Azariah I


 * This article is about the first of the high priests of Israel of this name. For other uses, see Azariah (disambiguation).

Azariah I ("Name means::helped by YHWH") (ca. 1031/0– fl. 981/0–916/5 BC) was the fourteenth high priest of Israel. Estimates based on the careers of his predecessors and successors suggest that his career was one of the longest on record, beginning in the last years of the reign of King Solomon and spanning the reigns of three more kings of Judah (Rehoboam, Abijam, and Asa.)

Career
Azariah became high priest during the reign of Solomon. . The next high priest of Israel is Jehoram or Joram as listed by Flavius Josephus. Jehoram was high priest in the third year of the reign of King Jehoshaphat, so that the most reasonable estimate is that he began serving in that capacity in the last year of the reign of his predecessor Asa. This, then, was the year in which Azariah died.

Azariah's career apparently was unremarkable. Sadly, Solomon turned away from God toward the end of his life and reign, and Rehoboam was an especially wicked king. Abijam was also wicked, but at a critical moment of his reign he relied explicitly upon God and won a major battle. Asa did right in God's sight, but in the last two years of his reign he contracted an undescribed foot disease and inquired of physicians rather than of God.