From about 910 B.C. to 740 B.C. Very bad kings in Israel and Judah

During the 170 years we are now talking about Israel sank further and further away. But the two-tribe kingdom Judah did not lag far behind Israel as regards unfaithfulness to the covenant with JHWH. During this period, Judah had the good fortune that now and then it had kings who successfully opposed the Baal worship and called upon the people to remain loyal to their covenant with JHWH. But even the good kings never succeeded in stopping the Baal worship and after their deaths, they were all succeeded by sons who led the people on the way to idol worship.

The Bible describes the religious and moral collapse of Israel and Judah with complete frankness. It also emphasizes the fact that JHWH has never accepted the way in which His own two nations have broken their covenant with Him. As punishment for their consistent rejection of JHWH as their God and savior, the ten-tribe kingdom was annihilated in 740 B.C. by the second world power in Biblical history: Assyria. In 607 B.C., Judah was annihilated in the same way by the third world-power: Babylonia.

When concluding His covenant with the people of Israel in 1513 B.C., JHWH had summed up in great detail with how many blessings He would reward them if they would remain faithful to Him and the covenant. But the summing up of all the disasters that would hit them if they would break the covenant and would become unfaithful was just as impressive. See JHWH’s exact words on this topic in Deuteronomy 28:15 to 29:28. This is a perfect summing up of all the disasters that struck Israel and Judah in the centuries preceding their destruction.

In the northern kingdom, Ahab’s son Ahaziah only reigned for two years. He died childless. In about 917 B.C., he was succeeded by his brother Jehoram.

About this time, Elijah realized that he was going to die. All his life he had called upon the people to stop their idol-worship and he had consistently told them about what would happen if they would not follow his advice. In the context of his service to JHWH, he had also performed eight miracles, among which the bringing back to life of a child who had died. Together with his successor Elisha, he visited a number of towns in Israel for the last time and then he crossed the river Jordan to prepare for his passing away in a quiet fashion. When crossing the river Jordan, he worked his last miracle: he hit the water of the river with his upper garment and God made him a path straight across the water so that he could reach the other side without getting wet.

Elisha witnessed the way God Himself carried His prophet Elijah to his last resting place. A fiery chariot appeared drawn by fiery horses. Elijah got in and disappeared.

Now Elisha was JHWH’s new prophet. Elijah’s spirit came to rest on him. He hit the water of the river Jordan with his upper garment and just like his master, he could reach the other side with dry feet. In the years following this event, he traveled all over Israel with the same message as his predecessor and with the same disappointing result. This was in spite of the fact that he performed twice as many miracles as his predecessor. Elijah performed eight great miracles, while Elisha had sixteen.

Back to the kings of Israel

King Jehoram, his colleague from Judah, and the king of Edom fought against Moab. In this war, Jehoram was successful. JHWH gave him the victory because He highly appreciated the then king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, who was more faithful to Him than his predecessors.

This faithful and good king Jehoshaphat of Judah died in 913 B.C. and was succeeded by his son Jehoram. This king refused to follow the example of his good father. He died in 906 B.C. and was succeeded by his son Ahaziah.

About this time, the prophet Elisha, who worked in the northern kingdom, decided to put an end to the detestable dynasty of Ahab. He sent one of his fellow-prophets to a certain Jehu to anoint him their new king and to order him to kill all the offspring of Ahab. All this happened about the year 905 B.C. Jehu became the new king of Israel and all the offspring of Ahab were wiped out.

This was the third time that all the members of a dynasty of the nation of Israel were killed in one and the same day.

Jehu also put an end to the life of the then king of Judah Ahaziah.

In short: during his first military campaign in 905 B.C., King Jehu, who had been appointed by JHWH through His prophet Elisha, killed the then king of Israel, all the members of his family, and the then king of Judah.

After King Jehu had murdered the entire royal family, he also killed all the consistent Baal-worshippers in Israel and re-introduced the pure and exclusive worship of JHWH. He destroyed the temples that were dedicated to Baal and turned the ruins into public toilets.

Though Jehu went very far in re-introducing the worship of JHWH, he certainly did not go far enough in the eyes of JHWH: he and his people did not stop worshipping the two golden calves which had been built in Dan and Bethel many generations before them. In short, Jehu served JHWH, but not wholeheartedly. He also practiced idolatry.

About 900 B.C., Israel began to lose territory in the east. This territory was occupied by the neighboring countries in the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris, which became more and more powerful.

In 876 B.C., the good king Jehu of Israel died. He was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz. What happened in Judah during these decades?

As we have read before, King Ahaziah was killed by Jehu about 905 B.C. After this, Ahaziah’s mother, whose name was Athaliah, wiped off the entire royal family of Judah and usurped the throne. But the people, who were faithful to JHWH, hid Ahaziah's son Jehoash, who was only a few years old then. Thus, he escaped his grandmother's blood lust.

Seven years later, in 898 B.C., the High Priest of those days anointed Jehoash as the new king of Judah and had Athaliah killed.

In this way, the genealogical line of King David, of which it had been prophesied that it would exist forever, was saved in those turbulent days. But it was a narrow escape, brought about by protecting a little baby against the lust for power and blood of his grandmother!

The High Priest of those days gave Jehoash an excellent education, also in the religious field. As a grown up man and as king, he remained loyal to JHWH his whole life. He also saw to it that the people of Judah returned to the worship of their God in great numbers. Likewise, he made sure that the temple in Jerusalem, which had fallen into decay, was thoroughly renovated.

Jehoash reigned in Jerusalem for 40 years. In 858 B.C., he was killed by members of his own household staff. He was succeeded by his son Amaziah.

The then king of the northern kingdom, Jehu, died in 876 B.C. He was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz. He was not such a good king as his father and he practiced idolatry and calf-worship on a larger scale. During his reign, there was another military conflict with their eastern neighbor Syria. Israel lost a great part of its military and political independence. It was with the permission of Syria that Jehoahaz was allowed to remain the king of his own country.

At his death in 859 B.C., Jehoahaz was succeeded by his son Jehoash. He died in 844 B.C. and was succeeded by Jeroboam the Second.

In those days, about 850 B.C., Israel’s great prophet Elisha died. His whole life he had done his utmost to turn Israel back to the worship of their God JHWH, but in vain. Even the sixteen great miracles which he worked in the context of his service to his God could not turn the Israelites back to the worship of their true God.

Back to Judah

As we have seen before, King Jehoash died there in 848 B.C. and was succeeded by his son Amaziah. Just like his father, he did what he could do to turn his people back to the worship of JHWH. For some time during his reign, there was a war between Israel and Judah. This war was lost by Judah.

In the end, this relatively good king was also murdered. This was done in 829 B.C. by conspirators. He was succeeded by his son Azariah.

Back to Israel

Jeroboam the Second, whom we have already mentioned before, reigned for 41 years in Israel until about 800 B.C. He succeeded in making Israel more independent and in re-conquering large parts of the territories in the east which they had lost before. After his death, he was succeeded by his son Zechariah.

Back to Judah

King Azariah, whom we have mentioned before, reigned for no fewer than 52 years in Judah: from 829 to 777 B.C. Just like his father and his grandfather, he was a good king who did everything he could do to bring Judah back to the worship of JHWH. But just like his father and his grandfather, he did not go far enough in this, particularly in the eyes of God. During the reigns of the three good kings mentioned, the worship of idols on all sorts of “holy” hills just continued.

At his death in 777 B.C., Azariah was succeeded by his son Jotham.

Back to Israel

The decline in all fields continued at an accelerated pace. Between about 800 B.C. and 780 B.C., the country had no fewer than five kings. There was an endless stream of intrigues, assassinations, all sorts of crime and violence which had to do with kings and royal families. In the meantime, the worship of idols had almost completely replaced the worship of JHWH.

It is of highest importance that about 780 B.C., one of the greatest and most important prophets of all Biblical history began to work in Jerusalem: Isaiah. Because of the extreme importance of this prophet, exclusive attention will be paid to him further on in this website.

During the period we are now talking about, the decades around 780 B.C., the threat from the second world power in Biblical history, Assyria, began to be increasingly felt in Israel. As we have seen before, the Assyrians lived between the Euphrates and the Tigris in what is now North Iraq.

In 758 B.C., Hoshea became the last king of Israel. Nobody will be surprised any more to read that he came to power by murdering his predecessor.

We will first return to Judah for a little while. As we have seen before, Isaiah started to act as a prophet here about 780 B.C. In 777 B.C., Jotham succeeded Uzziah. When Jotham died in 761 B.C., he was succeeded by his son Ahaz. Jotham was a good king, while Ahaz was a bad one. During his reign, Judah was attacked by Israel and Syria. Ahaz decided to ask Assyria for help and the Assyrians granted his request and came to help him. When Ahaz paid the king of Assyria a visit to thank him for his military support, he saw the splendid temple which the king of Assyria had built for his god. Possibly convinced that Assyria owed its tremendous power to this idol, Ahaz decided to build an exact replica of the temple he had seen in Assyria in Jerusalem. In this temple, he offered sacrifices to the Assyrian god. In 745 B.C., Ahaz died and was succeeded by his son Hezekiah.

In the meantime, Israel had become a nation where the Israelites themselves did not control anything any more and where the Assyrians were the lords and the masters. In 740 B.C., Israel rebelled against this situation and tried to become sovereign again, but the only result was that the Assyrian army conquered the country, now occupied it for good and carried all the inhabitants away as prisoners. This put a definitive end to the ten-tribe kingdom. Their permanent unfaithfulness towards their covenant with JHWH and their consistent idol-worship had finally produced the outcome that God’s prophets had foretold: complete annihilation.

The Assyrians moved people from the east, people whom they had defeated and taken prisoner in other nations, to the territory of Israel, where they stayed for many centuries. After some decades, these new inhabitants of Israel began to serve JHWH in addition to their own gods.

There is much uncertainty regarding the question of where the Israelites who were removed from their land have gone to and what has become of them. It is a historical fact that the ten tribes have never again manifested themselves as a political or social unity. That is why some history books call them the ten lost tribes of Israel. But Bible books which were written after 740 B.C. again and again refer to a reunification of all the twelve original tribes. Specifically, the great prophets do this repeatedly. This may suggest that when in 537 B.C., many inhabitants of Judah began to rebuild their nation in its original territory, after their 70 years of living in exile, many of the offspring of the ten-tribe kingdom joined them and began to live among them. The Israel of, let us say, the fifth, the fourth, the third centuries B.C. consisted of descendants of all the twelve original tribes.

(The history of the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah from about 910 B.C. to the destruction of the northern kingdom in 740 B.C. can be found in 2 Kings, from the beginning to the end of chapter 17).