Kingdom of Judah

The Kingdom of Judah (Hebrew: מַמְלֶכֶת יְהוּדָה‎, Mamlekhet Yehuda) was a 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.

Judah emerged as a state probably no earlier than the 9th century BCE, but the subject is one of considerable controversy. In the 7th century BCE, The Kingdom capital Jerusalem became a city with a population many times greater than before and clear dominance over its neighbours, probably as the result of a cooperative arrangement with the Assyrians, who wished to establish Judah as a pro-Assyrian vassal state controlling the valuable olive industry. Judah prospered under Assyrian vassalage, (despite a disastrous rebellion against the Assyrian king Sennacherib), but in the last half of the 7th century BCE Assyria suddenly collapsed, and the ensuing competition between the Egyptian and Neo-Babylonian empires for control of the Levant led to the destruction of the kingdom in a series of campaigns between 597 and 582, the deportation of the elite of the community, and the incorporation of the Land of Israel as a province of the Neo-Babylonian empire.