Kings & Prophets

1 Each year is Young’s Nisan year (Israel, from spring: 931n) or Tishri year (Judah, from autumn: 931t); the chart prints the first year number, so every date is c. Israel began its year in Nisan, in the spring, and Judah in Tishri, in the autumn (Young 2005, p. 225). Young writes 931n for the year beginning in Nisan of 931 BC, 931t for the year beginning in Tishri of 931 BC, and 931t/930n for the six months between Tishri 931 and Nisan 930. For general readers he suggests writing 931n or 931t as 931/930 BC, and the six-month overlap 931t/930n as 931/930 too (p. 226). This chart prints only the first of the two years, so a reign shown as c. 912–871 BC began in the year that starts in 912 and ended in the year that starts in 871, and each date may fall a year later in the calendar. The study notes give Young’s notation beside each king.

2 Where the Bible’s number is one more than the years that passed (Jeroboam: two and twenty years, 931 to 910), the first and last year are counted in full. This is non-accession counting (Young 2005, p. 226): the table gives the Bible’s number first and the years that passed in brackets. Israel: Jeroboam 22 (21), Nadab 2 (1), Baasha 24 (23), Elah 2 (1), Omri 12 (11), Ahab 22 (21), Ahaziah 2 (1), Joram 12 (11), Jehu 28 (27), Jehoahaz 17 (16), Jeroboam II 41 (40). Judah: Jehoshaphat 25 (24), Jehoram 8 (7), Ahaziah 1 (0), Athaliah 7 (6), Joash 40 (39), Uzziah 52 (51), Jotham 16 (15), Manasseh 55 (54), Zedekiah 11 (10). (1 Kgs 14:20)

3 Hatched bars are co-reigns (a son reigning beside his father) and rival reigns (Tibni, Pekah). The Bible shows some of them but dates none: the years are worked out from its numbers. The Bible shows a rival reign in 1 Kgs 16:21–22 (half the people followed Tibni, half Omri), a co-reign in 2 Kgs 8:16 (Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign) and a son judging for his father in 2 Kgs 15:5 (Jotham the king's son was over the house, judging the people of the land). The other overlaps are inferred, by Thiele (1974) and Young (2005), from reign lengths that do not fit the years between the sole reigns: some reign lengths are measured from the start of a co-reign (Young 2005, p. 246). The Bible’s own numbers are always shown first in the study notes. (1 Kgs 16:21–22; 2 Kgs 8:16; 15:5)

4 Jerusalem fell in summer 586 if Zedekiah’s years are counted from an accession year (Thiele, Horn); Young, who counts them without one, dates it 587. The Bible dates the breach to the 9th day of the 4th month of Zedekiah's 11th year (2 Kgs 25:2–4; Jer 39:2; Jer 52:5–7) and Nebuzaradan's coming, followed by the burning, to the 5th month of Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year (the 7th day in 2 Kgs 25:8–9, the 10th in Jer 52:12–13); no Babylonian record of the event survives. Counting Zedekiah's years from 1 Tishri (autumn) and from an accession year, his 11th year is autumn 587 – autumn 586, and Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year (Babylonian count from Nisan 586, or Judean count from Tishri 587) contains both summer months only in 586: breach 18 July, Nebuzaradan's coming (the 7th of Ab) 14 August 586 (Horn 1967, using Parker and Dubberstein's tables). Horn's figures for a spring-to-spring count of Zedekiah's years are 29 July and 25 August 587. Young (2004) argues for 587 from autumn years too, but with Zedekiah's years counted without an accession year, the siege beginning in January 589 and Ezekiel's years counted from autumn 598. Jer 52:29 (832 taken in Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year) is read as the fall (587 view) or as a deportation during the siege (586 view). Young’s Table 2 ends Zedekiah on 9 Tammuz 587 BC; this chart draws his reign to 586, as System A does. (2 Kgs 25:1–9; Jer 39:1–2; 52:4–13, 29; Ezek 24:1–2; 33:21)

5 A prophet’s bar covers the reigns named for him (the opening verse of his book, or Kings): he spoke within them, not necessarily through all. Joel, Obadiah, Nahum and Habakkuk name no king. Each bar runs from the first year of the earliest king named to the last year of the latest, using the years each king ruled alone in the chart (Elijah and Elisha: the reigns in which Kings places them; Jonah: 2 Kgs 14:25; Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah: the opening verse of the book). Jeremiah and Ezekiel have their own dates (Jer 1:2–3; Ezek 1:2; 29:17). The books of Joel (1:1), Obadiah (1:1), Nahum (1:1) and Habakkuk (1:1) name no king and are not drawn. (Isa 1:1; Hos 1:1; Amos 1:1; Mic 1:1; Zeph 1:1; Jer 1:2–3)

6 Samaria fell in 723 BC on this chart (Thiele, Young; 2 Kgs 18:10). No text settles the year: the Babylonian Chronicle says Shalmaneser V ravaged Samaria (no year) and Sargon II claims the capture at the start of his reign (722/721); scholars date it from 723 to 720. Hezekiah’s 6th year is Hoshea’s 9th (2 Kgs 18:10). Thiele (1974) has "the ninth year of Hoshea and the fall of Samaria in 723", and Young (2004, 2005) puts it in the first half of 723n, before Sargon II’s accession in Tebet 722 (December 722 or January 721). The Babylonian Chronicle says that Shalmaneser V took the throne on 25 Tebet and "ravaged Samaria" (no year is given) and that he died in Tebet of his fifth year (722/721), when Sargon took the throne on 12 Tebet; Sargon’s annals place the capture of Samaria at the beginning of his reign (722 in Frame’s numbering). Park (2012) sorts the views into one conquest, by Shalmaneser V or by Sargon II, several conquests, or two, and argues for one conquest, in 722, by Sargon II under Shalmaneser V; Goldberg (1999) dates the fall to 720. (2 Kgs 17:3–6; 18:9–10)

7 Young finds that Solomon died and Rehoboam began before Tishri 931 BC, not after it as Thiele assumed, which puts the first kings of Judah one year earlier than Thiele’s dates. Young 2005, p. 227: "Solomon died and Rehoboam began before Tishri of 931 bc, not in the six-month interval beginning with Tishri of that year as assumed by Thiele"; this moved the beginning date of Solomon and his immediate successors one year earlier than in Thiele’s chronology, and resolved a problem Thiele’s dates had in the reign of Jehoshaphat. The scriptural data only allow Jeroboam’s reign to be placed some time in 931n and Rehoboam’s some time in 932t (Young, p. 227, note 3). Young’s argument is in his paper "When Did Solomon Die?" (JETS 46, 2003), which was not read for this chart.

8 2 Kgs 8:25 gives the 12th year of Joram, 2 Kgs 9:29 the 11th: the same year, counted with the part-year at the start as year 1 or not counted. Young’s Table 4 lists both verses with the same formula, 852n minus 841n = 11 years; the 12 (11) of 2 Kgs 8:25 is a non-accession number, the 11 of 2 Kgs 9:29 an accession-year number. (2 Kgs 8:25; 9:29)

9 The years of 2 Kgs 18:1, 9–10 (Hoshea’s 3rd year, when Hezekiah began to reign, and Hezekiah’s 4th and 6th years) are counted from 729, when he began to reign beside Ahaz (Young; Thiele did not accept this); his 29 years run from 716. Counted from 729, Hezekiah’s 6th year runs from Tishri 724 to Tishri 723 and overlaps the 9th year of Hoshea (Nisan 723 to Nisan 722) in the half-year from Nisan to Tishri 723, in which Samaria fell (2 Kgs 18:10; Young’s Table 4: 723n/723t). His 29 years (2 Kgs 18:2) are Young’s official 716t–687t, and counted from 716 his 14th year, when Sennacherib came up against the fenced cities of Judah (2 Kgs 18:13), is the year that begins in Tishri 702 and ends in Tishri 701. Thiele did not recognize the co-reign of Ahaz and Hezekiah (Young 2005, pp. 227, 243). (2 Kgs 18:1–2, 9–10, 13)

10 Rehoboam’s fifth year is the year from Tishri 927 BC in Young’s table (Thiele’s, one year later, has 926/5). The one Egyptian date that bears on the campaign, Shoshenq’s year 21 (about 925 BC), is for the start of work on the Karnak court whose portal carries the relief; Egypt does not date the campaign. Young's Table 2 begins Rehoboam in 932t and counts his 17 years (1 Kgs 14:21) in the accession sense, so his fifth year is the year that begins in Tishri 927 (932 minus 5). Thiele (1951), as the Epigraphic Survey cites him, put Rehoboam's fifth year at 926/5 BC, and Albright (1945) as late as about 918. The Epigraphic Survey (1954) says that work on the great court at Karnak began in Shoshenq's year 21, "roughly about 925 B.C.", that the Palestinian campaign had been made before that time, and that the date in years BC cannot be certain from the chronology of the Hebrew kings. Höflmayer and Gundacker (2021) warn against using the campaign as a fixed point in Iron Age chronology. (1 Kgs 14:21, 25)

11 An eclipse of the sun recorded in Assyria’s eponym lists, dated by astronomers to 15 June 763 BC, fixes them; counting back gives 853 for Qarqar and 841 for Jehu’s payment. Millard (1994) edits the lists: one entry records an eclipse of the sun in the month Simanu in the eponymy of Bur-Sagale, 15/16 June 763 BC (Julian), and the NASA catalogue of solar eclipses lists a total eclipse on 15 June 763 BC. Counting back year by year along the list gives 853 for Dayyan-Assur, the year to which the Kurkh Monolith dates the march to Qarqar, and 841 for Adad-remanni. Shalmaneser's own years agree: his accession year is 859 (Grayson's edition, as put online by the Royal Inscriptions of Assyria project), so his sixth year is 853 and his eighteenth, in which he received the payment of Jehu, is 841. Some older books print 854 for Qarqar, for example the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906.

12 701 is Sennacherib’s 4th regnal year (the Eponym Chronicle’s entry is lost). Whether the Bible and the Assyrian texts describe one campaign or two is disputed. The Eponym Chronicle’s entries for 702 and 701 are lost and were restored from the Eponym Lists; the date rests on the regnal count (Sennacherib took the throne on 12 Abu 705, so his 4th regnal year is 701) and on the dated prisms: the Rassam Cylinder, which already tells of Hezekiah, is dated 700. Luckenbill (1924) states the problem as whether the non-Assyrian accounts refer to one campaign in the West, in 701, or to two, the second toward the end of Sennacherib’s reign; Goldberg (1999) holds that the "massive" invasion of 701 was confused with an earlier, limited invasion in Hezekiah’s 14th year, which he dates to 712. Counted from 716, Hezekiah’s 14th year is the year from Tishri 702 (the note on Hezekiah’s years). (2 Kgs 18:13–16)