Kingdom of Israel




 * "Northern Kingdom" redirects here. For the original kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon, see United Kingdom of Israel. For the modern state, see Israel.

The Kingdom of Israel (Established::25 Adar 3029 AM-Conquered::Adar 3283 AM), also called the "Northern Kingdom" after the death of Solomon, was a monarchy consisting of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel who revolted against King Rehoboam, successor to Solomon. This revolt happened in 975 BC (according to James Ussher ) or 930 BC (according to Edwin R. Thiele ). The Northern Kingdom lasted until 721-2 BC, at which time King Shalmaneser V of Assyria conquered it and carried all of its people off to exile. That kingdom would never again re-assemble. (Secular historians miscredit an additional Assyrian ruler named Sargon II with the conquest of Samaria; Ussher positively identifies this "Sargon" as Shalmaneser's successor Sennacherib. )

The Prophecy
Solomon had greatly displeased God with his worship of foreign gods, which were mainly the gods of his foreign wives and concubines (of which he kept a thousand). For that reason, God intended to split the kingdom of Israel apart. He granted Solomon this mercy, for David's sake: that Solomon would not live to see this happen.

Jeroboam, son of Nebat and member of the tribe of Ephraim, was one of Solomon's ranking officers – in fact, Solomon made him his chief foreman for his many building projects. Roughly nine years before the revolt, Ahijah the Shilonite, a prophet, met Jeroboam along the road. In a graphic demonstration of Divine intent, Ahijah took off his robe, tore it into twelve pieces, and invited Jeroboam to take any ten. Solomon issued a warrant for Jeroboam's arrest and execution, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt and sought asylum under Pharaoh Shishak. This happened in 978 BC, according to Ussher. The Biblical authority for this would be, which says that all of Israel had a 390-year period of "iniquity" for which it must be punished. That period ended with the Fall of Jerusalem in 588 BC, again according to Ussher. Jeroboam did not return until after Solomon was dead.

The Revolt
Solomon died after a forty-year reign. His son Rehoboam prepared to receive the crown at Shechem. Jeroboam heard about the death of Solomon and came back from Egypt.

At first, Jeroboam simply pleaded with Rehoboam to lighten the national tax burden, which Solomon had made very heavy. Rehoboam spitefully said that he would make the burden even worse. The tribes, except only for the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, withdrew their representatives and would have no part of Rehoboam's coronation. Rehoboam sent an officer named Adoram to collect his taxes (literally, tribute), and the revolting tribes people stoned him to death.

Rehoboam raised an army, 180,000 strong, to attempt to crush the revolt, but desisted when another prophet, Shemaiah, warned him against such action.

Early History
The Kingdom of Israel had a troubled history almost from the beginning. Jeroboam I reigned for twenty-two years, and this actually was one of the longest reigns of a king of the Northern Kingdom. After he died, his son Nadab lasted only a year before a general officer named Baasha murdered him and usurped his crown. Baasha lasted for twenty-four years, but his son Elah suffered much the same fate as Nadab's: he was murdered, and this time his murderer fell to yet another conspirator within seven days. After that, the Kingdom of Israel fell into civil war, with the two sides equally divided, until within four years one side, led by Omri, prevailed. The House of Omri was one of the most troubled and wicked of the dynasties of the Northern Kingdom; its most famous member was Ahab, who with his consort Jezebel was best known for his contest of wills with the great prophet, Elijah.

The House of Jehu

 * Main Article: House of Jehu

Jehu came to power after fighting a bloody campaign of extermination against the House of Omri. He was remarkable for killing a king of the Kingdom of Judah in battle at the same time that he overthrew the last of the Omride kings in his own country. For his initial attitude of service to God, God granted that the House of Jehu would see four generations of kings. One of these, Jeroboam II, had an eleven-year viceroyship, followed by an incredible forty-one-year lone reign. Thus Jeroboam II reigned in one capacity or another for fifty-two years, one comparable in length to that of King Uzziah. (The ascendancy dates shown for Jeroboam II are the suggested dates of his viceroyship. Ussher and Thiele concluded independently that Jeroboam II must have served as viceroy during the reign of Joash of Israel. The difference is that Ussher calculated that Jeroboam II's viceroyship was in addition to his lone reign, while Thiele assumed that it ran concurrent with it.)

Yet eventually this house, too, came to an end. Indeed, the trouble began upon the death of Jeroboam II, for his son Zachariah did not actually succeed him for another eleven and a half years, as one may deduce from close examination of the accession dates. This was the First Interregnum of the Kingdom of Israel. The prophet Amos provides the authority for such an interregnum: (Thiele's chronology does not provide for such an interregnum; see below.)

Zachariah finally restored order, but Shallum murdered him, only to be murdered in his own turn by Menahem. Later, Menahem's son Pekahiah also fell to an act of murder by a general officer named Pekah. Pekah held the kingdom for twenty years, but then yet another interregnum supervened upon his death. (Again, Thiele does not account for this.) Hoshea was the last of the kings of the Northern Kingdom, and was the one who lost it to the Assyrians.

Conquest and Exile

 * ''Main Article: Fall of Samaria

Synoptic King List
The following table gives the dates of accession of the kings of the Northern Kingdom. The Ussher and Thiele columns, of course, have vastly differing BC columns. For a further explanation of the I, II, III, and IV columns and the assumptions that form their basis, see here.

Differing Chronological Placement
As the table shows, the sharpest differences between the contrasting chronologies of James Ussher and Edwin R. Thiele concern the years of the Northern Kingdom after the reign of King Jehu. Thiele moved the ascendancy of Jehu forward in time by forty-three years, and also moved the date of the Fall of Jerusalem forward by two years. Thus he had to telescope the period between Jehu and the Fall of Samaria to make it some forty years shorter. He did this by:


 * 1) Eliminating the two Interregna shown in the table,
 * 2) Assuming that Jeroboam II's viceroyship ran concurrent with his father Joash's reign, and
 * 3) Further assuming that the twenty-year reign of Pekah dated from the beginning of his tenure as a general rather than from his usurpation of the throne. He therefore dated the reign of Pekah as beginning simultaneously with the reign of Menahem.

The Bible gives no warrant for any of the above assumptions. One might argue that the Bible gave no warrant for Jeroboam II's consecutive viceroyship, either&mdash;except that if Jeroboam II did not so serve, one would have to accept an eleven-year interregnum between Amaziah and Uzziah, coupled by an eleven-year co-regency between Uzziah and Jotham. Scripture specifically rules out an interregnum, and Occam's razor militates against any co-regency.

Thiele evidently was trying to reconcile the stated history of the Northern Kingdom in I and II Kings with generally accepted dates in Assyrian history. But such a foreshortened chronology for the Northern Kingdom (and hence for the Southern) would be difficult-to-impossible to reconcile with the 390-year period of "iniquity" referred to by the prophet Ezekiel.