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Athaliah and the Theopolitics of Royal Assassination

Quine, Cat

Authors

Cat Quine



Abstract

While the kingdom of Israel experienced eight military coups in its shorter history, the kingdom of Judah saw only four assassinations of its monarchs, three of which were Athaliah, her usurper, and his successor. 1 This sequence of untimely royal deaths in Judah stands in contrast to the stability of Israel's royal line under the Jehuite dynasty, whose kings are also said to have entreated Yahweh, sought advice from prophets, and defeated Judah at Beth-Shemesh. From a later perspective it seems that whereas Yahweh previously protected the Judahite kings, in the ninth-eighth centuries BCE the Jehuite kings enjoyed Yahweh's favour more than the Davidides. This paper thus considers the theopolitical impact of untimely royal deaths in ninth-eighth century Judah and argues that the instability of the Judahite royal line after her marriage contributed to the negative biblical portrayal of Athaliah and the Omride-Judahite alliance.

Citation

Quine, C. (2020). Athaliah and the Theopolitics of Royal Assassination. Semitica, 62, 111-127

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 13, 2020
Online Publication Date Dec 31, 2020
Publication Date Dec 31, 2020
Deposit Date Jan 21, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Semitica
Print ISSN 0373-630X
Electronic ISSN 2466-6815
Publisher Peeters
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 62
Pages 111-127
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3775185
Related Public URLs https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=CMS.php§ion=open_access