The Kings of Israel and Judah

List of the Kings of Israel, Judah, and Assyria

After the death of Solomon there was a civil war and Israel divided north and south. The north was called Israel and the south was called Judah. Each has a line of kings ruling from their royal palaces. The kings of the northern kingdom of Israel were all wicked. The kings of the southern kingdom of Judah were both wicked and good. Some of the great kings like Hezekiah and Uzziah came from the southern kingdom of Judah. The later king of Assyria reigned from the 9th century BC until the fall of Assyria in 612 BC.

The Books of First and Second Kings in the Bible reveal the history of Israel and Judah from the time of David all the way to the Babylonian captivity. When David's son Solomon died the history of both kingdoms began, but there is something quite remarkable when you compare the lives of the kings in each kingdom.  Their attitudes of worship, the way they ran the government, and the reflection of them upon the people that served them.

The Kingdom of Judah descended from the line of King David according to the calling and choosing of Almighty God. Each of the 21 kings was a son of his father from David to the captivity in Babylon, which was a period that lasted for 510 years. During the entire reign of the kings of Judah there was not one revolt, this is very very peculiar in any kingdom in world history.

This was far from true when looking at the kingdom of Israel in the North who followed their first King Jeroboam into depraved idolatry. Many of their kings were originally usurpers who rebelled against their king, and the tribe of which they belonged was not a big importance to them. There were 19 kings during their 311 years, from Jeroboam to the Assyrian captivity in 722 BC.

I Kings reveals 126 years of history and II Kings reveals 311 years of history. 2 Chronicles contains the same information as I and II Kings except for the fact that in Kings the history of Israel and Judah are melded together. 2 Chronicles there was only the house of David and the kings of Judah, with the whole history of the Kings of Israel removed. The only time a northern kingdom of Israel king is mentioned is when that historyintersects with one of the kings of Judah. The book of 2 Chronicles gives an account of the family and line of David and the subject is made very big. This is of great benefit because it allows us to see God's faithfulness to his promises to David, and how David's descendents were faithful in preserving the line of David. This allowed the promise of the Messiah to gain solid ground in the history of redemption.

When tracing the history of the kings of Judah it is easy to observe that every King who followed the Lord had great prosperity in his kingdom. On the other hand if a king arose who did not follow the Lord the kingdom suffered greatly, the people did not prosper, and once their sins reached an obvious climax great tragedy would happen.

The LORD spoke a very true Word in 1 Samuel 2:30,

 "Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."

2 Kings 17:22-23 - "For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day."