Jotham

Jotham is the name of two separate men in Scripture: the youngest son of Jerubbaal (Gideon) who survives a massacre and delivers a famous fable in Judges 9, and a king of Judah in the eighth century BC, son of Uzziah, whose reign is named in the headings of several prophetic books. The two are always distinguished by their fathers: Jotham son of Jerubbaal, and Jotham son of Uzziah. The name itself is commonly understood in Hebrew to mean "Yahweh is perfect" or "the LORD is upright."

The first Jotham appears only in Judges 9. When Abimelech went to his father's house at Ophrah and killed his brothers, "being seventy persons, on one stone," Jotham "was left, for he hid himself" (Judges 9:5). Told what had happened, he "stood on the top of Mount Gerizim" and called out to the men of Shechem (Judges 9:7), telling the parable of the trees who seek a king and are finally ruled by a bramble that offers shade but threatens fire (Judges 9:15). He then pronounces the corresponding curse: if the arrangement is not in truth, "let fire come out from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and the house of Millo, and let fire come out from the men of Shechem and from the house of Millo and devour Abimelech" (Judges 9:20). The narrative closes by treating that curse as effective: "God repaid all the wickedness of the men of Shechem on their heads; and the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal came on them" (Judges 9:57). Interpreters commonly note, as commentary rather than as statement of the text, that this is the earliest extended fable or parable in the Hebrew Bible, and they differ over whether its point is a general warning against monarchy or a targeted indictment of Abimelech's particular crime.

The second Jotham is a king of Judah. During the final years of his father Uzziah, who was "a leper to the day of his death" and "cut off from Yahweh's house," Jotham "was over the king's house, judging the people of the land" (2 Chronicles 26:21), and on Uzziah's death "Jotham his son reigned in his place" (2 Chronicles 26:23). His reign provides the setting for prophecy: the visions of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1), the word of Yahweh to Hosea (Hosea 1:1), and the word to Micah (Micah 1:1) are all dated in part to "the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." He also functions as a chronological anchor outside Judah, since Hoshea's conspiracy against Pekah is dated "in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah" (2 Kings 15:30). Because Jotham is described as already administering the kingdom while his father was still alive (2 Chronicles 26:21), and because Ahaz his son is called "the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah" (Isaiah 7:1), many historians and interpreters suggest that some of the regnal dates reflect a period of co-regency rather than years of sole rule — an inference from the evidence, not something the text states in so many words.

Christian traditions read both figures differently without disagreeing about the facts. Jotham's fable has been treated by some as a prophecy of judgment fulfilled in Abimelech's downfall, by others as a wisdom-style warning about the dangers of kingship as such, and by others as a moral lesson about the worthlessness of self-serving leadership; the text itself only says that his curse came upon them (Judges 9:57), leaving the wider lesson unstated. The king Jotham is remembered in some traditions chiefly as a relatively faithful ruler and a patron of the prophets whose ministries overlapped his reign (Isaiah 1:1; Hosea 1:1; Micah 1:1), and in others chiefly as a chronological puzzle whose dates require reconstruction; the questions of co-regency and of how the various regnal figures fit together remain matters of scholarly discussion rather than settled confession.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.