In this episode, Rabbi Reinman describes how Achav’s daughter Assaliah killed her grandchildren and took the crown of Yehudah for herself.
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Chapter Thirty-three: One Kingdom Survives
The previous chapter traced the decline and fall of Malchus Yisrael until the deportation of the people to distant places in the Assyrian Empire. This chapter traces the parallel fate of Malchus Yehudah. The paths of the two kingdoms diverged after the death of Shlomo and the division of his kingdom. The respective paths of the two kingdoms converged again when Asa, its king, gave his support to Omri’s claims to the throne of Israel and sealed it by taking Omri’s daughter as a wife for his son Yehoshaphat.
After Omri died and his son Achav ascended to the throne of Israel, Yehoshaphat and Achav, the two brothers-in-law, entered into a military alliance. The bond of blood was made even stronger when Yehoshaphat’s son Yehoram married Achav’s daughter Assaliah, his first cousin.
In 711 b.c.e., Yehoshaphat died, and Yehoram ascended to the throne of Yehudah. Four years earlier, Achav’s grandson Yehoram, through his son and successor Achaziah, had ascended to the throne of Israel. Two first cousins named Yehoram, both grandsons of Achav and Ezevel, sat on the thrones of Yisrael and Yehudah. Yehoram of Yehudah was by far a truer grandson than was Yehoram of Yisrael.
As soon as he ascended to the throne, he slaughtered all his male siblings ensuring that no one else would lay claim to his crown. Then with his bloodstained hands, he erected a temple of the Baal in Yerushalayim. For all its problems, Yehudah had not suffered widespread idolatry among the general population, but under Yehoram, the Baal cult of the northern kingdom spread to the southern kingdom as well.
Yehoram of Yehudah reigned for eight years and was succeeded by his son Achaziah, who followed in the exact footsteps of his father. After the death of Achaziah, his mother Assaliah, the daughter of Achav and Ezevel, followed the example of Yehoram, her husband. Just as he had exterminated all his siblings, she now exterminated all her grandchildren and placed the crown on her own head. Had she succeeded, the royal patrilineal bloodline of the Davidic dynasty would have come to an end, but she did not succeed.
One grandchild eluded her, a one-year-old boy named Yoash. The boy’s aunt Yehosheva, Achaziah’s sister, and her husband, Yehoiadah the Kohein Gadol, secreted him in a bedchamber in the Temple, where he remained for six years.
During those years, this evil daughter of Achav sat on the throne of the Davidic kings and ruled the Kingdom of Yehudah. In the seventh year, the seven-year-old Yoash was brought out of hiding and crowned, triggering a popular uprising. Assaliah was executed, and the temple of the Baal was destroyed …
Read full chapter and earlier chapters at www.rabbireinman.com.