Kingdom of Judah

The Kingdom of Judah (Hebrew: יְהוּדָה‎ Yəhūdā; Akkadian: 𒅀𒌑𒁲 Ya'údi; Imperial Aramaic: 𐤁‬𐤉‬𐤕‬𐤃𐤅‬𐤃 Bēyt Dāwīḏ, 'House of David') was a Hebrew-speaking kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands of Judea, the landlocked kingdom's capital was Jerusalem.

Quotes

• His eye survay’d the dark Idolatries
  Of alienated Judah.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I

• The wild gazelle on Judah’s hills
    Exulting yet may bound,
  And drink from all the living rills
    That gush on holy ground;
  Its airy step and glorious eye
  May glance in tameless transport by:—
  A step as fleet, an eye more bright,
    Hath Judah witnessed there;
  And o’er her scenes of lost delight
    Inhabitants more fair.
  The cedars wave on Lebanon,
  But Judah’s statelier maids are gone!
  More blest each palm that shades those plains
    Than Israel’s scattered race;
  For, taking root, it there remains
    In solitary grace:
  It cannot quit its place of birth,
  It will not live in other earth.
  But we must wander witheringly
    In other lands to die;
  And where our fathers’ ashes be,
    Our own may never lie:
  Our temple hath not left a stone,
  And Mockery sits on Salem’s throne.
  • Lord Byron, "The Wild Gazelle", Hebrew Melodies (1815)

• Not coldly mute the harp of Judah hung!
• Did none perchance of Judah’s faithful line
  Read the high teaching of each heav’n-sent sign?
• Could wrath divine
  Be dealt on Judah by no hand but thine?
  • John Burgon, Petra (1845, 1846)