Shallum

AI summary: This Shallum matters because the cross references present him as a king who comes to power through murder and loses power almost immediately. His one-month reign dramatizes the volatility of the northern kingdom in its final generations and shows how little stability remains in the throne. He is remembered more as a symptom of collapse than as a ruler of consequence. Taken together, the material presents this Shallum as a short-lived usurper whose reign exposes the disintegration of Israel's monarchy.¹

The son of Jabesh, otherwise unknown. He “conspired against Zachariah, and smote him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his stead” (2 Kings 15:10). He reigned only “a month of days in Samaria” (15:13, marg.). Menahem rose up against Shallum and put him to death (2 Kings 15:14, 15, 17), and became king in his stead. ³