The kings of Israel and Judah

King Athaliah

The kingdom of Judah (the south) · Usurped the throne six years (2 Kings 11:3) · Evil before God · 2 Kings 11; 2 Chronicles 22:10 to 23:21

Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, was the only woman to rule over Judah, and she did so by murder. When her son Ahaziah was killed, she destroyed all the royal seed of the house of David and seized the throne for herself. She reigned six years while, unknown to her, one infant heir, Joash, was hidden in the temple. In the seventh year the priest Jehoiada revealed the boy king and had Athaliah put to death, restoring the line of David.

And when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.2 Kings 11:1 (KJV)

A queen who murdered her way to the throne

Athaliah carried in herself the whole spirit of her parents, Ahab and Jezebel. When she saw that her son Ahaziah was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah, killing her own grandchildren to remove every rival and take the crown. It was the most direct assault the line of David ever suffered, and for six years an idolatrous daughter of Ahab sat on the throne of David in Jerusalem.

Her reign brought the worship of Baal into Judah, and her rule rested on the blood of the very family God had promised to preserve. Humanly speaking, the covenant with David hung by a thread that had, it seemed, been cut.

The hidden child and the promise preserved

But one thread survived. Jehosheba, the sister of Ahaziah and wife of the priest Jehoiada, stole the infant Joash from among the king's sons who were being slain, and hid him and his nurse in the house of the LORD for six years while Athaliah reigned. In the very temple, under the nose of the Baal-worshipping queen, the last heir of David was kept alive.

This quiet act of courage is one of the hinges of biblical history. The whole promise to David, and the coming of the Messiah from his line, depended on a hidden baby and a faithful aunt and priest who risked their lives to save him.

The overthrow of the usurper

In the seventh year Jehoiada acted. He gathered the captains and the Levites, armed them in the temple, and brought out the seven-year-old Joash, put the crown on him, and anointed him, and all the people clapped their hands and shouted, God save the king. Athaliah heard the noise, came into the temple, tore her clothes, and cried, Treason, Treason. Jehoiada ordered her taken out and put to death, and she was slain at the horse gate of the palace. Then the people broke down the house of Baal and its altars and killed its priest.

So the reign of the usurper ended, the covenant with Baal was broken, and a covenant was made that the king and the people should be the LORD's.

The biblical verdict and where it points

Athaliah stands in Scripture as a figure of pure, destructive evil, a woman who would murder her own family to grasp power, and who imported the idolatry of Ahab into the city of David. She is judged not by a formula about doing evil in the sight of the LORD but by her deeds, which speak for themselves.

Her story is, in the end, a story about God's faithfulness against impossible odds. The enemy of the promised line did all she could to destroy it, and God kept it alive in a single hidden child. It is a foreshadowing of another wicked ruler, Herod, who would try to kill the child born King of the Jews, and fail. The seed of David could not be destroyed, because through it God had determined to send the Saviour of the world.

A note on the record: everything here is drawn from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Kings and Chronicles sometimes tell a reign differently, Chronicles often adding a king's repentance or building works, and where they differ this is said plainly rather than smoothed over. The exact lengths and overlaps of the reigns are genuinely complex, because kings often shared the throne with a son for a time, so the totals in Scripture do not always add up in a simple line. The verdict good or evil is the Bible's own assessment, whether a king did right or evil in the sight of the LORD.

Related: Ahaziah of Judah · Joash of Judah · All the kings of Israel and Judah