories that try to connect various dynasties back to the Davidic line, such as the Merovingians, but none of these are taken seriously by historians.
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This is a partial transcription of UsefulChart's video on YøùTùbé, titled, 'Kings of Israel & Judah Family Tree | What's the Archaeological Evidence?'
Watch it here. LINK
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I highly suggest that you just watch the video. Everything's easier to understand in video format.
