The kings of Israel and Judah in order

The united kingdom: Saul, David and Solomon

The first three kings ruled over all Israel, the twelve tribes together. Each reigned forty years by the Bible's count.

Saul's forty years come from Paul's sermon in Acts 13:21. The verse in 1 Samuel that should give the length of his reign is unclear. The King James Version reads "Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel" (1 Samuel 13:1). The World English Bible fills in different numbers: "Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty-two years." After Saul died, his son Ish-bosheth "reigned two years" over Israel while Judah followed David (2 Samuel 2:10). He is not counted in the usual list.

David's forty years split into two parts. "In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah" (2 Samuel 5:5).

The 19 kings of Israel in order

The northern kingdom, from Jeroboam to Hoshea. Jeroboam ruled from Shechem (1 Kings 12:25), the next kings from Tirzah (1 Kings 15:33), and from Omri's reign on the kings ruled from Samaria, the city Omri built (1 Kings 16:24).

Not one of Israel's kings is said to have done right. The usual verdict is that he "did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD" and "departed not from the sins of Jeroboam". Jehu comes closest to praise: God tells him "thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes" for wiping out Ahab's house (2 Kings 10:30). But the next verse says he still kept to the sins of Jeroboam. Shallum, who reigned a month, is the only king of Israel given no verdict at all.

Israel changed hands by murder again and again. Of its 19 kings, 7 were killed, and each time the killer took the throne: Baasha killed Nadab, Zimri killed Elah, Jehu killed Jehoram, Shallum killed Zachariah, Menahem killed Shallum, Pekah killed Pekahiah and Hoshea killed Pekah. Zimri lasted 7 days, then "burnt the king's house over him with fire, and died" (1 Kings 16:18). After him the people split between Omri and Tibni the son of Ginath, until "Tibni died, and Omri reigned" (1 Kings 16:21-22). Tibni is not counted as a king.

The kingdom ended under Hoshea. "In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria" (2 Kings 17:6). "There was none left but the tribe of Judah only" (2 Kings 17:18).

Good kings and bad kings

The phrase "right in the sight of the LORD" (or "in the eyes of the LORD") appears in 19 verses of 1 and 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Every one is about David or a king of Judah.

The 8 kings of Judah the text says did right are Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoash, Amaziah, Azariah, Jotham, Hezekiah and Josiah. Most come with a limit. Asa and Jehoshaphat left the high places standing (1 Kings 15:14, 22:43). Jehoash did right only "all his days wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him" (2 Kings 12:2). Amaziah did right "yet not like David his father" (2 Kings 14:3). Ahaz is the one king the phrase is used of in the negative: he "did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD his God" (2 Kings 16:2).

Two kings get more than the formula. Hezekiah trusted the LORD "so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him" (2 Kings 18:5). Josiah turned to the LORD "with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might", and "neither after him arose there any like him" (2 Kings 23:25). Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, reigned longest and is judged harshly in Kings. 2 Chronicles adds that when he was taken to Babylon in chains he "humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers", and "then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God" (2 Chronicles 33:12-13).

"King" in the Bible

"King" appears 2,256 times in the King James Version, in 1,756 verses across 44 books, and 2,268 times in the World English Bible. 2 Kings has the most, 303 in the KJV. Counting "kings" and "king's" too, the KJV has 2,874 and the WEB 2,878. The phrase the history uses to close most reigns, "slept with his fathers", appears 36 times in the KJV. "Queen" appears 54 times in the KJV, 27 of them in Esther.

Questions about the kings of Israel and Judah

Sources

• The King James Version (1769) and the World English Bible, both public domain: every verse quoted, every reign length, verdict and ending, and every count on this page, checked and counted by scripts/lists/kings-of-israel-and-judah.mjs from the text at github.com/seven1m/open-bibles (read and counted 2026-10-25).

The reigns are told in 1 Kings and 2 Kings, and Judah's again in 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles. Saul's and David's stories are in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. Related lists: the twelve tribes of Israel, the major and minor prophets, who spoke to many of these kings, and how many wives Solomon had. Word counts: king, David, Solomon, Jerusalem and Samaria. More counts are on the Bible by the numbers.

Counted by Bible Says About from the full public-domain text of the King James Version (1769 edition) and the World English Bible. Verse text only: headings and psalm titles are left out. A word is a run of letters: a hyphenated name like Beer-sheba counts as two, and an apostrophe stays inside its word (LORD'S is one). Matching ignores capital letters. Data compiled 2026-10-25.