The Kingdom of Judah, a Semitic-speaking kingdom in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age, had its capital in Jerusalem, located in the highlands of Judea.^[45] The Jewish people are named after and primarily descended from this kingdom.^[46] According to the Hebrew Bible, Judah was the successor to the United Kingdom of Israel, under kings Saul, David, and Solomon. However, in the 1980s, some scholars began questioning the archaeological evidence for such an extensive kingdom before the late-8th century BCE.^[47] In the 10th and early 9th centuries BCE, Judah was sparsely populated, consisting mostly of small, rural, and unfortified settlements.^[48] The discovery of the Tel Dan Stele in 1993 confirmed the existence of the kingdom by the mid-9th century BCE, but its extent remained unclear.^[49] Excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa suggest the presence of a more urbanized and organized kingdom by the 10th centfury BCE.^[47]

In the 7th century BCE, Judah's population grew significantly under Assyrian vassalage, even though Hezekiah rebelled against Assyrian king Sennacherib.^[50] Josiah, seizing the opportunity created by Assyria's decline and Egypt's emergence, enacted religious reforms aligned with the principles found in Deuteronomy. This period is also when the Deuteronomistic history was likely written, emphasizing the importance of these principles.^[51] The fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 605 BCE led to a power struggle between Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire over the Levant, resulting in Judah's decline. By the early 6th century BCE, multiple Egyptian-backed rebellions against Babylon were quashed. In 587 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II captured and destroyed Jerusalem, ending the Kingdom of Judah. A large number of Judeans were exiled to Babylon, and the territory was annexed as a Babylonian province.^[52]