Athaliah
Encyclopedia
Athaliah was the queen of Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....

 during the reign of King Jehoram
Jehoram of Judah
Jehoram of Judah was the king of the southern Kingdom of Judah, and the son of Jehoshaphat .According to , Jehoram became king of Judah in the fifth year of Jehoram of Israel, when his father Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, indicating a co-regency. The author of Kings also speaks of both Jehoram...

, and later became sole ruler of Judah for six years. William F. Albright
William F. Albright
William Foxwell Albright was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, philologist and expert on ceramics. From the early twentieth century until his death, he was the dean of biblical archaeologists and the universally acknowledged founder of the Biblical archaeology movement...

 has dated her reign to 842–837 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele
Edwin R. Thiele
Edwin R. Thiele was an American missionary in China, an editor, archaeologist, writer, and Old Testament professor. He is best known for his chronological studies of the Hebrew kingdom period.- Biography :...

's dates, as taken from the third edition of his magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC. However, a starting date of 842/841 for Athaliah is one year before the date of 841/840 that Thiele gave for death of her son Ahaziah
Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz ....

, a conflict that Thiele never resolved. The present article accepts the one-year adjustment to Thiele's dates for Ahaziah given by later scholars that is explained in the Rehoboam
Rehoboam
Rehoboam was initially king of the United Monarchy of Israel but after the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled in 932/931 BC to form the independent Kingdom of Israel he was king of the Kingdom of Judah, or southern kingdom. He was a son of Solomon and a grandson of David...

 and Ahaziah
Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz ....

 articles, thereby reconciling Thiele's dates for Athaliah with those of her predecessor. These dates are also compatible with cross-synchronisms between Ahaziah and Athaliah and the northern kingdom. Athaliah is usually considered the daughter of King Ahab
Ahab
Ahab or Ach'av or Achab in Douay-Rheims was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri according to the Hebrew Bible. His wife was Jezebel....

 and Queen Jezebel
Jezebel (Bible)
Jezebel was a princess, identified in the Hebrew Book of Kings as the daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre and the wife of Ahab, king of north Israel. According to genealogies given in Josephus and other classical sources, she was the great-aunt of Dido, Queen of Carthage.The Hebrew text portrays...

 of Israel (see discussion below); her marriage to Jehoram sealed a treaty
Treaty
A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms...

 between Israel and Judah.

Jehoram, a descendant of King David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...

, actively promoted the worship of YHWH in his country, but he tolerated Athaliah's worship of Baal
Baal
Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...

. After Jehoram's death, their son Ahaziah
Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz ....

 became Judah's king with Athaliah acting as queen mother
Queen mother
Queen Mother is a title or position reserved for a widowed queen consort whose son or daughter from that marriage is the reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since at least 1577...

. She used her power in that role to establish the worship of Baal in Judah after Ahaziah was killed in a state visit to Israel along with the then-king of Israel, also named Jehoram
Jehoram of Israel
Jehoram was a king of the northern Kingdom of Israel. He was the son of Ahab and Jezebel.According to , in the fifth year of Joram of Israel, Jehoram became king of Judah, when his father Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, indicating a co-regency...

, who was Athaliah's brother (or possibly nephew). Jehu
Jehu
Jehu was a king of Israel. He was the son of Jehoshaphat, and grandson of Nimshi.William F. Albright has dated his reign to 842-815 BC, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 841-814 BC...

 assassinated them both in Yahweh's name and had Athaliah's entire extended family in Israel put to death.

Athaliah, as queen of Judah, tried to have all possible successors to Ahaziah executed; one, however,a grandson of hers named Joash was rescued from the purge by Jehosheba
Jehosheba
Jehosheba , or Josaba, was the sister of King Ahaziah of Judah and the wife of Jehoiada, the High Priest of Judah. According to 2 Kings 11:2, she saved and hid her infant nephew Jehoash from the massacre ordered by his grandmother Athaliah...

, Ahaziah's sister, and was raised in secret by the priest Jehoiada
Jehoiada
Jehoiada in the Hebrew Bible, was a prominent priest during the reigns of Ahaziah, Athaliah, and Joash. By his arranged marriage with the princess Jehosheba , he became the brother-in-law of King Ahaziah...

. Six years later, Athaliah was surprised when Jehoiada revealed Joash and proclaimed him king of Judah. She rushed to stop this rebellion, but was captured and executed.

Athaliah: daughter of Ahab, or his sister?

The text above regards Athaliah as the daughter of Ahab and his wife Jezebel. This is consistent with most Bible commentaries. However there are several Scriptures that, when combined with chronological considerations, have led some scholars to hold that she was Ahab's sister, not his daughter. The relevant Scriptural texts that can be cited to support the brother-sister relationship are the following.

  • Second Kings 8:26, and its parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 22:2, say that Jehoram of Judah
    Jehoram of Judah
    Jehoram of Judah was the king of the southern Kingdom of Judah, and the son of Jehoshaphat .According to , Jehoram became king of Judah in the fifth year of Jehoram of Israel, when his father Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, indicating a co-regency. The author of Kings also speaks of both Jehoram...

     married a "daughter" of Omri
    Omri
    Omri was a king of Israel, successful military campaigner and first in the line of Omride kings that included Ahab, Ahaziah and Joram.He was "commander of the army" of king Elah when Zimri murdered Elah and made himself king. Instead, the troops at Gibbethon chose Omri as king, and he led them to...

    , Ahab's father. The Hebrew word "daughter" (bath) can mean daughter, granddaughter, or any female descendant, in the same way that ben can mean son, grandson, or any male descendant. Consequently, some modern versions translate that Athaliah was a "granddaughter" of Omri. But the books of Kings and Chronicles give far more attention to Ahab than to Omri, and so it is notable that in these verses it is not Athaliah's relationship to Ahab that is stressed, but her relationship to Omri. This would be reasonable if Omri were her father. The immediately following verses also discuss Ahab, again raising the question of why her relationship to Omri is mentioned, instead of to Ahab.
  • Second Kings 8:29 says that Jehoram, Athaliah's husband, was related by marriage (hatan) to the house of Ahab. The word hatan commonly is used to specify a father-in-law or son-in-law relationship. If Jehoram was Ahab's son-in-law, the expression that would be expected here would be "son-in-law" (or relative by marriage) to Ahab, not to "the house of Ahab." If Athaliah was Ahab's sister, not his daughter, then there is an explanation for the additional phrase "house of."


The support for Athaliah being Ahab's daughter comes from two verses, 2 Kings 8:18 and its parallel in 2 Chronicles 21:6. These verses say that Jehoram of Judah did wickedly "because he married a daughter of Ahab." This would seem to settle the question in favor of the daughter relationship, with one precaution: the Syriac version of the 2 Chronicles 21:6 says "sister of Ahab" instead of daughter. This textual support for Athaliah being the sister of Ahab is usually regarded as weak enough to justify translating bath in 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 as "granddaughter," thus bringing the various passages about Athaliah into harmony: she is presented as Omri's granddaughter and Ahab's daughter.

The chronological considerations brought forth by scholars who advocate the sister-theory have to do with determining the earliest age at which Athaliah could have been born, and then showing that this is too late for Athaliah to be Ahab's daughter, but not too late if she was his sister. This brings up the question of who her mother was. It is often assumed that her mother was the famous Jezebel
Jezebel
Jezebel may refer to:* Jezebel, wife of King Ahab*Jezebel, in the Book of Revelation 2:20 a prophetess in the church of Thyatira* Jezebel , starring Bette Davis and Henry Fonda* Jezebel , a blog aimed at women...

, the only wife mentioned for Ahab in Scripture, but an argument from silence about other wives cannot be conclusive. Athaliah might have been the daughter of another of Ahab's wives. But, assuming for now that Jezebel was her mother, some upper limits can be placed on when Ahab and Jezebel were married, and hence the upper limit on when Athaliah could have been born. Here the argument is made that the Ahab/Jezebel marriage was obviously an affair of state that would only have occurred after Omri, Ahab's father, was firmly in control of his kingdom, and Ithobaal
Ithobaal I
Ithobaal I was a king of Tyre who founded a new dynasty. During his reign, Tyre expanded its power on the mainland, making all of Phoenicia its territory as far north as Beirut, including Sidon, and even a part of the island of Cyprus...

, Jezebel's father, was firmly in control of Tyre and Sidon. Omri and Ithobaal were both usurpers; neither was the member of a royal family before they took the throne, and so it is not reasonable that, before they became kings, an Israelite general would seek out a priest of Astarte in the kingdom of Tyre and Sidon to get a wife for his young son Ahab.

Omri, father of Ahab, became sole ruler of the northern kingdom after killing Tibni
Tibni
Tibni was a claimant to the throne of the Israel, and the son of Ginath, a man of some position. Albright has dated his reign to 876 – 871 BC, while Thiele offers the dates 885 – 880 BC....

 in 881 BC. According to F. M. Cross's
Frank Moore Cross
Frank Moore Cross, Jr. is Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opus Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and his work in Northwest Semitic epigraphy...

 chronology of Tyrian kings, as calculated from the records of Menander of Ephesus
Menander of Ephesus
Menander of Ephesus was the historian whose lost work on the history of Tyre was used by Josephus, who quotes Menander's list of kings of Tyre in his apologia for the Jews, Against Apion...

, Ithobaal
Ithobaal I
Ithobaal I was a king of Tyre who founded a new dynasty. During his reign, Tyre expanded its power on the mainland, making all of Phoenicia its territory as far north as Beirut, including Sidon, and even a part of the island of Cyprus...

 killed Phelles
Phelles
Phelles was a king of Tyre and the last of four brothers who held the kingship. The only information available about Phelles comes from Josephus’s citation of the Phoenician author Menander of Ephesus, in Against Apion i.18...

 and became king of Tyre in 878 BC, two years after Omri became undisputed king of Israel. It would only be in 878 BC or later, then, that these two kings would be open to discussing a marriage alliance of Omri's son Ahab with Ithobaal's daughter Jezebel. If the marriage had taken place in the first year of Ithobaal's reign, then, assuming their first-born was Athaliah and that she was born in the following year, Athaliah would have been born in 877 BC at the earliest. She would have been 36 years old in 841 BC when her son Ahaziah
Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz ....

 came to the throne. Ahaziah was 22 years old at this time, according to 2 Kings 8:26, so his mother would have been only 14 when he was born, under this scenario that placed the birth of Athaliah as early as possible. Scholars have used these chronological considerations to say that Athaliah could not have been Ahab's daughter, but she could have been his sister.

A weakness in the foregoing argument is that it assumes that Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab by his wife Jezebel. There is no statement in Scripture that names her mother, and if Ahab fathered Athaliah by an otherwise unknown wife several years before he married Jezebel, the chronological argument would not hold.

Further chronological notes

The calendars for reckoning the years of kings in Judah and Israel were offset by six months, that of Judah starting in Tishri (in the fall) and that of Israel in Nisan (in the spring). Cross-synchronizations between the two kingdoms therefore often allow narrowing of the beginning and/or ending dates of a king to within a six-month range. For Athaliah, the Scriptural data allow the narrowing of her accession to some time between Nisan 1 of 841 BC and the day before Tishri 1 of the same BC year. For calculation purposes, this should be taken as the Judean year beginning in Tishri of 842/841 BC, or more simply 842 BC. Her death occurred at some time between Nisan 1 and Tishri 1 of 835 BC, i.e. in 836/835 BC by the Judean calendar. At this time of rapprochement between the two kingdoms, Judah was using Israel's "non-accession" method of reckoning the years, so that she was deposed in her "seventh year" (2 Kings 11:4), after being monarch for six actual years (2 Kings 11:3).

Names in modern Israel

Though she is not presented favorably in the Bible, "Athaliah" or "Atalia" is attested, though infrequently, as a female first name in contemporary Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

.

This is derived partially from a search for Hebrew parallels with such (etymologically unconnected) European names as Ottilie
Ottilie
Ottilie is a girl's name stemming from the medieval German boy's name Otto. The name means "riches", "wealth" or "prosperity". It has never become very popular in modern culture and has remained very low on popularity rankings only reaching its peak in 1880 when it reached almost 600th position in...

, Odile
Odile
St Odile of Alsace is a saint venerated in the Roman Catholic Church, although according to the current liturgical calendar her feastday is not officially commemorated. She is a patroness of good eyesight.She was the daughter of Etichon , Duke of Alsace. She was born blind...

 and Ophelia
Ophelia
Ophelia is a fictional character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and potential wife of Prince Hamlet.-Plot:...

, as well as with some Yiddish names. Also, some Israeli Feminists advocate "reading the Bible backwards" and favoring the names of women characters whom the male compilers of the Bible regarded negatively.

A woman with this name is the main protagonist of the 1984 film Atalia
Atalia
Atalia is an Israeli film of 1984, adapted from a story by Yitzhak Ben Ner.-Crew:* Film Director: Akiva Tevet* Screen Writer:Tzvi Kratzner * Producers: Danny Schik, Nathan Hakeny...

.

Athaliah in literature and music

In 1691, French tragedian Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

 wrote a play about this Biblical queen, entitled Athalie. The German composer Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, among others, wrote incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....

 (his op. 74) to Racine's play, first performed in Berlin in 1845. One of the most frequently heard excerpts from the Mendelssohn music is titled "War March of the Priests" ("Kriegsmarsch der Priester").

In 1733, the musician and composer Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

 composed an oratorio based on her life, called Athalia, calling her a "Baalite Queen of Judah Daughter of Jezebel." Baal
Baal
Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...

 was the fertility god of the Canaanites, whom the ancient Israelites often fell into worshipping in the Old Testament.

See also

  • Hebrew Bible
    Hebrew Bible
    The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

     - the story of her actions is told in 2 Kings
    Books of Kings
    The Book of Kings presents a narrative history of ancient Israel and Judah from the death of David to the release of his successor Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon, a period of some 400 years...

     8:16 – 11:16 and 2 Chronicles
    Books of Chronicles
    The Books of Chronicles are part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Masoretic Text, it appears as the first or last book of the Ketuvim . Chronicles largely parallels the Davidic narratives in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings...

     22:10-23:15.
  • Josephus
    Josephus
    Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

    , Jewish Antiquities 9.7.1-5.
  • Virginia Brown's translation of Giovanni Boccaccio
    Giovanni Boccaccio
    Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...

    ’s Famous Women, pp. 102–106; Harvard University Press 2001; ISBN 0-674-01130-9
  • Athalia, by Handel
    HANDEL
    HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

    ; The New Oxford Annotated Bible, third edition (2001), page 582.
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