Davidic dynasty

The Davidic line or House of David () refers to the lineage of the Israelite king David through texts in the Hebrew Bible, and through the succeeding centuries.

According to the Bible, David, of the Tribe of Judah, was the third king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah. He was later succeeded by his son, Solomon. After Solomon's death, the ten northern tribes rejected the Davidic line, refusing to accept Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and instead chose as king Jeroboam and formed the northern Kingdom of Israel. The southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to the House of David, and this kingdom came to be known as the Kingdom of Judah. All subsequent kings of Judah, except Athaliah, are said to be direct descendants of David. The kingdom fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 587/6 BCE. The Hasmoneans, who established their own monarchy in Judea in the 2nd century BCE, were not considered connected to the Davidic line nor to the Tribe of Judah.

In Judaism and Christianity, the Davidic Line is the bloodline from which the Hebrew Messiah has a patrilineal descent. In Jewish eschatology, the Messiah is a future Jewish king from the Davidic line, who is expected to rule the Jewish people during the Messianic Age and world to come. The Christian gospels claim that Jesus descends from the Davidic line and is therefore the legitimate Hebrew Messiah. The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke give two different accounts of the genealogy of Jesus that trace back to David.

Historicity

Very little is conclusively known about the House of David. The Tel Dan Stele mentions the death of the reigning king from "BYTDWD", (interpreted as "House of David") and thus far is the only extrabiblical explicit mention of David himself. The stele is dated to circa 840 BCE; however, the name of the Davidic king is not totally preserved, as much of the stele has not survived since the 9th century BCE. All that remains of the name is the final syllable, the extremely common theophoric suffix ''-yahū''. Because the stele coincides the death of the Davidic king with the death of ehoam, the king of the Kingdom of Samaria, scholars have reconstructed the second slain king as Ahaziah of Judah, the only king contemporary to Jehoram with a name ending in ''-yahū''.

The earliest unambiguously attested king from the Davidic line is Uzziah, who reigned in the 8th century BCE, about 75 years after Ahaziah, who is named on bullae seals belonging to his servants Abijah and Shubnayahu. Uzziah may also be mentioned in the annals of Tiglath-Pileser III; however, the texts are largely fragmentary. Additionally, a tombstone dated to the Second Temple Period claiming to mark the grave (or, reburial) site of Uzziah, was discovered in a convent on the Mount of Olives in 1931, but there is no way of determining if the remains were genuinely Uzziah's as the stone had to have been carved more than 700 years after Uzziah died and was originally interred, and the tablet's provenance remains a mystery. A controversial artifact called the Jehoash Tablet recalls deeds performed by Jehoram of Judah, who reigned about 44 years before Uzziah; however, scholars are tensely divided on whether or not the inscription is genuine. After Uzziah, each successive king of Judah is attested to in some form, with the exception of Amon of Judah: Jotham, Uzziah's successor, is named on the seals of his own son and successor, Ahaz, who ruled from 732 to 716 BCE. Hezekiah, Ahaz's son, is attested to by numerous royal seals and Sennacherib's Annals; Manasseh is recorded giving tribute to Esarhaddon; Josiah has no relics explicitly naming him; however, seals belonging to his son Eliashib and officials Nathan-melech and Asaiah have been discovered; and the kings Jehoahaz II, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah are never explicitly named in historical records but are instead alluded to; however, Jeconiah is mentioned by name in Babylonian documents detailing the rations he and his sons were given while held prisoner during the Babylonian captivity.

The origins of the dynasty, on the other hand, are shrouded in mystery. The Tel Dan Stele, as aforementioned, remains the only mention of David himself outside the Bible, and the historical reliability of the United Monarchy of Israel is archaeologically weak. The Stepped Stone Structure and Large Stone Structure in Jerusalem, assuming Eilat Mazar's contested stratigraphic dating of the structures to the Iron Age I is accurate, show that Jerusalem was at least somewhat populated in King David's time, and lends some credence to the biblical claim that Jerusalem was originally a Canaanite fortress; however, Jerusalem seems to have been barely developed until long after David's death, bringing into question the possibility that it could have been the imperial capital described in the Bible. In David's time, the capital probably served as little more than a formidable citadel, and the Davidic "kingdom" was most likely closer to a loosely-confederated regional polity, albeit a relatively substantial one. On the other hand, excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa and Gath were interpreted by some to show that Judah was capable of accommodating large-scale urban societies centuries before minimalist scholars claim, and some have taken the physical archaeology of tenth-century Canaan as consistent with the former existence of a unified state on its territory, as archaeological findings demonstrate substantial development and growth at several sites, plausibly related to the tenth century. Still, in light of a general lack of material evidence explicitly indicating a United Monarchy, it cannot be positively ascertained whether some portents of the biblical narrative of the United Monarchy and the origins of David's dynasty have any historical basis. Even so, as for David and his immediate descendants themselves, the majority position, as described by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, authors of '' The Bible Unearthed'', espouses that David and Solomon may well be based on "certain historical kernels", and probably did exist in their own right, but their historical counterparts simply could not have ruled over a wealthy lavish empire as described in the Bible, and were more likely chieftains of a comparatively modest Israelite society in Judah and not regents over a kingdom proper.

Kings of Israel and Judah

According to the Tanakh

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