The Old Testament records an official office of queen mother (gebirah, “great lady”) that belonged almost exclusively to the southern kingdom of Judah. After Solomon’s death the united monarchy split. The north (Israel) immediately abandoned the Davidic house and the Jerusalem temple; the south retained both.
The split and the two kingdoms
Jeroboam I, first king of the north, set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan so his people would not go to Jerusalem (1 Kings 12). Every subsequent northern king is said to have “walked in the way of Jeroboam.” The books of Kings evaluate all nineteen northern kings as having done evil. The kingdom lasted two centuries and fell to Assyria in 722 BC.
Judah kept the Davidic dynasty and the temple. Its record is mixed: several kings (Asa, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah) carried out reforms and are called “good”; many others were idolatrous. Judah lasted more than a century longer and fell to Babylon in 586 BC. The presence of a few reforming kings and the Davidic covenant is why later writers could speak of Judah as having “righteousness” relative to the north, even though Judah itself was far from consistently faithful.
The queen-mother office
In Judah the mother of the reigning Davidic king held a recognized court position. Scripture almost always names her when a new king accedes (the formula is missing only for Jehoram and Ahaz). She had a throne at the king’s right hand (1 Kings 2:19, Bathsheba), could intercede, and was treated as the most important woman in the realm. The title gebirah is used of Maacah, Jezebel (the one northern exception), and Nehushta.
- Named Judahite queen mothers include:
- Naamah (mother of Rehoboam)
- Maacah (mother of Abijah, grandmother of Asa; later deposed by Asa for making an Asherah image)
- Athaliah (daughter of Ahab and Jezebel; she later seized the throne herself)
- Abi/Abijah (mother of Hezekiah)
- Jedidah (mother of Josiah)
- Hamutal (mother of Jehoahaz and Zedekiah)
- Nehushta (mother of Jehoiachin)
The north never developed a comparable, consistently recorded office. Its multiple short-lived dynasties and the absence of a single royal house made the institution unnecessary.
The north is portrayed as uniformly apostate from the start; the south, though frequently unfaithful, retained the Davidic line, the temple, and the court office of the king’s mother. Later Christian writers often read that office as a type of Mary, mother of the final Davidic king. Whether one accepts that typological reading or not, the historical and literary facts are those given above.
Leave a Reply