The Davidic line refers to the descendants of

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

, who established the House of David ( ) in the Kingdom of Israel and the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

. In

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

, the lineage is based on texts from the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Jewish traditions. According to the biblical narrative, David of the

tribe of Judah According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah (, ''Shevet Yehudah'') was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah (son of Jacob), Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was one of the tribes to take its place in Canaan, occupying it ...

engaged in a protracted conflict with

Ish-bosheth Ish-bosheth (, "man of shame"), also called Eshbaal (, ; alternatively spelled Ishbaal, "man of Baal") was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the second monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel. After the death of his fa ...

of the

Tribe of Benjamin According to the Torah, the Tribe of Benjamin () was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The tribe was descended from Benjamin, the youngest son of the Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch Jacob (later given the name Israel) and his wife Rachel. In the ...

after the latter succeeded his father

Saul Saul (; , ; , ; ) was a monarch of ancient Israel and Judah and, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, the first king of the United Monarchy, a polity of uncertain historicity. His reign, traditionally placed in the late eleventh c ...

to become the second king of an amalgamated Israel and Judah. Amidst this struggle,

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

had sent his prophet

Samuel Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy's transition from Saul to David. He is venera ...

to anoint David as the true king of the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

. Following Ish-bosheth's assassination at the hands of his own army captains, David officially acceded to the throne around 1010 BCE, replacing the House of Saul with his own and becoming the Israelite third king. He was succeeded by his son

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

, whose mother was

Bathsheba Bathsheba (; , ) was an Kings of Israel and Judah, Israelite queen consort. According to the Hebrew Bible, she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, with whom she had all of her five children. Her status as the mother of Solomon ...

. Solomon's death led to the rejection of the House of David by most of the

Twelve Tribes of Israel The Twelve Tribes of Israel ( , ) are described in the Hebrew Bible as being the descendants of Jacob, a Patriarchs (Bible), Hebrew patriarch who was a son of Isaac and thereby a grandson of Abraham. Jacob, later known as Israel (name), Israel, ...

, with only Judah and Benjamin remaining loyal: the dissenters chose

Jeroboam Jeroboam I (; Hebrew language, Hebrew: ''Yārŏḇʿām''; ), frequently cited Jeroboam son of Nebat, was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Kingdom of Israel following a Jeroboam's Revol ...

as their monarch and formed the Kingdom of Israel in the north (

Samaria Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and Hebrew Bible, biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is ...

); while the loyalists kept Solomon's son

Rehoboam Rehoboam (; , , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the Kingdom of Judah after the split of the united Kingdom of Israel. He was a son of and the successor to Solomon and a grandson of David. In the account of I Ki ...

as their monarch and formed the

in the south (

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

). With the success of

Jeroboam's Revolt According to the First Book of Kings and the Second Book of Chronicles of the Hebrew Bible, Jeroboam's Revolt was an armed insurrection against Rehoboam, king of the United Monarchy of Israel, and subsequently the Kingdom of Judah, led by Je ...

having severed Israel's connection to the House of David, only the Judahite monarchs, except Athaliah, were part of the Davidic line. In the aftermath of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem around 587 BCE,

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries Common Era, BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it ...

was destroyed and the Kingdom of Judah fell to the

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...

. Nearly 450 years later, the

Hasmonean dynasty The Hasmonean dynasty (; ''Ḥašmōnāʾīm''; ) was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period (part of classical antiquity), from BC to 37 BC. Between and BC the dynasty rule ...

established the first independent Jewish kingdom since the Babylonian conquest, though it was not considered to be connected to the Davidic line nor to the Tribe of Judah. In

Jewish eschatology Jewish eschatology is the area of Jewish philosophy, Jewish theology concerned with events that will happen in the Eschatology, end of days and related concepts. This includes the ingathering of the exiled Jewish diaspora, diaspora, the coming ...

, the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

() will be a Jewish king whose paternal bloodline traces to David. He is expected to rule over the

Jewish people Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

during the

Messianic Age In Abrahamic religions, the Messianic Age () is the future eternal period of time on Earth in which the messiah will reign and bring universal peace and brotherhood, without any evil (through mankind's own terms). Many believe that there will be s ...

and in the

world to come The world to come, age to come, heaven on Earth, and the Kingdom of God are eschatology, eschatological phrases reflecting the belief that the World (theology), current world or Dispensation (period), current age is flawed or cursed and will be r ...

Historicity

Very little is conclusively known about the House of David. The Tel Dan Stele mentions the death of the reigning king from "BYTDWD", (interpreted as "House of David") and thus far is the only extrabiblical explicit mention of

himself. The stele is dated to circa 840 BCE; however, the name of the Davidic king is not totally preserved, as much of the stele has not survived since the 9th century BCE. All that remains of the name is the final syllable, the extremely common theophoric suffix ''-yahū''. Because the stele coincides the death of the Davidic king with the death of ehoam, the king of the Kingdom of Samaria, scholars have reconstructed the second slain king as Ahaziah of Judah, the only king contemporary to Jehoram with a name ending in ''-yahū''. The earliest unambiguously attested king from the Davidic line is Uzziah, who reigned in the 8th century BCE, about 75 years after Ahaziah, who is named on bullae seals belonging to his servants Abijah and Shubnayahu. Uzziah may also be mentioned in the annals of Tiglath-Pileser III; however, the texts are largely fragmentary. Additionally, a

tombstone A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The us ...

dated to the

Second Temple Period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

claiming to mark the grave (or, reburial) site of Uzziah, was discovered in a convent on the Mount of Olives in 1931, but there is no way of determining if the remains were genuinely Uzziah's as the stone had to have been carved more than 700 years after Uzziah died and was originally interred, and the tablet's provenance remains a mystery. A controversial artefact called the Jehoash Tablet recalls deeds performed by

Jehoash of Judah Jehoash (; ; ), also known as Joash (in King James Version), Joas (in Douay–Rheims) or Joás (), was the eighth king of Judah, and the sole surviving son of Ahaziah after the massacre of the royal family ordered by his grandmother, Athalia ...

, who reigned about 44 years before Uzziah; however, scholars are tensely divided on whether or not the inscription is genuine. After Uzziah, each successive king of Judah is attested to in some form, with the exception of Amon of Judah: Jotham, Uzziah's successor, is named on the seals of his own son and successor,

Ahaz Ahaz (; ''Akhaz''; ) an abbreviation of Jehoahaz II (of Judah), "Yahweh has held" (; ''Ya'úḫazi'' 'ia-ú-ḫa-zi'' Hayim Tadmor and Shigeo Yamada, ''The Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 BC) and Shalmaneser V (726-722 BC), ...

, who ruled from 732 to 716 BCE.

Hezekiah Hezekiah (; ), or Ezekias (born , sole ruler ), was the son of Ahaz and the thirteenth king of Kingdom of Judah, Judah according to the Hebrew Bible.Stephen L Harris, Harris, Stephen L., ''Understanding the Bible''. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. "G ...

, Ahaz's son, is attested to by numerous royal seals and Sennacherib's Annals;

Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh ( ...

is recorded giving tribute to Esarhaddon;

Josiah Josiah () or Yoshiyahu was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE). According to the Hebrew Bible, he instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Until the 1990s, the biblical description of Josiah’s ...

has no relics explicitly naming him; however, seals belonging to his son Eliashib and officials Nathan-melech and Asaiah have been discovered; and the kings Jehoahaz II, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah are never explicitly named in historical records but are instead alluded to; however, Jeconiah is mentioned by name in Babylonian documents detailing the rations he and his sons were given while held prisoner during the

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...

. The origins of the dynasty, on the other hand, are shrouded in mystery. The Tel Dan Stele, as aforementioned, remains the only mention of David himself outside the Bible, and the historical reliability of the United Monarchy of Israel is archaeologically weak. The

Stepped Stone Structure The Stepped Stone Structure is the name given to the remains at a particular archaeological site (sometimes termed Area G) on the eastern side of the City of David (historic), City of David, the oldest part of Jerusalem. The curved, , narrow sto ...

and Large Stone Structure in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, assuming

Eilat Mazar Eilat Mazar (; 10 September 195625 May 2021) was an Israeli archaeologist. She specialized in Jerusalem and Phoenician archaeology. She was also a key person in Biblical archaeology noted for her discovery of the Large Stone Structure, which ...

's contested stratigraphic dating of the structures to the Iron Age I is accurate, show that Jerusalem was at least somewhat populated in King David's time, and lends some credence to the biblical claim that Jerusalem was originally a Canaanite fortress; however, Jerusalem seems to have been barely developed until long after David's death, bringing into question the possibility that it could have been the imperial capital described in the Bible. In David's time, the capital probably served as little more than a formidable citadel, and the Davidic "kingdom" was most likely closer to a loosely-confederated regional polity, albeit a relatively substantial one. On the other hand, excavations at

Khirbet Qeiyafa Khirbet Qeiyafa (), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa (), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Valley of Elah and dated to the first half of the 10th century BCE. The ruins of the fortress were uncove ...

and Eglon, as well as structures from Hazor,

Gezer Gezer, or Tel Gezer (), in – Tell Jezar or Tell el-Jezari is an archaeological site in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains at the border of the Shfela region roughly midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is now an List of national parks ...

, Megiddo and other sites conventionally dated to the 10th century BCE, are interpreted by many scholars to show that Judah was capable of accommodating large-scale urban societies centuries before minimalist scholars claim, and some have taken the physical archaeology of tenth-century

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

as consistent with the former existence of a unified state on its territory, as archaeological findings demonstrate substantial development and growth at several sites, plausibly related to the tenth century. Even so, as for David and his immediate descendants themselves, the position of some scholars, as described by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, authors of '' The Bible Unearthed'', espouses that David and Solomon may well be based on "certain historical kernels", and probably did exist in their own right, but their historical counterparts simply could not have ruled over a wealthy lavish empire as described in the Bible, and were more likely chieftains of a comparatively modest Israelite society in Judah and not regents over a kingdom proper.

History

Kingdom of Israel and Judah

Genealogy of the kings of Israel and Judah

According to the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

holy oil poured on one's head. In David's case, this was done by the

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...

. Initially, David was king over the

Tribe of Judah According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah (, ''Shevet Yehudah'') was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah (son of Jacob), Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was one of the tribes to take its place in Canaan, occupying it ...

only and ruled from

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

, but after seven and a half years, the other

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

tribes, who found themselves leaderless after the death of

, chose him to be their king as well. All subsequent kings in both the ancient first united Kingdom of Israel and the later

claimed direct descent from King David to validate their claim to the throne in order to rule over the Israelite tribes.

Division after Solomon's death

After the death of David's son,

King Solomon King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by f ...

, the ten northern tribes of the Kingdom of Israel rejected the Davidic line, refusing to accept Solomon's son,

, and instead chose as king

and formed the northern Kingdom of Israel. This kingdom was conquered by the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

in the 8th century BCE which exiled much of the Northern Kingdom population and ended its sovereign status. The bulk population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel was forced to relocate to Mesopotamia and mostly disappeared from history as The Ten Lost Tribes or intermixed with exiled Judean populations two centuries later, while the remaining Israelite peoples in Samaria highlands have become known as

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

during the classic era and to modern times.

The Exilarchate

Later rabbinical authorities granted the office of exilarch to family members that traced its patrilinealMax A Margolis and Alexander Marx, ''A History of the Jewish People'' (1927), p. 235. descent from

, King of Israel. The highest official of Babylonian Jewry was the

exilarch The exilarch was the leader of the Jewish community in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) during the era of the Parthians, Sasanians and Abbasid Caliphate up until the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258, with intermittent gaps due to ongoing polit ...

( Reish Galuta, "Head of the Diaspora"). Those who held the position traced their ancestry to the House of David in the male line. The position holder was regarded as a king-in-waiting, residing in Babylonia in the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

as well as during the classic era. The Seder Olam Zutta attributes the office to

Zerubbabel Zerubbabel ( from ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province of Yehud Medinata and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. He is not documented in extra-biblical documents, and is considered ...

, a member of the Davidic line, who is mentioned as one of the leaders of the Jewish community in the 6th century BC, holding the title of Achaemenid Governor of Yehud Medinata.

Hasmonean and Herodian periods

The Hasmoneans, also known as the

Maccabees The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees (, or , ; or ; , ), were a group of Jews, Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. Its leaders, the Hasmoneans, founded the Hasmonean dynasty ...

, established their own monarchy in

following their revolt against the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

Seleucid dynasty. The Hasmoneans were not considered connected to the Davidic line nor to the

. The

Levites Levites ( ; ) or Levi are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah. The surname ''Halevi'', which consists of the Hebrew definite article "" ''Ha-' ...

had always been excluded from the Israelite monarchy, so when the Maccabees assumed the throne in order to rededicate the defiled

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

, a cardinal rule was broken. According to scholars within

Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Oral, as literally revelation, revealed by God in Ju ...

, this is considered to have contributed to their downfall and the eventual downfall of Judea; internal strife allowing for Roman occupation and the violent installation of

Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...

as client king over the Roman province of Judea; and the subsequent destruction of the

by the future Emperor Titus. During the Hasmonean period, the Davidic line was largely excluded from the royal house in Judea, but some members had risen to prominence as religious and communal leaders. One of the most notable of those was

Hillel the Elder Hillel ( ''Hīllēl''; variously called Hillel the Elder or Hillel the Babylonian; died c. 10 CE) was a Jewish religious leader, Sage (philosophy), sage and scholar associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud and the founder of ...

, who moved to Judea from his birthplace in Babylon. His great-grandson

Simeon ben Gamliel Simeon ben Gamliel (I) ( or רשב"ג הראשון; c. 10 BCE – 70 CE) was a '' Tanna'' (sage) and leader of the Jewish people. He served as nasi of the Great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem during the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War, succ ...

became one of the Jewish leaders during the

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–74 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, the First Jewish Revolt, the War of Destruction, or the Jewish War, was the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire. Fought in the prov ...

Middle Ages

The Exilarchate in the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

was briefly abolished as a result of a revolt by the

Mar-Zutra II Mar-Zutra II () was a Jewish Exilarch who led a revolt against the Sasanian rulers in 495 CE and achieved seven years of political independence in Mahoza. Mar-Zutra II became Exilarch of the Jewish community in Babylon at the age of fifteen in ...

in the late 5th century CE, with his son Mar-Zutra III being denied the office and relocating to

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

, then within the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. Mar Ahunai lived in the period succeeding Mar Zutra II, but for almost fifty years after the failed revolt he did not dare to appear in public, and it is not known whether even then () he really acted as Exilarch. The names of Kafnai and his son Haninai, who were Exilarchs in the second half of the 6th century, have been preserved. The Exilarchate in Mesopotamia was officially restored after the Arab conquest in the 7th century and continued to function during the early

Caliphate A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...

s. Exilarchs continued to be appointed until the 11th century, with some members of the Davidic line dispersing across the Islamic world. There are conflicting accounts of the fate of the Exilarch family in the 11th century; according to one version Hezekiah ben David, who was the last Exilarch and also the last Gaon, was imprisoned and tortured to death. Two of his sons fled to Al-Andalus, where they found refuge with Joseph, the son and successor of Samuel ibn Naghrillah. However, ''

The Jewish Quarterly Review ''The Jewish Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering Jewish studies. It is published by the University of Pennsylvania Press on behalf of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of ...

'' mentions that Hezekiah was liberated from prison, and became head of the academy, and is mentioned as such by a contemporary in 1046. An unsuccessful attempt of David ben Daniel of the Davidic line to establish an Exilarchate in the

Fatimid Caliphate The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, i ...

failed and ended with his downfall in 1094. In the 11th–15th century, families that descended from the Exilarchs that lived in the South of France (

Narbonne Narbonne ( , , ; ; ; Late Latin:) is a commune in Southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was ...

and

Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...

) and in northern Iberian peninsula (

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...

and Castile) received the title " Nasi" in the communities and were called "free men". They had a special economic and social status in the Jewish community, and they were close to their respective governments, some serving as advisers and tax collectors/finance ministers. These families had special rights in Narbonne, Barcelona, and Castile. They possessed real estate and received the title " Don" and ''de la Kblriih'' (''De la Cavalleria''). Among the families of the "Sons of the Free" are the families of

Abravanel The Abravanel family ( ''ʾAbravanʾēl'' or ''ʾAbarbənʾēl''), also spelled as ''Abarbanel'', ''Abrabanel'', ''Avravanel'', ''Barbernell'', or ''Barbanel'' literally meaning ''Ab'' ("father") ''rabban'' ("priest") ''el'' ("of God") is one of ...

and Benveniste. In his book, '' A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France'', Arthur J. Zuckerman proposes a theory that from 768 to 900 CE a Jewish Princedom ruled by members of the Exilarchs existed in feudal France. However, this theory has been widely contested. Descendants of the house of exilarchs were living in various places long after the office became extinct. The grandson of Hezekiah ben David through his eldest son David ben Chyzkia, Hiyya al-Daudi, died in 1154 in Castile according to Abraham ibn Daud and is the ancestor of the ibn Yahya family. Several families, as late as the 14th century, traced their descent back to Josiah, the brother of David ben Zakkai who had been banished to Chorasan (see the genealogies in azarus 1890pp. 180 et seq.). The descendants of the Karaite Exilarchs have been referred to above. A number of Jewish families in the

Iberian peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

and within

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

continued to preserve the tradition of descent from Exilarchs in the

Late Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...

, including the families of

, ibn Yahya and Ben-David. The patriarch of the Coronel Family, Abraham Senior, is referred to in a letter of 1487 from the Jews of Castile to the Jews of Rome and Lombardy as 'the Exilarch who is over us'. Several Ashkenazi scholars also claimed descent from King David. On his father's side,

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi (). Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...

has been claimed to be a 33rd-generation descendant of Johanan HaSandlar, who was a fourth-generation descendant of Gamaliel, who was reputedly descended from the Davidic line. Similarly

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

claimed 37 generations between him and Simeon ben Judah ha-Nasi, who was also a fourth-generation descendant of Gamaliel. Meir Perels traced the ancestry of

Judah Loew ben Bezalel Judah Loew ben Bezalel (; 1512 – 17 September 1609), also known as Rabbi Loew ( Löw, Loewe, Löwe or Levai), the Maharal of Prague (), or simply the Maharal (the Hebrew language, Hebrew Hebrew abbreviations, acronym of "''Moreinu ha-Rav Loew'' ...

to the Hai Gaon through Judah Loew's alleged great-great-grandfather Judah Leib the Elder and therefore also from the Davidic dynasty; however, this claim is widely disputed, by many scholars such as Otto Muneles. Hai Gaon was the son of Sherira Gaon, who claimed descent from Rabbah b. Abuha, who belonged to the family of the exilarch, thereby claiming descent from the Davidic line. Sherira's son-in-law was Elijah ben Menahem HaZaken. The patriarch of the Meisels family, Yitskhak Eizik Meisels, was an alleged 10th generation descendant of the Exilarch, Mar Ukba. The Berduga family of Meknes claim paternal descent from the Exilarch, Bostanai. The Jewish banking family Louis Cahen d'Anvers claimed descent from the Davidic Line Rabbi Yosef Dayan, who is a modern-day claimant to the Davidic throne in Israel and the founder of the Monarchist party Malchut Israel, descends from the Dayan family of

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

, who paternally descend from Hasan ben Zakkai, the younger brother of the Exilarch David I (d. 940). One of Hasan's descendants Solomon ben Azariah ha-Nasi settled in Aleppo were the family became Dayan's (judges) of the city and thus adopted the surname Dayan. The Ruzhin (Hasidic dynasty) line is traced to King David by way of Rabbi Yohanan, the sandal-maker and master in the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

Martin Buber Martin Buber (; , ; ; 8 February 1878 – 13 June 1965) was an Austrian-Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I and Thou, I–Thou relationship and the I� ...

. ''Tales of the Hasidim'', Schocken 1947; this edition 1991, p. 98-99. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, could trace his lineage back to Rabbi Shnuer Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad Hasidic movement, and ultimately to King David.

In Judaism

Eschatology

, the term ', or "

", came to refer to a future Jewish

king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

from the Davidic line, who is expected to be anointed with holy anointing oil and rule the Jewish people during the

. The Messiah is often referred to as "King Messiah", or, in Hebrew, ('), and, in Aramaic, ''malka meshiḥa''. Orthodox views have generally held that the Messiah will be a patrilineal descendant of

King David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...

, and will gather the Jews back into the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

, usher in an era of peace, build the

Third Temple The "Third Temple" (, , ) refers to a hypothetical rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It would succeed the First Temple and the Second Temple, the former having been destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in and the latter having bee ...

, father a male heir, re-institute the

Sanhedrin The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Middle Aramaic , a loanword from , 'assembly,' 'sitting together,' hence ' assembly' or 'council') was a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly of either 23 or 70 elders, existing at both a local and central level i ...

, and so on. Jewish tradition alludes to two redeemers, both of whom are called ' and are involved in ushering in the

Messianic age In Abrahamic religions, the Messianic Age () is the future eternal period of time on Earth in which the messiah will reign and bring universal peace and brotherhood, without any evil (through mankind's own terms). Many believe that there will be s ...

: '; and '' Mashiach ben Yosef''. In general, the term ''Messiah'' unqualified refers to ''Mashiach ben David'' (Messiah, son of David).

Modern legacy

In 2012, ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...

'' reported that philanthropist Susan Roth created Davidic Dynasty as subsidiary of her Eshet Chayil Foundation, dedicated to finding, databasing, and connecting Davidic descendants and running the King David Legacy Center in Jerusalem. In 2020, Roth chose Brando Crawford, a descendant from both grandfathers, to represent the organization internationally. The King David Legacy Center has seen support from Haredi Jews in Jerusalem.

In other Abrahamic religions

Christianity

In the

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

interpretation the " Davidic covenant" of a Davidic line in 2 Samuel 7 is understood in various ways, traditionally referring to the genealogies of Jesus in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

. One Christian interpretation of the Davidic line counts the line as continuing to

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

son of

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

, according to the genealogies which are written in Matthew 1:1-16 descendants of Solomon and

Luke 3 Luke 3 is the third Chapters and verses of the Bible, chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christianity, Christian Bible, traditionally attributed to Luke the Evangelist, a companion of Paul the Apostle on his missionary journ ...

:23-38 descendants of Nathan son of David through the line of Mary. Because Jews have historically believed that the Messiah will be a male-line descendant of David, the lineage of Jesus is sometimes cited as a reason why Jews do not believe that he was the Messiah. As the proposed son of God, he could not have been a male descendant of David because according to the genealogy of his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, he did not have the proper lineage, because he would not have been a male descendant of Mary, and Joseph, who was a descendant of Jeconiah, because Jeconiah's descendants are explicitly barred from ever ruling Israel by God. Another Christian interpretation emphasizes the minor, non-royal, line of David through

's brother Nathan as it is recorded in the

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, Nativity of Jesus, birth, Ministry of Jesus, ministry, Crucifixion of Jesus, death, Resurrection of Jesus, resurrection, and Ascension of ...

chapter 3 (entirely undocumented in the Hebrew Bible), which is often understood to be the family tree of Mary's father. A widely spread traditional Christian interpretation relates the non-continuation of the main Davidic line from Solomon to the godlessness of the line of Jehoiachin which started in the early 500s BC, when

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

cursed the main branch of the Solomonic line, by saying that no descendant of " eoniah" would ever reign on the throne of Israel again ( Jeremiah 22:30). Some Christian commentators also believe that this same "curse" is the reason why

, the rightful Solomonic king during the time of

Nehemiah Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...

, was not given a kingship under the

Persian empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the larg ...

. The Tree of Jesse (a reference to David's father) is a traditional Christian artistic representation of Jesus' genealogical connection to David.

Islam

The

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

mentions the House of David once: "Work, O family of David, in gratitude. And few of My servants are grateful." and mentions David himself sixteen times. According to some Islamic sources, some of the Jewish settlers in Arabia were of the Davidic line, Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi recorded: "A Jewish man from the Davidic line entered

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

and found the people in deep sorrow. He enquired the people, 'What is wrong?' Some of the people replied:

Prophet Muhammad In Islam, Muhammad () is venerated as the Seal of the Prophets who transmitted the Quran, eternal word of God () from the Angels in Islam, angel Gabriel () to humans and jinn. Muslims believe that the Quran, the central religious text of Isl ...

passed away".Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi, Bihār al-Anwār, Dar Al-Rida Publication, Beirut, (1983), volume 30 page 99

References

;Sources * * ''The Holy Bible: 1611 Edition'' (Thos. Nelson, 1993)

Notes

External links

"King David Dynasty"
* Jewish Encyclopedia.com
"Exilarchs"
* A genealogy of the Exilarchs

Davidic Dynasty

House of David Judaica
* Rabbinic Sources and ''Seder Olam Zuta''

{{Dynasties of Ancient Israel Ancient royal families Descent from antiquity Kings of ancient Judah Jewish royalty Line Jewish dynasties Jewish messianism Christian messianism