The story of a covenant people, from Avraham to the State of Israel. Pick an era, meet the
kings and the prophets, follow the Hasmoneans, and see where the Jewish people lived in exile.
Every source is here in Hebrew and English.
Fourteen eras, from Avraham to today. Tap an era to see its dates, its main events, its
people, and one big idea.
Two ways to count. This page uses BCE ("before the common era") and CE
("common era"). The dates are the ones most historians use. For the early periods we also
give the traditional Jewish count from Seder Olam (a book of biblical chronology
from the time of the Mishnah). The two counts agree from the Second Temple onward, except
for the Persian period, which Seder Olam counts as much shorter.
The First Temple
Two kingdoms, side by side
After Shlomo died (about 930 BCE), the kingdom split. Ten tribes in the north became the
kingdom of Israel. Judah and Binyamin in the south stayed loyal to the house of David.
Look at the two columns. In the north, power changed hands by murder again
and again: nine different families ruled in about two hundred years. In the
south, every king but one came from David's family, for almost three
hundred and fifty years. The prophets stand between them, speaking to both. Above them all,
the empires of Assyria and then Babylon close in.
Tap a king to read about him.
Dates are approximate and follow the common modern chronology. Scholars differ by a few years, and some kings ruled together with their fathers for a time.
800 to 450 BCE
The prophetic revolution
A navi (prophet) speaks for God. From about 800 BCE the prophets started saying something new.
Idol worship is a deal. In the ancient world, you brought a god an offering
and expected something back: rain, a good harvest, a win in battle. That is a
transactional relationship: a trade. It does not ask you to change. And a religion that
does not ask you to change can live side by side with cheating the poor.
Judaism is meant to change you. That is a transformational relationship.
The prophets told the people that God does not want their sacrifices if they ignore the
widow, the orphan and the poor. They spoke about the future, not only the past. And they
taught that God is the God of the whole world, not of one nation only.
It started in a time of wealth. Under Yeravam II in the north and Uzziyah in the south
(the 700s BCE), the rich got richer and the poor were sold for debts. That is when Amos and
Hoshea began to speak.
Idol worshipTransactional
I give, you give. Nothing about me has to change.
The prophetsTransformational
Justice and kindness first. Then your offering means something.
Amos
עָמוֹס
About 760 BCE · to the north
A shepherd from Tekoa in Judah, sent to preach in the rich northern kingdom of Yeravam II. He lists the sins of the nations around Israel, and then turns on Israel itself: they sell an innocent man for money and a poor man for a pair of shoes.
כִּי כֹה אָמַר ה' לְבֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל דִּרְשׁוּנִי וִחְיוּ.
"For thus says God to the house of Israel: Seek Me and live."
Also: Amos 2:6, "for selling the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes."
Hoshea
הוֹשֵׁעַ
About 750 to 725 BCE · the north
The last prophet of the northern kingdom. His own painful family life becomes a picture of Israel leaving God for other gods, and of God's love that does not give up.
His book describes a terrible plague of locusts and calls on the people to fast and pray. His point: real teshuvah (return to God) happens inside, not in a show.
Sent to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, Israel's enemy. He runs away. The book ends with God's question to him: God cares about the people of a foreign city too, and demands justice from them.
"And should I not care about Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left, and many animals?"
Yonah is also mentioned in Melachim II 14:25, in the days of Yeravam II.
Yeshayahu
יְשַׁעְיָהוּ
About 740 to 700 BCE · Judah
Prophesies in Jerusalem through four kings, up to Chizkiyahu and the Assyrian siege. He attacks empty ritual, calls for justice, and gives the great visions of comfort and of a God of all nations.
Just before this, God says of the people's festivals: "Your new moons and your holidays My soul hates" (1:14). Later: "I will make you a light to the nations" (49:6).
Michah
מִיכָה
About 735 to 700 BCE · Judah
A villager from the Judean lowlands, at the same time as Yeshayahu. He asks the big question: what does God want from me? Calves? Thousands of rams? His answer is three things.
The question comes in 6:6: "With what shall I come before God?"
Chavakuk
חֲבַקּוּק
About 605 BCE · Judah
Watches Babylon rise and asks God a hard question: how can You use a wicked empire to punish us? Babylon will not tell the righteous from the wicked. God's answer: hold on to your faith.
Prophesies in the days of Yoshiyahu. A day of judgment is coming. But the exile has a purpose: to refine the people, so that a humble, honest remnant will be left.
"Seek God, all you humble of the land who have kept His law. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of God's anger."
Warns for forty years that Jerusalem will fall. False prophets promise peace, and he is beaten and jailed. He tells the people that the Temple will not protect them if they do evil: look at Shiloh. After the destruction he writes to the exiles in Bavel: seventy years, and you will come home.
אַל־תִּבְטְחוּ לָכֶם אֶל־דִּבְרֵי הַשֶּׁקֶר לֵאמֹר הֵיכַל ה' הֵיכַל ה' הֵיכַל ה' הֵמָּה.
"Do not trust in lying words that say: The Temple of God, the Temple of God, the Temple of God are these."
Also: "Peace, peace, and there is no peace" (6:14). And the promise: "the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride" (33:11).
Yechezkel
יְחֶזְקֵאל
593 to 571 BCE · in exile
A kohen (priest) exiled to Bavel. He sees a vision of God's chariot (the merkavah) in Bavel itself: God is with the people in exile. He teaches that each person is responsible for himself, and that God wants the wicked to change, not to die.
People ask whether they still need to fast for the destroyed Temple now that it is being rebuilt. God answers with a question about why they fasted at all.
The answer that follows: judge truly, show kindness and mercy, do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger or the poor (7:9-10).
Malachi
מַלְאָכִי
About 450 BCE · the last prophet
The last of the prophets. The priests are bringing blemished animals and the people are not giving tithes. His book, and the whole era of prophecy, ends with a call to remember the Torah of Moshe.
Also: "A son honors his father" (1:6), and on tithes, "test Me in this" (3:10).
167 to 37 BCE
The Hasmoneans: why did we lose independence?
The Maccabees won a war almost no one thought they could win. About a hundred years later,
Rome ruled Judea. Walk the path and see what happened.
Two governments. During the Greek period, Jewish leadership split in two.
The political side was the High Priest (kohen gadol), who dealt with the empire and
its taxes. The spiritual side was a pair of sages called the Zugot (the pairs): the
Nasi (president) and the Av Beit Din (head of the court). The Mishnah lists them, five pairs
ending with Hillel and Shammai, and says:
The kings and High Priests did not last. The second kind of leadership did. The local rabbi,
chosen for his learning and not for his family or his connections to power, is the model
that has led Jewish communities for over two thousand years.
1
332 BCE
Alexander arrives
Alexander the Great takes the land from Persia. The Talmud (Yoma 69a) tells that Shimon HaTzaddik, the High Priest, went out to meet him, and Alexander left Jerusalem and the Temple in peace. Josephus tells a similar story about the High Priest Yaddua.
Strength
2
301 to 200 BCE
Under the Ptolemies
The Ptolemies of Egypt rule Judea. They mostly leave the Jews alone. The High Priest collects the taxes. Next to him, the Zugot lead in Torah. Two governments grow side by side.
Strength
3
200 BCE
Antiochus III takes over
The Seleucid king Antiochus III wins Judea at the battle of Panium. He wants the Jews on his side: he lowers taxes and supports the Temple. Meanwhile Rome is rising in the west and defeats him.
Strength
4
175 BCE
The High Priesthood for sale
Antiochus IV becomes king. Jason, the High Priest's brother, pays him to get the job, and builds a gymnasium (a Greek sports and education center) in Jerusalem. Priests leave the Temple service to watch the games.
A step toward losing
5
172 BCE
Menelaus outbids him
Menelaus offers Antiochus even more money and becomes High Priest. He is not from the family of High Priests at all. Fighting between Jewish groups breaks out in Jerusalem.
A step toward losing
6
167 BCE
The decrees
Antiochus outlaws brit milah, Shabbat and Torah study, and has pigs sacrificed to Zeus in the Temple. Most Greek rulers allowed many religions. Antiochus wanted the Jews to stop being different.
A step toward losing
7
167 BCE
Matityahu in Modiin
An old kohen named Matityahu refuses to sacrifice to the Greek gods in his town, Modiin. He and his five sons flee to the hills and start a revolt.
Strength
8
166 to 164 BCE
Yehuda HaMaccabi
His son Yehuda, called the Maccabee, leads a small guerrilla army and beats much larger Seleucid forces at Beit Choron, Emmaus and Beit Tzur. In Kislev 164 BCE he purifies the Temple and lights the menorah again. This is Chanukah.
Strength
9
162 BCE
Elazar and the elephant
At the battle of Beit Zechariah, Yehuda's brother Elazar runs under a war elephant he thinks is carrying the king, kills it, and is crushed when it falls.
Strength
10
161 to 160 BCE
Nikanor, Rome, and Yehuda's death
Yehuda defeats the general Nikanor on 13 Adar (161 BCE), which became a holiday. He also signs a treaty with Rome, the first contact between the Jews and Rome. In 160 BCE he is killed in battle.
A step toward losing
11
152 BCE
Yonatan becomes High Priest
His brother Yonatan is a skilled diplomat. He gets the High Priesthood from a Seleucid ruler. But the Hasmoneans are not from the old line of High Priests, and many people see this as illegitimate.
A step toward losing
12
142 BCE
Shimon: real independence
The last brother, Shimon, wins full independence. Judea stops paying taxes to the Seleucids. The people appoint him leader and High Priest. In 134 BCE his own son-in-law, Ptolemy, murders him at a feast near Yericho.
Strength
13
134 to 104 BCE
Yochanan Hyrcanus conquers
Shimon's son enlarges the state. He destroys the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim and forces the Edomites (Idumeans) to convert. He breaks with the Pharisees (the rabbis, who taught the Oral Torah) and joins the Sadducees (the priestly upper class, who accepted only the written Torah).
A step toward losing
14
104 BCE
The first king
His son Aristobulus I calls himself king. Now one man is king and High Priest at once. No one is left to check his power.
A step toward losing
15
103 to 76 BCE
Alexander Yannai: civil war
Yannai conquers a large territory. On Sukkot, when he pours the water offering on the ground instead of on the altar, as the Sadducees did, the crowd pelts him with etrogim. Civil war follows. Josephus says 50,000 Jews were killed, and Yannai executed 800 of his opponents.
A step toward losing
16
76 to 67 BCE
Queen Shlomtzion: a pause
His widow, Shlomtzion (Salome Alexandra), makes peace with the Pharisees. Her brother, Shimon ben Shetach, leads the Sages, and the Talmud credits him with setting up schools for children. The Sages remember her years as a time of blessing.
Strength
17
67 to 63 BCE
Two brothers, one throne
Her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, fight over the crown and the High Priesthood. Each one asks the Roman general Pompey to back him.
A step toward losing
18
63 BCE
Pompey walks in
Pompey takes Jerusalem and walks into the Holy of Holies. He finds it empty: the God of Israel has no statue. Judea becomes a client state of Rome. Independence is over.
A step toward losing
19
37 BCE
Herod
After a short Parthian-backed reign by the last Hasmonean, Antigonus (40 to 37 BCE), Rome makes Herod king. He marries the Hasmonean princess Miriam (Mariamne), and later has her, her brother and her grandfather put to death.
A step toward losing
So why did we lose?
Not because Rome was strong. Rome was strong when the Maccabees started, too. We lost
because of what happened inside. The Hasmoneans made themselves both king and High Priest,
so no one could check their power. They forced their way of life on others. Jews fought
Jews in civil wars. And in the end, two brothers each invited Rome to settle their fight.
The Sages later said the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam,
hatred between Jews for no good reason (Yoma 9b).
A text puzzle
Shavuot, Yovel and Sinai
We call Shavuot זְמַן מַתַּן תּוֹרָתֵנוּ, "the time of the giving of our Torah." But the Torah never says that. So where does it come from?
Read the verses below. Then tap a clue to light up where it shows up. Three things in the
Torah turn out to share the same words: Shavuot (once a year),
Yovel (the Jubilee, once every fifty years) and Sinai
(once in history).
"Count for yourselves from the day after the day of rest, from the day you bring the omer (barley offering) that is waved: seven complete weeks. Until the day after the seventh week, count fifty days, and bring a new grain offering to God."
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not finish the corner of your field, and do not gather the fallen stalks. Leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am God, your God."
"Make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim freedom (dror) throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a yovel for you: each of you shall return to his land, and each of you shall return to his family."
"Seven priests shall carry seven shofrot hayovlim (rams' horns) before the Ark. On the seventh day, go around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the shofars. When the horn of the yovel sounds a long blast, all the people shall shout a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall in its place."
"Rejoice before God, your God: you, your son and daughter, your servant and maidservant, the Levi in your gates, and the stranger, the orphan and the widow among you... Remember that you were a slave in Egypt."
The same count. Shavuot comes after seven weeks, on day fifty. Yovel comes after seven times seven years, in year fifty.
2
The same words. The phrase כִּי לִי הָאָרֶץ ("the land is Mine") appears in only two places in the Torah: at Sinai, and in the laws of Yovel. And the very first time the Torah uses the word yovel is at Sinai.
3
No fences. In Yovel, land goes back to its original families and slaves go free. The fences come down. At Sinai, when the yovel sounded, the people were allowed to go up the mountain. Sinai was meant to be a mountain we could climb. But we were afraid of the fire and did not go up (Devarim 5:5).
4
Yericho. When the people entered the land, seven priests carried seven shofrot hayovlim, and the walls fell. The first city falls like a Yovel: no walls. And all of Yericho was given to God, because the land is His.
5
Every year. Sinai happened once. Yovel comes once in fifty years. Shavuot comes every year. On Shavuot we leave the corners of the field for the poor, and we rejoice together with the Levi, the stranger, the orphan and the widow. Each Shavuot is a small Sinai: a chance to take down our fences.
Galut (exile)
Where the Jewish people lived
For most of the last 2,500 years, most Jews lived outside the Land of Israel. One center
would fade and another would rise. Here are seven of the great ones.
Bavel (Babylonia)
בָּבֶל
586 BCE to about 1040 CE
The first exile and the longest-lasting center. The Jews who stayed after the return built a community that lasted fifteen hundred years. Here the Talmud Bavli was written, and from here the Geonim answered questions from the whole Jewish world. The Exilarch led the community.
Under Muslim rule, Spain had a golden age: Jewish poets, philosophers, doctors and even a Jewish vizier (chief minister) who led armies. Then came the Almohads (a strict Muslim movement), the Christian reconquest, riots in 1391, forced conversions, and the expulsion of 1492. Many of the expelled went to the Ottoman empire.
People: Chasdai ibn Shaprut, Shmuel HaNagid, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, the Rambam, the Ramban, Don Yitzchak Abarbanel
Ashkenaz (France and Germany)
אַשְׁכְּנַז
About 950 to 1350
Jews settled along the Rhine River from the time of Charlemagne. Rabbeinu Gershom taught in Mainz and Rashi in Troyes. The Crusades (1096) and the Black Death (1348) brought massacres, and expulsions from England (1290) and France pushed Jews east.
People: Rabbeinu Gershom, Rashi, the Tosafists, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, the Rosh
Tzfat
צְפַת
The 1500s
After the expulsion from Spain, many of the greatest rabbis gathered in Tzfat in the Galil, then under the Ottomans. For about fifty years this small town was the center of Jewish law and Kabbalah. Doña Gracia Mendes, a wealthy former converso, also helped rebuild nearby Tiberias.
People: Rabbi Yosef Karo, the Arizal, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz (author of Lecha Dodi)
Amsterdam
אַמְסְטֶרְדַם
The 1600s and 1700s
The Dutch Republic offered religious freedom. Conversos (Jews forced to become Christian in Spain and Portugal) came back to Judaism here. Rabbi Menashe ben Israel asked Oliver Cromwell to let Jews return to England, and they were allowed back in 1656.
People: Rabbi Menashe ben Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese community
Eastern Europe
מִזְרַח אֵירוֹפָּה
About 1500 to 1939
Poland and Lithuania welcomed Jews and became the largest Jewish community in the world. The Council of Four Lands governed Jewish life for almost two hundred years. Chassidut and the great Lithuanian yeshivot grew here. The Shoah destroyed it.
People: The Rema, the Maharal (Prague), the Baal Shem Tov, the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin
The Land of Israel
אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל
Always, and again a center today
Jews never fully left the land. Groups made aliyah (moved to Israel) again and again: the Ramban in 1267, the Tzfat rabbis, the students of the Baal Shem Tov and the Vilna Gaon. Zionism brought a mass return, and in 1948 the State of Israel was founded. Today it is again the largest Jewish community in the world.
People: The Ramban, Rabbi Yosef Karo, the Ramchal, Rav Kook, David Ben-Gurion
Questions
Good questions
Why are there two dates for the destruction of the First Temple?
Historians date it to 586 BCE (some say 587) using Babylonian records. The traditional Jewish count in Seder Olam puts it in 423 BCE. Almost all of the gap comes from the Persian period: Seder Olam counts it as about 34 years, while the Persian king lists cover about 200.
Both dates are on this page so you will recognize them when you see them.
Where does the word "Jew" come from?
From Yehudah (Judah). After the northern kingdom of Israel was exiled in 722 BCE, only Judah was left. The people became Yehudim, people of Judah. In the Book of Esther, Mordechai is already called אִישׁ יְהוּדִי, "a Jewish man," even though he was from the tribe of Binyamin.
Who were the Geonim, the Rishonim and the Acharonim?
They are the three periods of rabbis after the Talmud. The Geonim headed the yeshivot of Bavel (about 589 to 1038). The Rishonim ("the first ones") are the rabbis of the Middle Ages, about 1000 to 1500: Rashi, the Rambam, the Ramban. The Acharonim ("the later ones") are the rabbis from the Shulchan Aruch onward.
Was Cyrus's declaration the first Zionism?
Not really. Cyrus gave permission to rebuild a Temple, not to build a state. Judea stayed a small province of the Persian empire. The return was religious, not political. Still, it was a return from exile, and that had never happened to any nation before.
Why did Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai ask for Yavneh and not Jerusalem?
The Talmud itself argues about it: some said he should have asked to spare Jerusalem. One answer is that he knew he would not get Jerusalem, and that he could ask for only one thing. He chose the thing the Jewish people could not live without: its sages and its Torah learning.
Sources
Where this comes from
Every verse on this page links to its source on Sefaria. These are the main texts and histories behind it.
Tanach. Bereishit 15 and 17; Shemot 19; Vayikra 23 and 25; Devarim 5 and 16; Yehoshua 6; Shoftim 21; Melachim I and II; Yeshayahu, Yirmiyahu, Yechezkel; Hoshea, Yoel, Amos, Yonah, Michah, Chavakuk, Tzefanyah, Chaggai, Zechariah, Malachi; Ezra and Nechemiah.
Mishnah and Talmud. Pirkei Avot 1; Mishnah Chagigah 2:2; Talmud Bavli Gittin 56a-b (Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and Yavneh); Yoma 9b (why the Second Temple was destroyed); Yoma 69a (Shimon HaTzaddik and Alexander).
Jewish chronology. Seder Olam Rabbah (the traditional count); Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon (the history of the Mishnah, the Talmud and the Geonim, written about 987 CE).
Ancient histories. The First Book of Maccabees (the Hasmonean revolt); Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews and The Jewish War (the Hasmoneans, Herod and the Great Revolt); Cassius Dio, Roman History 69 (the Bar Kochba revolt).
Teaching basis. Torah Tech class notes on Jewish history (the one-hour overview, the First Temple and the prophets, the Hasmonean kingdom, and the Shavuot study sheet).
Hebrew texts are from Sefaria. English
renderings and explanations are Torah Tech originals, and any mistakes are ours. Ancient dates
are approximate.
This page is for learning. Where historians and the traditional count disagree, we show both.
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