The Divided Monarchy

After Solomon, the kingdom tears in two — and stays torn for over three centuries. Ten northern tribes form Israel, with its capital eventually at Samaria; the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin keep Jerusalem and the line of David. The divided monarchy is the long, sobering account of two kingdoms drifting from God, and the prophets God sends to call them back.

The north begins in idolatry under Jeroboam and never recovers; not one of its kings is judged faithful, and dynasty after dynasty falls to assassination and coup. The south fares somewhat better, producing reformers like Hezekiah and Josiah alongside disastrous kings like Ahaz and Manasseh. Over it all tower the prophets — Elijah and Elisha confronting Ahab and Jezebel, then the writing prophets Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, and others, who indict injustice and idolatry and plead for repentance while pointing to a future hope. In 722 BC Assyria destroys Samaria and carries the northern kingdom into an exile from which it never returns. Judah survives another 136 years before Babylon levels Jerusalem and burns the temple in 586 BC.

This is the best-dated stretch of Old Testament history, though the regnal years are reconciled differently by Ussher, by Edwin Thiele's influential system of co-regencies, and by modern scholars; the dates here follow the broad consensus and can shift by a few years between schemes. Theologically the period is a study in patience and judgment: God bears with covenant-breaking for generations, sending prophet after prophet, until at last the warned-of exile falls. Yet even in the announcement of judgment, the prophets plant the seeds of restoration — a new covenant, a coming king, a faithful remnant — that the rest of the Bible will harvest.