KING OF ISRAEL · TWO KINGDOMS

Zechariah. Six months; the last king of Jehu's house.

REIGNEDi

6 months c. 753–752 BC (dates vary)

CAPITAL

Samaria

HOUSE

House of Jehu 14th of 19 in Israel

VERDICT

✕ Did evil “he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done”

PROPHETS

Amos

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

ACCESSION

How Zechariah came to power

  • “Zachariah his son reigned in his stead.” 2 Kings 14:29

SUCCESSION

The two kingdoms

THE VERDICT

How Scripture judges the reign

“he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done”

2 Kings 15:9 (KJV) →

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

2 Kings 15:9 (KJV) →

BUT ALSO

  • His death completed the promise to Jehu: “Thy sons shall sit on the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation. And so it came to pass.” 2 Kings 15:12

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

  • He did evil “as his fathers had done”. 2 Kings 15:9

PROPHETS

Prophets of the reign

  • Am Amos “I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword”

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

THIELE, AS REVISED BY MCFALL AND YOUNG

c. 753–752 BC[1]

From Elul (about September) 753 to Adar (about March) 752 BC

ALBRIGHT (1945)

c. 746–745 BC[24]

Printed form: c. 746–745 (p. 21); 6 months.

TRADITIONAL (USSHER, 1658)

773 BC[2]

Year of the world 3232, after an eleven-year gap following Jeroboam's death (Annals, pp. 55–57)

Yes, about eleven years

James Ussher (1658), pp. 55–57

Ussher finds that comparing the two kingdoms requires “an Interregnum, or vacancie of a king, in the land of Israel” of eleven years and a half, so that Zechariah's six months fall in Uzziah's thirty-eighth year.[2]

No gap

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

Young counts Jeroboam's forty-one years from a co-regency beginning in 793 BC, so his death in 753 BC leads straight to Zechariah.[1]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 2

2 Kings 14 2 Kings 15

PASSAGES · 2

2 Kings 14:29 2 Kings 15:8–12

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Scripture gives no age, mother or burial for Zechariah.
  • Kings does not say where he was killed beyond “before the people”.

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • From the textThe KJV spells him “Zachariah”. He was the last king of Jehu's line, not the last king of Israel (Hoshea was).

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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