Reading through the chapter Kings in the Old Testament reads as a historical timeline of Kings and their generational commitment or non commitment to God in the Bible.
Eg: Israel’s first King, King Saul, followed by King David, then King Solomon.
After Solomon the kingdom is split in two:
The Northern Kingdom know as Israel
And the Southern Kingdom known as Judah.
Both the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom had their own respective line of Kings listed out in the Old Testament Kings chapter as well. We’re talkin’ 39 kings written about in the Bibles Old Testament along the time line of 1000 B.C. ~ 500 B.C. Very mundane and repetitive reading.
Non believers, or people who have never actually picked up a Bible and studied it, will say the Bible is just a bunch of “made up stories” with no real context in reality.
But if you actually read the Bible, study it, like a college text book, you will find references to other texts within the chapters that will lead you to other historical texts outside of the Bible that corroborate the recorded history of these Kings within the Bible.
For Example:
The Tel Dan Inscription or "House of David" Inscription, is a fragmentary basalt stone monument from the 9th century B.C. (roughly 870–750 BC) bearing an Old Aramaic inscription written in the Phoenician script. It is one of the most significant archaeological discoveries related to the Bible in recent decades.
An excavation team at Tel Dan (an ancient site in northern Israel found the largest fragment (Fragment A) in July 1993 in an ancient stone wall.
Two smaller fragments (B1 and B2) were discovered in 1994.
The stele is now housed primarily at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The inscription is a victory stele, a boastful monument erected by an Aramean king (most scholars identify him as Hazael of Damascus) celebrating military successes against his enemies.
Key elements from the surviving text:
It mentions killing or defeating the king of Israel Jehoram, son of Ahab,
and Ahaziah, king of the House of David, a king of Judah.
This aligns with events described in the Bible in 2 Kings 8:28–29 and 9 where Jehu overthrows the house of Ahab and kills the two kings, though the stele presents the Aramean perspective of the conflict.
The pivotal phrase is "bytdwd" (ביתדוד), translated as "House of David" or "Dynasty of David".
This is the earliest known biblical reference to King David and his royal blood line.
It shows that, by the mid-to-late 9th century BC (about 100–150 years after David's reign), the southern kingdom of Judah was still known by the name of its founder, David.
You know that guy, the shepherd that launched a stone right between the eyes of the Philistine giant named Goliath and ran circles around King Saul.
Before this discovery, some scholars (the "minimalists") questioned whether David was a real historical figure or just a later legendary invention.
The stele provides independent, non-biblical confirmation that a "House of David" existed as a dynastic reference for Judah's rulers, and was eventually overthrown, as the Bible presents it.