Jecholiah is a name found in the King James Bible, appearing 1 time in the text.
Who This Was
Jecholiah was the mother of King Uzziah of Judah, mentioned in the genealogies of the kings of Judah. She appears in the opening verse of the account of Uzziah’s reign, where the writer of 2 Kings records the standard regnal formula for the kings of Judah: the age of the king at his accession, the length of his reign, the name of his mother, and her place of origin. Jecholiah is identified as being “of Jerusalem,” indicating that she was a woman of the capital city.
The single verse in which her name appears, 2 Kings 15:2, states: “Sixteen years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned two and fifty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem.” This verse places her in the southern kingdom of Judah during the period of the divided monarchy, when Judah was ruled from Jerusalem while the northern kingdom of Israel had its own separate kings. Her son Uzziah, also called Azariah, came to the throne at the young age of sixteen and reigned for fifty-two years—one of the longest reigns recorded of any king of Judah.
Beyond this notice, Scripture says nothing further about Jecholiah. She does not speak, act, or appear in any narrative episode. Her significance in the biblical text is that she is named as the mother of a king whose long reign is recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles. The mention of her name and her city is the whole of what the Bible preserves concerning her.
The Name
The name Jecholiah appears in the Hebrew text of 2 Kings 15:2 and is rendered “Jecholiah” in the King James Version. The name is a theophoric name, meaning it incorporates a form of the divine name. It is commonly understood to mean something like “the LORD is able” or “the LORD has prevailed,” built from a verbal root carrying the sense of ability or strength joined to a shortened form of the divine name. Because the exact vocalization and derivation of the name are debated among scholars, and because the KJV spelling reflects a particular transliteration tradition, the meaning should be regarded as reasonably established in its general sense rather than absolutely certain in every detail.
A Closing Thought
Jecholiah is one of many mothers in Scripture who are remembered in a single line. She never speaks, never acts on the page of the biblical story, and yet God saw fit to record her name. Her son reigned fifty-two years over Jerusalem, and the record of his long rule begins by naming the woman who bore him. It is a quiet reminder that faithfulness is often hidden, and that the lives we shape in obscurity matter more than we can see. Long after her own days ended, her name remained attached to a king’s story.
At a Glance
- Gender: Male
- Testament: Old
- Mentions in the KJV: 1
Where It Appears in Scripture
- 2 Kings 15:2 — Sixteen years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned two and fifty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem.