The Kings of the Jews

The Kings of the Jews

By Norman Gelb

More than 50 men and women sat on the throne of the Jews in ancient times, over a period spanning more than 1,000 years from around the year 1000 BCE. Of them, only the memory of a few has passed into the popular imagination.
Among those few are King David, the harp strumming warrior who first molded the Jewish tribes into a nation, and King Solomon, who was said to have conjured up marvels of wisdom and dispensed wonders of justice while administering an empire. In the 30 centuries that have passed since their time, tales of their accomplishments have been richly embroidered by legend and embellishment.

King David and King Solomon led merry, merry lives,With many many lady friends, and many many wives.
But when old age crept over them, with many many qualms,King Solomon wrote the proverbs and King David wrote the psalms.

Despite the puffed up yarns, David and Solomon were men of historic achievement. Though some of their royal successors were of little substance, and would have been forgotten if they had not been mentioned in passing in the Bible, others who wore the crown of the Jews in ancient times were, like David and Solomon, figures of considerable significance in the evolution of the Jewish nation.
Kings feature prominently in the histories of most nations. Major historical events are commonly portrayed as achieved or perpetrated by them or in their names: the wars they fought, the projects they undertook, the riches they accumulated, the reverses they sustained, how their people fared under them. That was as true for the Jews as for, say, the English or the Chinese. The Jewish nation, forerunner of the modern state of Israel, was forged into existence while Jews were ruled by monarchs of their own in a Middle East even more turbulent than it is today. And some of its largely forgotten rulers played important roles in that process. Kings Rehoboam and Jeroboam, for example, established the two separate and often rival Jewish kingdoms — Israel and Judah. Under King Omri, the northern kingdom of Israel became a force to be reckoned with in the region and was known to its neighbors as "The House of Omri". At a time when paganism had made potentially devastating inroads in Jewish worship and national identity, a campaign by Judah's King Josiah made his subjects aware of their rich national-religious heritage dating back to the Exodus, and renewed their lapsed covenant with God.
A gap of 400 years divided the two periods when the Jews were ruled by their own kings. That interval began with their expulsion from their kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, one of the devouring regional superpowers that succeeded each other in dominance in ancient times — Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greek-Syria, Parthia, Rome. The survival of the Jewish nation depended on precarious interaction with all of them. In that forced exile in Babylon — the first Diaspora — Judaism took on a markedly different character, surviving a crucial test in which the Jewish nation could have been blotted out forever, the fate of other small lands in the region.
After the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland, and the subsequent Maccabee uprising against Syria, warrior High Priest John Hyrcanus reestablished the independence and power of what had become the Syrian province of Judaea and set the stage for the rebirth of the Jewish monarchy.
Among the extensive religious reforms of Queen Alexandra Salome, one of the rulers of the Hassmonean dynasty, provision was made for the first time to shield divorced or widowed women from impoverishment, the precedent for modern day alimony and spousal support.
Later, Herod the Great, an Arab-Jew, teetered on the brink of homicidal lunacy, but he was also a builder-modernizer of cities, a benefactor to the people of the spreading Diaspora, and an international philanthropist who rescued the ancient Olympic games from oblivion.
These and other rulers played crucial roles in the evolution of the Jewish nation, forerunner of the modern state of Israel.

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Norman Gelb is the author of several books, the latest of which is KINGS OF THE JEWS: Exploring the Origins of the Jewish Nation. You may visit his website at www.kingsofthejews.com

A History of the Jewish Monarchy

The Kings of Israel, Judea and Onward

By Menachem Posner

Originally, the Jewish nation had no kings. At Mount Sinai G‑dtold Moses that if the Jews would follow in His ways, they would be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” If they would serve the one true King, they would have no need for a mortal replacement.

Of course, they needed a leader. But Moses was not a conventional king. He was G‑d’s servant, a humble shepherd rather than a supreme monarch. Moses passed this model of leadership on to his successorJoshua, and he in turn passed it on to his disciples.

Thus for most of its early history, the Nation of Israel was lead by judges and prophets. The prophets relayed the word of G‑d, while the judges counseled the people in times of peace, and lead them to battle in times of war.

The First King

Although the Jews did not require a king in their ideal state, Moses foresaw that the need for one would arise. In the Book ofDeuteronomy, he actually commands Israel to appoint a king (at an unspecified time in the future), and lays down the guidelines for a Jewish monarch, limiting his materialistic pursuits and exhorting him to follow G‑d and be humble.

Then, in the year 2881 (880 BCE), after 400 years of being led by prophets and judges, the people approached the ProphetSamuel, clamoring for a king “like all the other nations.”

After consulting with G‑d (who expressed His disappointment in the peoples’ lack of faith), Samuel reluctantly gave in to their pleas, but not without warning them of the pitfalls inherent in having an absolute monarch.1

A short while later, when a young man from the tribe of Benjaminnamed Saul came to him for help locating his lost donkeys, Samuel anointed him as king over Israel.

After a brilliant start, Saul lost G‑d’s favor when he did not completely follow His command to wipe out all traces of Amalek, the mortal enemy of Israel. Shortly thereafter, G‑d commanded Samuel to anoint a young shepherd named David king of Israel. Even though Saul continued to rule, he was no longer favored by G‑d.

The Eternal Dynasty

Hounded by a jealous Saul and scorned by many, David’s faith in G‑d carried him through tough times and shaped the sensitive soul that authored the Psalms. After building his own royal palace, David yearned to build a splendid home for G‑d inJerusalem to replace the tent in which the Ark of the covenant was housed at that time. G‑d promised him that while he would not be the one to do so, he would have a son—Solomon—who would build the Temple, and whose progeny would rule Israel forever.

Solomon reigned over Israel’s golden age. He was blessed by G‑d with extraordinary wisdom, and his fame and power reached to the farthest lands. As G‑d had promised his father, Solomon did indeed build a home for G‑d in Jerusalem, the First Holy Temple.

The Split

At the end of his reign, Solomon’s wives introduced idol worship into his home, and G‑d was displeased. G‑d told Solomon that after his death the kingdom would be taken from him, and only a small portion of Israel would be ruled by his progeny. So it was that in 2964 (797 BCE) Solomon died and his son Rehoboamruled in Jerusalem over the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, whileJeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim ruled the other 10 tribes.

Jeroboam was seen as an exceptionally wicked person about whom the sages say that he had no portion in the world to come. He forced the people under his rule to participate in idolatrous practices in an effort to sever their connection to G‑d’s Temple in Jerusalem.

For over 200 years, Israel was divided into two parallel monarchies, until the Northern (non-Davidic) kingdom was exiled by a succession of Assyrian kings. With time the exiled Israeliteslost touch with their Jewish brethren and have since become known as the “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.”

In the year 3327 (434 BCE) the independent kingdom of Judah ended when Nebucadnazzer, king of Babylon, invaded Judeaand exiled the king, Jeconiah, and many Judean leaders. Jeconiah was succeeded by Zedekiah, who served as a tributary ruler to Nebucadnazzer. Eleven years later, the Temple in Jerusalem built by Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the Jews became a nation in exile.

Second Temple Era and Its Aftermath

In the year 3390 (371 BCE) a group of Jews returned to resettle in Judea. One of their leaders was Zerubabel, a scion of the royal house of David, and construction began on a Second Temple.

But the Second Temple did not match the glory of its predecessor. The Jews at this time were often ruled by foreign kings and their proxies, who were not of Davidic descent.

Of special note is the Hasmonean family, who defeated the Greeks in what became known as the miracle of Chanukah in 3622 (139 BCE). Afterwards, they assumed the throne of Judea, despite their being of Aaronic, priestly stock.

Their rule was cut short in 3725 (36 BCE), when Herod, an Edomite, killed the Hasmonean King Antignus and took the throne for himself. His rule was a bitter one, marked by murder of anyone whom Herod suspected of disloyalty - including a great many Torah sages. In a moment of remorse, Herod enlarged the Temple Mount and renovated the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, creating an edifice so magnificent that it was said, “He who has not seen Herod’s temple has never seen a beautiful building in all his days.” (The remaining portion of the wall Herod constructed to support the enlarged mountain still stands and is now known as the Western Wall.

Where were the descendants of David? They were still there. But instead of vying for the throne, where they would be beholden to foreign rulers, many of them became spiritual leaders of their people. Of note were Hillel the Elder, whose school of Torah thought has shaped the face of Judaism, and his descendant, Rabbi Judah the Prince, who lead the Sanhedrin (central high court of Jewish law) and oversaw the compilation of the Mishnah. It was the leadership and vision of these men and the other sages that carried the Jewish nation through the turbulence of the Temple’s last years and the aftermath of its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE.

Babylon and Beyond

Even as the center of Judaism slowly shifted from Israel to Babylon over the course of hundreds of years, the descendants of David in that land continued to lead their people in the capacity of Resh Galuta (exilarch). But that position too came to an end in the 11th century due to Muslim persecution.

Until this very day, there are many Jewish families who can trace their lineage to David and Solomon. It is a cardinal belief that a descendant of David, the Moshiach (messiah), will once again lead us to a restored Jewish kingdom in Israel, rebuild the Holy Temple and usher in an era of world peace and G‑dly awareness. And this time it will last forever.

FOOTNOTES
1.	See the commentary of Don Isaac Abarbanel to I Samuel 8 for five views of the motives of Israel in their request for a king and why G‑d and Samuel were reticent to grant something that the Torah provided for. See also Are You a Monarchist?