KING OF ISRAEL · TWO KINGDOMS

Joram. Twelve years; the last king of Omri's house.

REIGNEDi

12 years c. 852–841 BC (dates vary)

CAPITAL

Samaria

HOUSE

House of Omri 9th of 19 in Israel

VERDICT

✕ Did evil “he wrought evil in the sight of the LORD; but not like his father, and like his mother”

PROPHETS

Elisha · Elijah the Tishbite

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

ACCESSION

How Joram came to power

  • “Jehoram reigned in his stead ... because he had no son.” 2 Kings 1:17

SUCCESSION

The two kingdoms

THE VERDICT

How Scripture judges the reign

“he wrought evil in the sight of the LORD; but not like his father, and like his mother”

2 Kings 3:2 (KJV) →

“he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat”

2 Kings 3:3 (KJV) →

BUT ALSO

  • “He put away the image of Baal that his father had made.” 2 Kings 3:2

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

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

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

THE NATION

What the nation did

  • He removed the image of Baal his father made, but “cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam”. 2 Kings 3:2–3

PROPHETS

Prophets of the reign

  • El Elisha “What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother”
  • El Elijah the Tishbite Jehu cast Joram's body on Naboth's plot as the fulfilment of the LORD's word against Ahab.

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

MOAB

Mesha

ARAM (SYRIA) OF DAMASCUS

Ben-hadad · Hazael

EDOM

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · ABOUT 840 BC; FRAGMENTS FOUND IN 1993 AND 1994

Tel Dan stele, Israel Museum

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · ABOUT 840 BC

Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone)

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

THIELE, AS REVISED BY MCFALL AND YOUNG

c. 852–841 BC[1]

852 to 841 BC

ALBRIGHT (1945)

c. 849–842 BC[24]

Printed form: c. 849–842 (p. 21); 8 years against the Hebrew text's 12.

TRADITIONAL (USSHER, 1658)

896–884 BC[2]

Years of the world 3108–3120 (Annals, pp. 47–49)

Both: Jehoram of Judah was already co-regent

James Ussher (1658), p. 47; Edward Mack, ISBE (1915), p. 640; R. C. Young's tables

All three reckonings make Jehoram of Judah king alongside his father Jehoshaphat, so the same year was Jehoshaphat's eighteenth and Jehoram's second; Ussher calls it making him “Vice-Roy”, Mack “coregency”, and Young dates it from 854 BC.[2][21][1]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 8

2 Kings 1 2 Kings 3 2 Kings 5 2 Kings 6 2 Kings 7 2 Kings 8 2 Kings 9 2 Chronicles 22

PASSAGES · 9

2 Kings 1:17–18 2 Kings 3:1–27 2 Kings 5:5–8 2 Kings 6:8–7:20 2 Kings 8:1–6 2 Kings 8:16 2 Kings 8:25–29 2 Kings 9:14–26 2 Chronicles 22:5–7

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Kings gives no “rest of the acts” note and no burial for Joram; his body was left on Naboth's plot.
  • Scripture does not say which king of Israel is meant in the stories of 2 Kings 5–8.
  • Kings gives no age for him and no mother's name in his record; Jehu speaks of “thy mother Jezebel” (2 Kings 9:22).

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • Kings calls him both “Jehoram” and “Joram”; at the same time Jehoram (Joram) son of Jehoshaphat reigned in Judah. 2 Kings 1:17 2 Kings 8:16
  • From the text2 Kings 5–8 speaks only of “the king of Israel” (Naaman's letter, the Syrian raids, the siege of Samaria, the Shunammite's land). These chapters stand between Joram's accession (3:1) and his death (9:24); Scripture does not name the king in them.

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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