This part (the second section - David to the Babylon Removal - as summarized in Matthew 1:17) of the list of Jesus' ancestry coincides with the list of the Kings of Judah that can be constructed from Old Testament records of Bible.[3] Unlike other parts of Matthew's genealogy this list is fully in keeping with the other Jewish sources. Thomas Long sees this as Matthew's method to disclose the true identity of Jesus to his Jewish-Christian readers, that Jesus is 'the culmination of Israel's history', and 'the embodiment of their hunger for a true and perfect king'.[4]Uzziah, was King of Judah (809 BC - 759 BC) (Amos 1:1). According to William F. Albright, Jotham ruled from 742 BC until 735 BC and his son Ahaz ruled from his death until 715 BC, whereas Ahaz's son Hezekiah ruled from 715 BC to 687 BC.[5] Hezekiah was the king whose actions prompted the Babylonians to take the Jews into captivity, as prophesied in Isaiah 38 and mentioned in the genealogy at Verse 11. Hezekiah had fifteen years added to his lifespan by God, due to his piety.[citation needed]
These kings are also listed in 2 Kings 14-16, together with narrative about their reigns.[citation needed]
The kings in Matthew 1:9
The people mentioned in this section of the genealogy are all Kings of Judah.
In the mid-1990s a bulla, .4 inches (10mm) wide, was found with an inscription: "Belonging to Ahaz (son of) Yehotam, King of Judah." This so-call "King Ahaz's Seal" is regarded to be authentic.[6][7]
Stamped bulla sealed by a servant of King Hezekiah, formerly pressed against a cord; unprovenanced Redondo Beach collection of antiquities
There are extra-biblical sources that specify Hezekiah by name, along with his reign and influence, that "[h]istoriographically, his reign is noteworthy for the convergence of a variety of biblical sources and diverse extrabiblical evidence often bearing on the same events. Significant data concerning Hezekiah appear in the Deuteronomistic History, the Chronicler, Isaiah, Assyrian annals and reliefs, Israelite epigraphy, and, increasingly, stratigraphy".[10] Hezekiah's story is one of the best to cross-reference with the rest of the Mid Eastern world's historical documents.
In 2015 in a dig at the Ophel in Jerusalem, Eilat Mazar discovered a royal bulla of Hezekiah, that reads "Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz king of Judah", and dates to between 727 - 698 BC.[11][12][13] This is the first seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king to come to light in a scientific archaeological excavation.[14][15] The impression on this inscription was set in ancient Hebrew script.[16]
A lintel inscription, found over the doorway of a tomb, has been ascribed to his secretary, Shebnah (2 Kings 18:18). LMLK stored jars along the border with Assyria "demonstrate careful preparations to counter Sennacherib's likely route of invasion" and show "a notable degree of royal control of towns and cities which would facilitate Hezekiah's destruction of rural sacrificial sites and his centralization of worship in Jerusalem".[10] Evidence suggests they were used throughout his 29-year reign (Grena, 2004, p.338). There are some Bullae from sealed documents that may have belonged to Hezekiah himself (Grena, 2004, p.26, Figs. 9 and 10). There are also some that name his servants (ah-vah-deem in Hebrew, ayin-bet-dalet-yod-mem).
Archaeological findings like the Hezekiah seal led scholars to surmise that the ancient Judahite kingdom had a highly developed administrative system.[17] The reign of Hezekiah saw a notable increase in the power of the Judean state. At this time Judah was the strongest nation on the Assyrian-Egyptian frontier.[18] There were increases in literacy and in the production of literary works. The massive construction of the Broad Wall was made during his reign, the city was enlarged to accommodate a large influx, and population increased in Jerusalem up to 25,000, "five times the population under Solomon,"[10] Archaeologist Amihai Mazar explains, "Jerusalem was a virtual city-state where the majority of the state's population was concentrated," in comparison to the rest of Judah's cities (167).[19]
The Siloam Tunnel was chiseled through 533 meters (1,750 feet) of solid rock[20] in order to provide Jerusalem underground access to the waters of the Gihon Spring or Siloam Pool, which lay outside the city. The Siloam Inscription from the Siloam Tunnel is now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. It "commemorates the dramatic moment when the two original teams of tunnelers, digging with picks from opposite ends of the tunnel, met each other" (564).[20] It is "[o]ne of the most important ancient Hebrew inscriptions ever discovered."[20] Finkelstein and Mazar cite this tunnel as an example of Jerusalem's impressive state-level power at the time.
Archaeologists like William G. Dever have pointed at archaeological evidence for the iconoclasm during the period of Hezekiah's reign. The central cult room of the temple at Arad (a royal Judean fortress) was deliberately and carefully dismantled, "with the altars and massebot" concealed "beneath a Str. 8 plaster floor". This stratum correlates with the late 8th century; Dever concludes that "the deliberate dismantling of the temple and its replacement by another structure in the days of Hezekiah is an archeological fact. I see no reason for skepticism here."[21]
Part of the Lachish Relief, British Museum. Battle scene, showing Assyrian cavalry in action. Above, prisoners are led away.
During the revolt of king Hezekiah against Assyria, city of Lachish was captured by Sennacherib despite determined resistance (see Siege of Lachish). As the Lachish relief attests, Sennacherib began his siege of the city of Lachish in 701 BC.[22] The Lachish Relief graphically depicts the battle, and the defeat of the city, including Assyrian archers marching up a ramp and Judahites pierced through on mounted stakes. "The reliefs on these slabs" discovered in the Assyrian palace at Nineveh "originally formed a single, continuous work, measuring 8 feet ... tall by 80 feet ... long, which wrapped around the room" (559).[20] Visitors "would have been impressed not only by the magnitude of the artwork itself but also by the magnificent strength of the Assyrian war machine."[20]
Sennacherib's Prism was found buried in the foundations of the Nineveh palace. It was written in cuneiform, the Mesopotamian form of writing of the day. The prism records the conquest of 46 strong towns[23] and "uncountable smaller places," along with the siege of Jerusalem during Hezekiah's reign where Sennacherib says he just "shut him up...like a bird in a cage,"[20] subsequently enforcing a larger tribute upon him.
The Hebrew Bible states that during the night, the angel of Jehovah (YHWH Hebrew) brought death to 185,000 Assyrians troops (2 Kings 19:35), forcing the army to abandon the siege, yet it also records a tribute paid to Sennacherib of 300 silver talents following the siege. There is no account of the supernatural event in the prism. Sennacherib's account records his levying of a tribute from Hezekiah, the king of Judea, who was within Jerusalem, leaving the city as the only one intact following the exile of the northern ten-tribe kingdom of Israel due to idolatry. (2 Kings 17:22,23; 2 Kings 18:1-8) Sennacherib recorded a payment of 800 silver talents, which suggests a capitulation to end the siege. However, Inscriptions have been discovered describing Sennacherib’s defeat of the Ethiopian forces. These say: “As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities . . . and conquered (them) . . . Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.” (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p.288) He does not claim to have captured the city. This is consistent with the Bible account of Hezekiah’s revolt against Assyria in the sense that neither account seems to indicate that Sennacherib ever entered or formally captured the city. Sennacherib in this inscription claims that Hezekiah paid for tribute 800 talents of silver, in contrast with the Bible’s 300, however this could be due to boastful exaggeration which was not uncommon amongst kings of the period. Furthermore, the annals [specify] record a list of booty sent from Jerusalem to Nineveh.[24] In the inscription, Sennacherib claims that Hezekiah accepted servitude, and some theorize that Hezekiah remained on his throne as a vassal ruler.[25] The campaign is recorded with differences in the Assyrian records and in the biblical Books of Kings; there is agreement that the Assyrian have a propensity for exaggeration.[20][26]
One theory that takes the biblical view posits that a defeat was caused by "possibly an outbreak of the bubonic plague".[27] Another that this is a composite text which makes use of a 'legendary motif' analogous to that of the Exodus story.[28]
Hebrews 7:14 "For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood."
Related Research Articles
Hezekiah, or Ezekias, was the son of Ahaz and the 13th king of Judah according to the Hebrew Bible.
Isaiah was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named.
Ahaz an abbreviation of Jehoahaz II, "Yahweh has held" was the twelfth king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham. Ahaz was 20 when he became king of Judah and reigned for 16 years.
Pekah was the eighteenth and penultimate king of Israel. He was a captain in the army of king Pekahiah of Israel, whom he killed to become king. Pekah was the son of Remaliah.
Jotham or Yotam was the eleventh king of Judah, and son of Uzziah and Jerusha, daughter of Zadok. Jotham was 25 years old when he began his reign, and he reigned for 16 years. Edwin R. Thiele concluded that his reign commenced as a coregency with his father, which lasted for 11 years. Because his father Uzziah was afflicted with tzaraath after he went into the Temple to burn incense, Jotham became governor of the palace and the land at that time, i.e. coregent, while his father lived in a separate house as a leper.
Uzziah, also known as Azariah, was the tenth king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah's sons. Uzziah was 16 when he became king of Judah and reigned for 52 years. The first 24 years of his reign were as a co-regent with his father, Amaziah.
The Assyriansiege of Jerusalem was an aborted siege of Jerusalem, then capital of the Kingdom of Judah, carried out by Sennacherib, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The siege concluded Sennacharib's campaign in the Levant, in which he attacked the fortified cities and devastated the countryside of Judah in a campaign of subjugation. Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, but did not capture it.
LMLK seals are ancient Hebrew seals stamped on the handles of large storage jars first issued in the reign of King Hezekiah and discovered mostly in and around Jerusalem. Several complete jars were found in situ buried under a destruction layer caused by Sennacherib at Lachish. While none of the original seals have been found, some 2,000 impressions made by at least 21 seal types have been published. The iconography of the two and four winged symbols are representative of royal symbols whose meaning "was tailored in each kingdom to the local religion and ideology".
The Kings of Judah were the monarchs who ruled over the ancient Kingdom of Judah, which was formed in about 930 BCE, according to the Hebrew Bible, when the United Kingdom of Israel split, with the people of the northern Kingdom of Israel rejecting Rehoboam as their monarch, leaving him as solely the King of Judah.
Matthew 1:10 is the tenth verse of the first chapter in the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible. The verse is part of the section where the genealogy of Joseph, the father of Jesus, is listed.
According to the Hebrew Bible, Micah, also known as Micheas, was a prophet in Judaism and is the author of the Book of Micah. He is considered one of the Twelve Minor Prophets of the Hebrew Bible and was a contemporary of the prophets Isaiah, Amos and Hosea. Micah was from Moresheth-Gath, in southwest Judah. He prophesied during the reigns of kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah.
Sennacherib's Annals are the annals of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. They are found inscribed on a number of artifacts, and the final versions were found in three clay prisms inscribed with the same text: the Taylor Prism is in the British Museum, the Oriental Institute Prism in the Oriental Institute of Chicago, and the Jerusalem Prism is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The Lachish reliefs are a set of Assyrian palace reliefs narrating the story of the Assyrian victory over the kingdom of Judah during the siege of Lachish in 701 BCE. Carved between 700 and 681 BCE, as a decoration of the South-West Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh, the relief is today in the British Museum in London, and was included as item 21 in the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects by the museum's former director Neil MacGregor. The palace room, where the relief was discovered in 1845–1847, was fully covered with the "Lachish relief" and was 12 metres (39 ft) wide and 5.10 metres (16.7 ft) long. The Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal sequence was found in the same palace.
Isaiah 7 is the seventh chapter of the Book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet Isaiah and is one of the Books of the Prophets.
Isaiah 36 is the thirty-sixth chapter of the Book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet Isaiah, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. The text, describing the invasion of the Assyrian king Sennacherib to the Kingdom of Judah under Hezekiah.
2 Kings 16 is the sixteenth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a compiler in the seventh century BCE with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the events during the reign of Ahaz, the king of Judah.
2 Kings 18 is the eighteenth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the events during the reign of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, a part of the section comprising 2 Kings 18:1 to 20:21, with a parallel version in Isaiah 36–39.
2 Kings 19 is the nineteenth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BC, with a supplement added in the sixth century BC. This chapter records the invasion of Assyrian to Judah during the reign of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, a part of the section comprising 2 Kings 18:1 to 20:21, with a parallel version in Isaiah 36–39.
2 Kings 20 is the twentieth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the events during the reign of Hezekiah and Manasseh, the kings of Judah.
2 Chronicles 32 is the thirty-second chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament in the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. The book is compiled from older sources by an unknown person or group, designated by modern scholars as "the Chronicler", and had the final shape established in late fifth or fourth century BCE. This chapter belongs to the section focusing on the kingdom of Judah until its destruction by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II and the beginning of restoration under Cyrus the Great of Persia. The focus of this chapter is the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah.
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