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Adoniram
The official over Israel's forced labour under Solomon and Rehoboam, stoned to death when the kingdom split.
What we know — and how we know it
Ancient writers — non-biblical testimony · 1
Scholarly — supported scholarly belief · 1
Death & legacy
Scan by NYPL — Public domain (via Wikimedia Commons)
Ancient writersJosephus recounts how Rehoboam sent the official set over the forced labour to pacify the northern tribes and how the crowd stoned him to death, the episode that triggered the kingdom's division. This is a first-century retelling of the same event rather than an independent attestation of the man.
Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 8 (Rehoboam's accession, the officer Adoram set over the forced labour and stoned by the assembly); retelling of 1 Kings 12 / 2 Chron. 10, not an independent attestation of the man. Text: ed./tr. R. Marcus, Loeb Classical Library, Josephus vol. V (Antiquities V-VIII), Harvard Univ. Press, 1934.
Name & titles
ScholarlyAdoniram means approximately 'My Lord is exalted' (adon plus the root rum, 'to be high'). He appears under the shortened variants Adoram and Hadoram, a normal kind of orthographic variation for this name-type.
Onomastic analysis; variant forms Adoram (2 Sam 20:24) and Hadoram (2 Chron 10:18)