( The Deuteronomist author may have used the then-recent 701 BCE campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in Judah as his model ; the hanging of the captured kings is in accordance with Assyrian practice of the 8th century ).

Ahaz, against Isaiah's advice to seek the protection of God, invited the Assyrians to protect him, turning Judah into an Assyrian vassal.

Prior to this time, Judah had been a vassal of the Assyrian empire, but the rapid decline of Assyria after c. 630 led Josiah to assert his independence and institute a religious reform stressing loyalty to Yahweh, the national God.

Micah's career corresponds to the period when, after a long period of peace, Israel, Judah, and the other nations of the region came under increasing pressure from the aggressive and rapidly expanding Assyrian empire.

Between 734 and 727 Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria conducted almost annual campaigns in Palestine, reducing Israel, Judah and the Philistine cities to vassalage, receiving tribute from Ammon, Moab and Edom, and absorbing Damascus ( the kingdom of Aram ) into the Assyrian empire.

The Assyrian attacks on Israel ( the northern kingdom ) led to an influx of refugees into Judah, which would have increased social stresses, while at the same time the authorities in Jerusalem had to invest huge amounts in tribute and defense.

The first stage was the collection and arrangement of some spoken sayings of the historical Micah ( the material in chapters 1-3 ), in which the prophet attacks those who build estates through oppression and depicts the Assyrian invasion of Judah as Yahweh's punishment on the kingdom's corrupt rulers, including a prophecy that the Temple will be destroyed.

While traditionally accepted as the genuine words of Moses delivered on the eve of the occupation of Canaan, a broad consensus of modern scholars now see its origins in traditions from Israel ( the northern kingdom ) brought south to the Kingdom of Judah in the wake of the Assyrian destruction of Samaria ( 8th century BCE ) and then adapted to a program of nationalist reform in the time of King Josiah ( late 7th century ), with the final form of the modern book emerging in the milieu of the return from the Babylonian exile during the late 6th century.

Assyrian King, Sennacherib, tried and failed to conquer Judah.

Assyrian records claim he punished Judah and then left ( Herodotus also described the invasion ).

This occurred at the same time that Israel was being destroyed by Assyria, and was probably the result of a cooperative arrangement with the Assyrians to establish Judah as an Assyrian vassal controlling the valuable olive industry.

Judah at this time was a vassal of Assyria, but Assyrian power collapsed in the 630s, and in around 622 Josiah and the Deuteronomists, as the circle around him are called by modern scholars, launched a bid for independence expressed as loyalty to " Yahweh alone " and the law-code in the book of Deuteronomy, written in the form of a treaty between Judah and Yahweh to replace the vassal-treaty with Assyria.

So long as Ahaz reigned, the kingdom of Judah was unmolested by the Assyrian power ; but on his accession to the throne, Hezekiah, who was encouraged to rebel " against the king of Assyria " (), entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt ().

It was the first in a series of wars that would eventually lead to the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and the reduction of the Kingdom of Judah to an Assyrian tributary state.

Yitzakh Magen argues that the version of Chronicles is perhaps closer to the historical truth, and that the Assyrian settlement was unsuccessful, a notable population remained in Samaria, part of which, following the conquest of Judah, fled south and settled there as refugees.

* 609 BC: King Josiah of Judah dies in the Battle of Megiddo against Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt, who is on his way north to aid the rump Assyrian state of Ashur-uballit II.

* 609 BC — King Josiah of Judah dies in the Battle of Megiddo against Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt, who is on his way north to aid the Assyrian state of Ashur-uballit II.

* 701 BC November 10 — Deliverance from Assyrian attack ; King Hezekiah of Judah, backed by Nubian Empire, revolts against king Sennacherib of Assyria.

Osorkon II, is known to have entered the Kingdom of Judah, with a huge army, in 853BC ; however, rather than attacking Judah, the army was just passing through, on its way to attack the Assyrian forces.

This the Assyrian king obliged, but Judah became a tributory of the Assyrian king.

During Ahab's reign, Moab, which had been conquered by his father, remained tributary ; while Judah, with whose king, Jehoshaphat, he was allied by marriage, was probably his vassal.

Josiah was killed in 609 and Judah became a vassal of the new regional power, the Babylonian empire.

Judah became a vassal state of Egypt.

* 733 BC: According to the Bible, Jerusalem becomes a vassal of the Neo-Assyrian Empire after Ahaz of Judah appeals to Tiglath Pileser III of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to protect the city from Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Aram.

The inscription seems to parallel an episode in: Jehoram of Israel makes an alliance with Jehoshaphat king of Judah and an unnamed king of Edom ( south of Judah ) to put down his rebellious vassal Mesha ; the three kings have the best of the campaign until Mesha, in desperation, sacrifices his eldest son ; the sacrifice turns the tide, " there came great wrath against Israel ", and Mesha is apparently left victorious.

* Judah at this time was a vassal of Assyria, but Assyria now began a rapid and unexpected decline in power, leading to a resurgence of nationalism in Jerusalem.

Judah existed as a vassal to Assyria during this time and was forced to pay an annual tribute to the powerful empire.

The narrative goes on to state that when Judah ( on behalf of the other brothers ) begged Joseph not to enslave Benjamin and instead enslave him, since enslavement of Benjamin would break Jacob's heart.

* The Mishnah, composed by Rabbi Judah the Prince, in 200 CE, as a basic outline of the state of the Oral Law in his time.

The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BCE, destroying the First Temple that was at the center of ancient Jewish worship.

The text reports that Israel and Judah were in a state of war throughout his 17 year reign.

From the perspective of the theocratic government, " God himself is recognized as the head " of the state, hence the term theocracy, from the Greek " rule of God ", a term used by Josephus for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

" Judas " ( like the Hebrew " Judah ") refers to Judean identity, either membership in the state of Judea of the Graeco-Roman period or the Jewish people more generally.

In a 2011 investigation of the state of the Roma in Europe today, Ben Judah, a Policy Fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, traveled to Romania and Transylvania.

The accounts go on to state that while Judah was trying to remove Jashub's armour from his corpse, nine assistants of Jashub fell upon him in combat, but after Judah killed one, he scared away the others ; nevertheless, Judah killed several members of Jashub's army ( 42 men according to the midrashic Book of Jasher, but 1000 men according to the Testament of Judah ).

Both the Genesis Rabbah and Talmud state that Tamar was an Israelite, and that Judah ended up marrying her and had further sexual liaisons with her as a result.

She used her power in that role to establish the worship of Baal in Judah after Ahaziah was killed in a state visit to Israel along with the then-king of Israel, also named Jehoram, who was Athaliah's brother ( or possibly nephew ).

Israel Finkelstein suggests that the empire of David and Solomon ( United Monarchy ) never existed and Judah was not in a position to support an extended state until the start of the 8th century.

It goes on to state that the Assyrian king returned to Assyria where he latter received a large tribute from Judah.

With the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Judah became the sole Jewish state and the term y ' hudi ( יהודי ) was applied to all Israelites.

While traveling to Antioch on state business, Judah learns that his real father's chief servant, the slave Simonides, lives in a house in this city, and has the trust of Judah's father's possessions.