Jeroboam II (Hebrew ירבעם השני, he pleads the people's cause) (vr. 836-r. 825-784 BC according to Ussher, or vr. 793-r.782-753 according to Thiele) was the thirteenth king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the third generation after Jehu in the House of Jehu. He was the definitive instrument of God's deliverance of that kingdom from Syrian harassment and had a grand and prosperous reign. However, because he never suppressed the golden-calf cult of his namesake Jeroboam I, God ultimately brought his kingdom to ruin. Indeed, Ussher infers that a twelve-year interregnum intervened between the death of Jeroboam II and the accession of his son Zachariah. (Thiele mentions no such interregnum in his system.)