Asa dies in 871 BCE and is…

Asa dies in 871 BCE and is buried with his ancestors in Jerusalem, in the grave that he had dug for himself (2 Chronicles 16:13-14); his son Jehosophat succeeds him.

Jehoshaphat takes the throne at the age of thirty-five; he will reign for twenty-five years.

William F. Albright has dated the reign of Jehoshaphat to 873—849 BCE.

E. R. Thiele held that he became coregent with his father Asa in the latter’s thirty-ninth year, 872/871 BCE, the year Asa was afflicted with a severe disease in his feet, and then became sole regent when Asa died of the disease in 870/869 BCE, his own death occurring in 848/847 BCE.

Thiele's chronology for the first kings of Judah contained an internal inconsistency that later scholars corrected by dating these kings one year earlier, so that Jehoshaphat's dates are taken as one year earlier in the chronology presented herein: coregency beginning in 873/871, sole reign commencing in 871/870, and death in 849/848 BCE.

Jehoshaphat spends the first years of his reign fortifying his kingdom against Israel (2 Chronicles 17:1-2).

The Bible lauds the king for overcoming sexual corruption (1 Kings 22:47).

In the third year of his reign, Jehoshaphat sends out priests and Levites over the land to instruct the people in the Law (2 Chronicles 17:7-9), an activity that is commanded for a Sabbatical year in Deuteronomy 31:10-13.

The author of 2 Chronicles generally praises his reign, stating that the kingdom enjoyed a great measure of peace and prosperity, the blessing of God resting on the people "in their basket and their store."