Judah
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Rehoboam reigns over Judah alone, and the southern kingdom begins.
Judah held the ridge of the southern hill country, at Jerusalem, and the line of David. Smaller and poorer than the north, it outlasted Israel by nearly a century and a half.
Babylon broke Judah in two blows: 597 BC, when the and craftsmen were deported, and 586 BC, when Jerusalem and were destroyed. The exiles returned under Persian rule, and Judah's name survives in the word Jew.
The southern kingdom of David's line, centred on Jerusalem, surviving Israel by a century and a half before Babylon.
- Judah, the house of Judah
- Judaea (Persian, Greek and Roman periods)
Judah sat on a high spine bordered by to the east and the coastal powers to the west. It was defensible but poor, and its survival depended on holding Jerusalem's ridge and its water.
The Shephelah, the low foothills to the west, was Judah's buffer against Philistia; most invasions were fought there first.
- 1 Kings 12:17 Rehoboam reigns over Judah alone, and the southern kingdom begins.
- 2 Kings 25:8-12 Jerusalem burned; Judah carried to Babylon
- Ezra 1:1-4 The return from exile under Cyrus
- Nehemiah 2:17 The walls of Judah's capital rebuilt
- Micah 5:2 Bethlehem of Judah named as the birthplace of the ruler to come
What we know
Certain
- Scripture presents Judah as the southern kingdom under David's line, with Jerusalem as its capital.
- Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC is recorded in 2 Kings 25 and in Babylonian chronicles.
Probable
- The Hezekiah tunnel inscription and Assyrian siege records match the biblical account of Sennacherib's campaign against Judah.