KING OF ISRAEL · TWO KINGDOMS

Jeroboam II. Forty-one years in Samaria; Israel's borders restored.

REIGNEDi

41 years c. 793–753 BC (dates vary)

CAPITAL

Samaria

HOUSE

House of Jehu 13th of 19 in Israel

VERDICT

✕ Did evil “he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD”

PROPHETS

Jonah son of Amittai · Amos · Hosea

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

ACCESSION

How Jeroboam II came to power

  • “Jehoash slept with his fathers ... and Jeroboam his son reigned in his stead.” 2 Kings 14:16

SUCCESSION

The two kingdoms

THE VERDICT

How Scripture judges the reign

“he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD”

2 Kings 14:24 (KJV) →

“he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin”

2 Kings 14:24 (KJV) →

BUT ALSO

  • Yet “the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash”. 2 Kings 14:27
  • From the textAmos's recorded word is against “the house of Jeroboam”; the priest Amaziah reported it as “Jeroboam shall die by the sword”. Kings says Jeroboam “slept with his fathers” and that his son was killed. Amos 7:9 Amos 7:11 2 Kings 14:29 2 Kings 15:10

ISRAEL (THE NORTH): 19 RULERS

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

THE KINGDOM

Samaria 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

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

THE NATION

What the nation did

  • Beth-el remained “the king’s chapel”; Amos foretold that “the high places of Isaac shall be desolate”. Amos 7:9 Amos 7:13

PROPHETS

Prophets of the reign

  • Jo Jonah son of Amittai “according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher”
  • Am Amos “I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword”
  • Ho Hosea Dates his word to the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah “and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel”.

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

ARAM (SYRIA) OF DAMASCUS

JUDAH

Amaziah · Uzziah (Azariah)

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

THIELE, AS REVISED BY MCFALL AND YOUNG

c. 793–753 BC[1]

Shared rule with Jehoash, 793–782 BC

Co-regent with his father from 793 BC; sole king 782/781; died 753

ALBRIGHT (1945)

c. 786–746 BC[24]

Printed form: c. 786–746 (p. 21); 41 years.

TRADITIONAL (USSHER, 1658)

836–784 BC[2]

Shared rule with Jehoash, 836–825 BC

Taken into partnership by his father in the year of the world 3168; sole king from 3179 (825 BC); dies 3220 (Annals, pp. 52–55)

Counted from a partnership with his father

James Ussher (1658), pp. 52–53

Ussher counts Jeroboam's years “from the time that he began to reign in consortship with his father”, which he puts in the year of the world 3168 (836 BC).[2]

A co-regency from 793 BC

R. C. Young's tables (Thiele as revised)

Young starts Jeroboam's forty-one years at a co-regency in 793 BC, eleven years before Jehoash died.[1]

Uzziah's own co-regency

Edward Mack, ISBE (1915), vol. 1, pp. 639–640

Mack instead overlaps Judah's kings: Uzziah was made king after Amaziah's defeat by Jehoash, so that 15 of Amaziah's 29 years ran alongside Uzziah's.[21]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 6

2 Kings 13 2 Kings 14 1 Chronicles 5 Amos 1 Amos 7 Hosea 1

PASSAGES · 7

2 Kings 13:13 2 Kings 14:16 2 Kings 14:23–29 1 Chronicles 5:17 Amos 1:1 Amos 7:9–17 Hosea 1:1

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Kings gives no age, mother's name or burial place for Jeroboam II.
  • Chronicles mentions him only once, in the genealogies (1 Chronicles 5:17).
  • Kings does not say when or how he took Damascus and Hamath.

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • From the textJeroboam son of Joash; Kings calls him simply “Jeroboam”. “II” is a modern label to tell him from Jeroboam son of Nebat.

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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