What is the importance of mothers' name mentioned for kings of Judah and not Israel?

Answer 1

When the nation of (ancient) Israel split into two, this resulted in the formation of two separate kingdoms. One was the northern kingdom of the House of Israel, and the other was the southern kingdom of the House of Judah. This northern kingdom ( the House of Israel) rejected the God of the nation of Israel and anything to do with it, but the southern kingdom ( the House of Judah) did not reject God (to be specific YHWH, or Yahweh, or Jehovah etc ) and tried to obey Him. (The northern kingdom would have said they were worshipping the same God too, but they did not obey Him: if they were, they either would not have left the area that became the southern and God-fearing kingdom, or would have voted with their feet and travelled down to it from the northern kingdom.

This migration resulted in the northern kingdom, or House of Israel, containing all who had rejected the God of the nation of Israel and everything it stood for, while the southern kingdom, or House of Judah, was the opposite: they were God-fearing and retained all the previous Laws, customs, and traditions (as well as just a few new ones.)

One of these laws was that of the "Jubilee Year" which both mirrored the weekly Sabbath and was the year of redemption and cancellation of all debts, both monetary and criminal: needless to say, people looked forward to it. Just as people were to rest every seventh day, so was the land: every seventh year the land was to lie fallow for a year, and every 50th year (7 x 7 +1) the land was to revert back to it's previous owner. (The Jubilee Year is also called the Year of Redemption.)

The full regulations are given in Leviticus chapter 25 (NET Bible):-

Lev 25:1 Regulations for the Sabbatical Year

The LORD spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai:

Lev 25:2 "Speak to the Israelites and tell them, 'When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath to the LORD.

Lev 25:3 Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce,

Lev 25:4 but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest - a Sabbath to the LORD. You must not sow your field or prune your vineyard.

Lev 25:5 You must not gather in the aftergrowth of your harvest and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned vines; the land must have a year of complete rest.

Lev 25:6 You may have the Sabbath produce of the land to eat - you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you,

Lev 25:7 your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land - all its produce will be for you to eat.

Lev 25:8 Regulations for the Jubilee Year of Release

" 'You must count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years.

Lev 25:9 You must sound loud horn blasts - in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement - you must sound the horn in your entire land.

Lev 25:10 So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, and you must proclaim a release in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; each one of you must return to his property and each one of you must return to his clan.

Lev 25:11 That fiftieth year will be your jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines.

Lev 25:12 Because that year is a jubilee, it will be holy to you - you may eat its produce from the field.

Lev 25:13 Release of Landed Property

" 'In this year of jubilee you must each return to your property.

Lev 25:14 If you make a sale to your fellow citizen or buy from your fellow citizen, no one is to wrong his brother.

Lev 25:15 You may buy it from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the last jubilee; he may sell it to you according to the years of produce that are left.

Lev 25:16 The more years there are, the moreyou may make its purchase price, and the fewer yearsthere are, the less you must make its purchase price, because he is only selling to you a number of years of produce.

Lev 25:17 No one is to oppress his fellow citizen, but you must fear your God, because I am the LORD your God.

Lev 25:18 You must obey my statutes and my regulations; you must be sure to keep them so that you may live securely in the land.

Lev 25:19 " 'The land will give its fruit and you may eat until you are satisfied, and you may live securely in the land.

Lev 25:20 If you say, 'What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?'

Lev 25:21 I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield the produce for three years,

Lev 25:22 and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year's produce - old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year's produce, you may eat old produce.

Lev 25:23 The land must not be sold without reclaim because the land belongs to me, for you are foreigners and residents with me.

Lev 25:24 In all your landed property you must provide for the right of redemption of the land.

Lev 25:25 " 'If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his near redeemer is to come to you and redeem what his brother sold.

Lev 25:26 If a man has no redeemer, but he prospers and gains enough for its redemption,

Lev 25:27 he is to calculate the value of the years it was sold, refund the balance to the man to whom he had sold it, and return to his property.

Lev 25:28 If he has not prospered enough to refund a balance to him, then what he sold will belong to the one who bought it until the jubilee year, but it must revert in the jubilee and the original owner may return to his property.

Lev 25:29 Release of Houses

" 'If a man sells a residential house in a walled city, its right of redemption must extend until one full year from its sale; its right of redemption must extend to a full calendar year.

Lev 25:30 If it is not redeemed before the full calendar year is ended, the house in the walled city will belong without reclaim to the one who bought it throughout his generations; it will not revert in the jubilee.

Lev 25:31 The houses of villages, however, which have no wall surrounding them must be considered as the field of the land; they will have the right of redemption and must revert in the jubilee.

Lev 25:32 As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities which they possess, the Levites must have a perpetual right of redemption.

Lev 25:33 Whatever someone among the Levites might redeem - the sale of a house which is his property in a city - must revert in the jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property in the midst of the Israelites.

Lev 25:34 Moreover, the open field areas of their cities must not be sold, because that is their perpetual possession.

Lev 25:35 Debt and Slave Regulations

" 'If your brother becomes impoverished and is indebted to you, you must support him; he must live with you like a foreign resident.

Lev 25:36 Do not take interest or profit from him, but you must fear your God and your brother must live with you.

Lev 25:37 You must not lend him your money at interest and you must not sell him food for profit.

Lev 25:38 I am the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan - to be your God.

Lev 25:39 " 'If your brother becomes impoverished with regard to you so that he sells himself to you, you must notsubject him to slave service.

Lev 25:40 He must be with you as a hired worker, as a resident foreigner; he must serve with you until the year of jubilee,

Lev 25:41 but then he may go free, he and his children with him, and may return to his family and to the property of his ancestors.

Lev 25:42 Since they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt, they must not be sold in a slave sale.

Lev 25:43 You must not rule over him harshly, but you must fear your God.

Lev 25:44 " 'As for your male and female slaves who may belong to you - you may buy male and female slaves from the nations all around you.

Lev 25:45 Also you may buy slaves from the children of the foreigners who reside with you, and from their families that are with you, whom they have fathered in your land, they may become your property.

Lev 25:46 You may give them as inheritance to your children after you to possess as property. You may enslave them perpetually. However, as for your brothers the Israelites, no man may rule over his brother harshly.

Lev 25:47 " 'If a resident foreigner who is with you prospers and your brother becomes impoverished with regard to him so that he sells himself to a resident foreigner who is with you or to a member of a foreigner's family,

Lev 25:48 after he has sold himself he retains a right of redemption. One of his brothers may redeem him,

Lev 25:49 or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or anyone of the rest of his blood relatives - his family - may redeem him, or if he prospers he may redeem himself.

Lev 25:50 He must calculate with the one who bought him the number of years from the year he sold himself to him until the jubilee year, and the cost of his sale must correspond to the number of years, according to the rate of wages a hired worker would have earned while with him.

Lev 25:51 If there are still many years, in keeping with them he must refund most of the cost of his purchase for his redemption,

Lev 25:52 but if only a few years remain until the jubilee, he must calculate for himself in keeping with the remaining years and refund it for his redemption.

Lev 25:53 He must be with the one who bought him like a yearly hired worker. The one who bought him must not rule over him harshly in your sight.

Lev 25:54 If, however, he is not redeemed in these ways, he must go free in the jubilee year, he and his children with him,

Lev 25:55 because the Israelites are my own servants; they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

To be able to do all this required keeping meticulous records, and genealogies were extremely important . For example, take Ruth: her husband had owned land in Israel which she didn't even know had existed. Her now-dead husband's closest relative had the first option to redeem it:-

Rth 2:19 Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you gather grain today? Where did you work? May the one who took notice of you be rewarded!" So Ruth told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked. She said, "The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz."

Rth 2:20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, "May he be rewarded by the LORD because he has shown loyalty to the living on behalf of the dead!" Then Naomi said to her, "This man is a close relative of ours; he is our guardian."

Rth 3:12 Now yes, it is true that I am a guardian, but there is another guardian who is a closer relativethan I am.

Rth 4:3 Then Boaz said to the guardian, "Naomi, who has returned from the region of Moab, is selling the portion of land that belongs to our relative Elimelech.

Rth 4:4 So I am legally informing you: Acquire it before those sitting here and before the leaders of my people! If you want to exercise your right to redeem it, then do so. But if not, then tell me so I will know. For you possess the first option to redeem it; I amnext in line after you." He replied, "I willredeem it."

Rth 4:5 Then Boaz said, "When you acquire the field from Naomi, you must also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the wife of our deceased relative, in order to preserve his family name by raising up a descendant who will inherit his property."

Rth 4:6 The guardian said, "Then I am unable to redeem it, for I would ruin my own inheritance in that case. You may exercise my redemption option, for I amunable to redeem it."

The northern kingdom had rejected God and wanted nothing to remind them of Him, such as the Jewish Laws, Holy Days, Festivals, and times such as the Jubilee year. One of the Laws they did not want to be reminded of would have been the right

of female inheritance:-

Num 27:1 Special Inheritance Laws

Then the daughters of Zelophehad .....: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.

Num 27:2 And they stood before Moses and Eleazar the priest and the leaders of the whole assembly at the entrance to the tent of meeting and said,

Num 27:3 "Our father died in the wilderness, although he was not part of the company of those that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but he died for his own sin, and he had no sons.

Num 27:4 Why should the name of our father be lost from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among the relatives of our father."

Num 27:5 So Moses brought their case before the LORD.

Num 27:6 The LORD said to Moses:

Num 27:7 "The daughters of Zelophehad have a valid claim. You must indeed give them possession of an inheritance among their father's relatives, and you must transfer the inheritance of their father to them.

Num 27:8 And you must tell the Israelites, 'If a man dies and has no son, then you must transfer his inheritance to his daughter;

Num 27:9 and if he has no daughter, then you are to give his inheritance to his brothers;

Num 27:10 and if he has no brothers, then you are to give his inheritance to his father's brothers;

Num 27:11 and if his father has no brothers, then you are to give his inheritance to his relative nearest to him from his family, and he will possess it. This will be for the Israelites a legal requirement, as the LORD commanded Moses.' "

Gods' Law was that women were to be given equal inheritance rights to men, that there was both men and women had inheritance rights: to protect these rights maternal genealogies had to be kept, for example in the House of Judah. However, in other countries, now including the House of Israel, only the sons had inheritance rights: women didn't. Because property was passed down the male line, from father to son, only a paternal genealogy was required : the name of the mother was of no legal use and so was not usually recorded at all.