KING OF ISRAEL · TWO KINGDOMS

Jeroboam I. Twenty-two years: the first king of the ten tribes.

REIGNEDi

22 years c. 931–910 BC (dates vary)

CAPITAL

Shechem

HOUSE

House of Jeroboam 1st of 19 in Israel

VERDICT

✕ Did evil “Jeroboam returned not from his evil way”

PROPHETS

Ahijah the Shilonite · The man of God from Judah · The old prophet of Beth-el · Shemaiah the man of God

ISRAEL (THE NORTH): 19 RULERS JEROBOAM I → HOSHEA

ACCESSION

How Jeroboam I came to power

  • While he was in charge of the labour of “the house of Joseph”, Ahijah the Shilonite tore a new garment into twelve pieces and gave him ten: “I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee”. 1 Kings 11:28–31
  • Ahijah promised him “a sure house, as I built for David”, if he would walk in God's ways. 1 Kings 11:38
  • Solomon sought to kill him, and he fled to Shishak king of Egypt until Solomon died. 1 Kings 11:40
  • When Rehoboam refused to lighten the yoke, Israel answered “What portion have we in David?” and made Jeroboam “king over all Israel”; only Judah followed the house of David. 1 Kings 12:16 1 Kings 12:20
  • Kings gives the cause: “the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite”. 1 Kings 12:15

SUCCESSION

The two kingdoms

THE VERDICT

How Scripture judges the reign

“Jeroboam returned not from his evil way”

1 Kings 13:33 (KJV) →

“the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin”

1 Kings 14:16 (KJV) →

BUT ALSO

  • Ahijah's message to him: “thou hast not been as my servant David” but “hast done evil above all that were before thee”. 1 Kings 14:8–9
  • His sin becomes the measure for later kings of Israel, almost all of whom “departed not from the sins of Jeroboam”. 2 Kings 10:31
  • Kings' closing account of the north names him: “Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin”. 2 Kings 17:21
  • Chronicles adds that he and his sons cast the Levites off from the priest's office, and that he ordained priests “for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made”. 2 Chronicles 11:14–15

ISRAEL (THE NORTH): 19 RULERS

✓ Did right ✕ Did evil ◐ Mixed ● No verdict formula

THE KINGDOM

Shechem and the places of the reign

Israel (the north). Only places Scripture names are shown, each where the Atlas puts it.

EVENTS

Wars, works and turning points

Each mark sits at the year of the reign the Bible gives for it.

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

THE NATION

What the nation did

  • Two golden calves, at Beth-el and Dan; “this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan”. 1 Kings 12:28–30
  • A “house of high places”, priests not of Levi, and a feast of his own in the eighth month. 1 Kings 12:31–33
  • The priests and Levites left their lands for Judah and Jerusalem, followed by those “such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel”. 2 Chronicles 11:13–16

PROPHETS

Prophets of the reign

  • Ah Ahijah the Shilonite “I am sent to thee with heavy tidings”
  • Th The man of God from Judah “O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name”
  • Th The old prophet of Beth-el Deceived the man of God into eating at Beth-el, buried him, and confirmed his word against the altar.
  • Sh Shemaiah the man of God Stopped Rehoboam's war to win back the north: “this thing is from me”.

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

EGYPT

Shishak

TWO ACCOUNTS

Where Kings and Chronicles differ

Each ribbon joins the two accounts of one matter, passage to passage.

How Jeroboam died

1 KINGS

2 CHRONICLES

War with Abijah

1 KINGS

2 CHRONICLES

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

THIELE, AS REVISED BY MCFALL AND YOUNG

c. 931–910 BC[1]

Spring 931 BC to 910/909 BC

ALBRIGHT (1945)

c. 922–901 BC[24]

Printed form: c. 922–901 (p. 20); 22 years (last digit partly lost in the scan's gutter, read from the next reign's start).

TRADITIONAL (USSHER, 1658)

975–954 BC[2]

Begins in the year of the world 3029; Nadab succeeds in 3050 (Annals, pp. 40–42)

About 975 BC

James Ussher, Annals of the World (1658), p. 40

Ussher counted the reign lengths back from later fixed points and set Solomon's death and the division in the year of the world 3029, 975 BC.[2]

About 933 BC

Edward Mack, ISBE (1915), vol. 1, p. 640

Mack worked back from Assyrian fixed points (Jehu's tribute, Qarqar, the fall of Samaria) and allowed for overlapping reigns, placing “the Disruption in 933 BC”.[21]

931/930 BC

E. R. Thiele, as revised by L. McFall and R. C. Young (Young's tables)

Thiele's system, as revised by McFall and Young, starts Jeroboam's reign in the spring of 931 BC, with Israel counting a king's first part-year as his year one.[1]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 8

1 Kings 11 1 Kings 12 1 Kings 13 1 Kings 14 2 Chronicles 10 2 Chronicles 11 2 Chronicles 13 2 Kings 23

PASSAGES · 8

1 Kings 11:26–40 1 Kings 12:1–33 1 Kings 13:1–34 1 Kings 14:1–20 2 Chronicles 10:1–19 2 Chronicles 11:13–17 2 Chronicles 13:1–20 2 Kings 23:15–18

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Scripture does not give his age when he began to reign, or where he was buried.
  • Kings does not say how he died; Chronicles says only that “the LORD struck him”.
  • Scripture gives no year of his reign for the calves, the feast or the man of God's visit.

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • Scripture introduces him as “Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zereda, Solomon’s servant, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow woman”. 1 Kings 11:26
  • From the textThis page is about Jeroboam son of Nebat. Jeroboam II, son of Joash, who began to reign about 140 years later, has his own page.

SOURCES

Where this page comes from

  • Rodger C. Young, Chronological tables: Table 1, Chronology of the Kings of Israel; Table 3, Synchronisms, Israel to Judah (Thiele's system as revised by McFall and Young; dates cited as facts only) (undated web tables, read 2026-10-07), Tables 1 and 3.
  • James Ussher, The Annals of the World (English translation of the Annales) (1658), The fifth Age of the World, pp. 40–69 (read from the page scans).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §594 (the Monolith Inscription from Kurkh) and §611, p. 223.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §553 (the Black Obelisk) and §590, p. 211.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §672, p. 243 (annals, 18th year).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§732, 739–740, pp. 260–263 (Adad-nirari III: reign dates; the slab from Calah).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §772, p. 276 (Tiglath-pileser III, annals).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §779, pp. 279–280 (Tiglath-pileser III).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§815–816, p. 293 (Tiglath-pileser III, fragmentary annals text).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §4, p. 2 (Sargon's annals, year 1).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §55, p. 26 (Sargon's display inscription).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §1198, p. 437 (eponym list with notes, years 727–723).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 296 (Monolith, Qarqar).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 304 (Black Obelisk, with Rogers's note 2 on “mar Humri”).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 308 (Tiglath-pileser and “Pulu”).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 316 (Tiglath-pileser's annals, line 150).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), pp. 319–321 (Tiglath-pileser on Pekah and Hoshea).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), pp. 323, 326 and 331 (Sargon and the fall of Samaria).
  • S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel (Appendix: the Inscription of Mesha) (1890), pp. lxxxvii–lxxxviii (translation), lxxxix and xciv.
  • A. H. Sayce, “Moabite Stone”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 3 (1915), p. 2072 (checked against the 1915 scan).
  • Edward Mack, “Chronology of the Old Testament”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 1 (1915), pp. 639–640 (checked against the 1915 scan).
  • A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Chronicle 1 (facts only; copyrighted, read in Livius's reproduction) (1975), Chronicle 1, column i, lines 27–28.
  • A. Biran and J. Naveh, “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan” (1993) and “The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment” (1995), Israel Exploration Journal 43 and 45 (facts only; copyrighted) (1993, 1995), IEJ 43 (1993) 81–98; IEJ 45 (1995) 1–18.
  • W. F. Albright, "The Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 100 (facts only) (1945), Chronological table, pp. 20–22.

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