According to the Bible, ancient Israel was, in whole or part, ruled by kings for less than five hundred years. David is Israel’s most celebrated monarch. But the golden age of unity and peace in which he and his son Solomon ruled in Israel is framed between periods of violent political unrest. Out of a total of forty-two kings and one queen, thirteen died at the hands of assassins. Being king in ancient Israel was a dangerous occupation.
What Happened During King Saul’s Short-Lived Dynasty?
David began working in the court of King Saul as a youth, and quickly advanced to become a renowned military leader. Having given up on Saul, the Prophet Samuel had anointed David the next king of Israel in secret. Though it is unclear whether or not Saul was aware of this at the start of David’s tenure in his palace, David’s talent and popularity eventually began to intimidate him, and their relationship deteriorated so badly by the end of Saul’s reign that David spent most of it in flight, even taking shelter among Israel’s inveterate enemies, the Philistines.
When Saul and three of his sons were killed in battle, Saul’s only surviving son Ish-bosheth became the natural heir to his throne. Abner, Saul’s general, crowned Ish-bosheth in Mahanaim, west of the Jordan River, in defiance of David. At the same time, however, David’s followers declared him king of Judah, his own tribe, in the south of Israel.
When Was the Tragic End of Israel’s Second King?
Not content to rule side by side in a split kingdom, Ish-boseth, David, and their respective forces engaged in a two-year civil war. But from the battles no clear victor emerged. With hopes of a reward from David, two brothers named Rechab and Baanah decided to kill King Ish-bosheth as he laid in bed, severing his head and carrying it through the night to present it to the rival King David in Judah. But to their dismay, David responded by commanding their execution, accusing them of having murdered an innocent man.
Yet, though David disapproved of their methods, it was these assassins’s blades that finally precipitated the uniting of all Israel under David’s rule and ushered in ancient Israel’s golden age—the period known as the United Monarchy.
This short period of civil war between Ish-bosheth’s northerners and David’s southerners, however, would be a harbinger of a later divide in Israel that no assassin’s blade could force back together.
Was there a Permanent Divide between North and South?
The United Kingdom under David divided permanently at the beginning of his grandson’s reign. Thereafter, the kingdom to the north was called Israel, and the kingdom to the south Judah. No less than eight kings were assassinated in Israel during this period, while four kings and one queen met the same end in Judah.
With the possible exception of Queen Athaliah’s assassination, those who killed royalty in Judah were not attempting to supplant the reigning dynasty. Rather, David’s dynasty continued unbroken, and when a king was assassinated the next in line from among the royal family was installed in his place. This was not the case in the North, however, where military leaders frequently killed the king in order to take his place. These could be accurately described as coups d’état.
When Was Northern Israel’s Cycle of Coups D’état?
Jeroboam was the first king in the North, but his dynasty was cut short when his son Nadab’s reign was brought to an abrupt end when Baasha, from the tribe of Issachar—a different tribe—killed him and his family and usurped his throne. Baasha’s violent termination of Jeroboam’s kingly line became the first of a series of similar coups d’état that would hamper the North’s stability throughout its remaining years.
Baasha died of natural causes, but his son Elah would meet the same fate he had visited upon Nadab. Zimri, a military commander, cut an inebriated King Elah down in his own home and, like Baasha, stole Israel’s throne. Zimri did not live to produce dynasty, for another military leader named Omri rebelled against him. Garnering the majority of the populace on his side, Omri’s forces overwhelmed Zimri’s and, according to the story, Zimri burned his house down upon his own head, leaving the throne to Omri.
When Was Omri’s Dynasty and Jehu’s Massacre?
Omri’s dynasty reached a third generation when his grandson Joram was anointed king in Israel. Omri’s son Ahab had given his daughter Athaliah as a wife to Jehoram, King of Judah, whose son and successor Ahaziah formed a military alliance with Joram amid conflicts with Syria. For the first time since Israel’s kingdoms had divided, hope of unity was on the horizon.
But it was not to be. Jehu, yet another military rebel, having been declared king at the command of the Prophet Elisha, killed Joram by shooting him in the back with an arrow as he fled in his chariot. It happened that King Ahaziah was recovering from a battle wound at Joram’s residence when this occurred and, at Jehu’s order, Ahaziah was also mortally shot. Jehu, thus, emptied the thrones both of the northern and southern kingdoms in a single day. He proceeded to annihilate Joram’s entire family, and yet another Israelite dynasty was violently uprooted.
Queen Athaliah’s Rise and Fall
Meanwhile, in the south, Athaliah heard of her son and brother’s deaths and the subsequent slaughter of her mother Jezebel and the rest of her family. In an act that is difficult to make sense of, she then commanded the killing of her Judahite family, even threatening the life of her own grandson Joash who at that time was less than a year old. She failed, however, when the little prince was saved by a women from the royal family named Jehosheba, who was either Athaliah’s daughter or step-daughter, and a Temple priest named Jehoiada.
For six years, Athaliah became the only sole-reigning queen in the history of ancient Israel. During this period, Jehoiada kept Prince Joash hidden. Then, in one of the most dramatic assassination scenes in the Bible, the prince is revealed and publicly crowned king, sparking a revolt against Athaliah. Jehoiada then orders Athaliah to be slain in the street as she screams accusations of treason.
When Was the Murder of Joash?
Praised for his ambitious renovation of the Temple, which had apparently fallen into disrepair, Joash is viewed favorably in the biblical narrative. His grandmother Athaliah, meanwhile, is presented as murderous and cruel, having sought to destroy her own family, and her assassination is described with a level of detail not present in most biblical assassination accounts.
Nevertheless, opposition to Joash eventually arose from within his own court. Two of his servants decide to kill him. But, unlike in the assassinations that characterized the political life of the northern kingdom, in this case the dynasty continued. Joash’s son Amaziah takes his place.
Whatever peace had been forged by the pre-Jehu kings in the north and Amaziah’s predecessors in Judah had been forgotten by this time, and Israel under King Jehoash attacked and looted the Temple at Jerusalem, and took Amaziah prisoner. Eventually, Amaziah was killed just like his father had been—though it is unclear by whom.
Were there More Assassinations in the North?
A king of Israel named Zachariah was murdered by Shallum, who then took the throne. This brought Jehu’s dynasty to an end—the longest in the northern kingdom’s history. Shallum was later assassinated by a rival leader named Menahem, whose son and successor Pekahiah was later killed by Pekah, one of his own military commanders. Pekah, in turn, was killed by Hoshea, who became the last king to reign over an independent northern Kingdom of Israel. The emerging Assyrian Empire, having already begun to compromise Israel’s sovereignty, removed Hoshea from the throne, and the Kingdom of Israel came to its final end.
Did David’s Dynasty Survive?
While the South experienced political tumult similar to what occurred frequently in the North, it was more politically stable overall. But a key difference between the fallout of the political violence in the North versus the South is that, in the South, a single dynasty survived. Judah would also see its sovereignty terminated by the Babylonian Empire. But, David’s line was never permanently cut off as had happened to multiple royal lines in the northern kingdom.
In neither kingdom, however, could a king let down his guard. Whether from within his own family, his own servants, or from the ranks of his enemies, threats were ever-present.
