Davidic line

The Davidic line or the House of David (Hebrew: בֵּית דָּוִד Bēt Dāwīḏ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, the line of kings, descended from David, who ruled over the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah from the 9th to the 6th centuries BCE.

According to the biblical narrative, David of the tribe of Judah engaged in a protracted conflict with Ish-bosheth of the Tribe of Benjamin after the latter succeeded his father Saul to become the second king of an amalgamated Israel and Judah. Amidst this struggle, Yahweh had sent his prophet Samuel to anoint David as the true king of the Israelites. Following Ish-bosheth's assassination at the hands of his own army captains, David is traditionally believed to have 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, whose mother was Bathsheba. Solomon's death led to the rejection of the House of David by most of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, with only Judah and Benjamin remaining loyal: the dissenters chose Jeroboam as their monarch and formed the Kingdom of Israel in the north (Samaria); while the loyalists kept Solomon's son Rehoboam as their monarch and formed the Kingdom of Judah in the south (Judea). With the success of Jeroboam's Revolt 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 was destroyed and the Kingdom of Judah fell to the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Nearly 450 years later, the Hasmonean dynasty 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, the Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ) will be a Jewish king whose paternal bloodline traces to David. He is expected to rule over the Jewish people during the Messianic Age and in the world to come. One Christian interpretation counts the Davidic line as continuing to Jesus.

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 David 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 [Jeho]ram, 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 dated to the Second Temple Period 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, 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, who ruled from 732 to 716 BCE. Hezekiah, Ahaz's son, is attested to by numerous royal seals and Sennacherib's Annals; Manasseh is recorded giving tribute to Esarhaddon; Josiah 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 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 and Large Stone Structure in Jerusalem, assuming Eilat Mazar'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 and Eglon, as well as structures from Hazor, Gezer, 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 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.

According to the Tanakh, upon being chosen and becoming king, one was customarily anointed with holy oil poured on one's head. In David's case, this was done by the prophet Samuel.