Shallum the son of Jabesh began to reign in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah; and he reigned a full month in Samaria.
Shallum's reign is the shortest in Israel's history. He murdered his way to the throne of the northern kingdom and held it for four weeks. His one month raises a hard question: what is power worth when God keeps the record?
Shallum killed Zechariah and took his place. Within a month Menahem did the same thing to him.
But if Zechariah's reign was short (6 months), that of Shallum was much shorter — only one month! Those who grasp after power are very soon left powerless. Menahem, the son of Gadi, decided to show Shallum that two could play the game of murdering a king. Notice that in both of these cases the elders of Israel had no spiritual power to choose a man for king who might be a capable and faithful ruler, so a man of violence could seize power for himself. Of course Israel was in such a state of disobedience to God that they would not even consider asking God who should be king.
Shallum's name carries the sense of repayment, and his own end matched it.
This murderer was not allowed to live long in his stolen power — only four short weeks — and then he met the just reward of his crime. His name (a very common one in Israel) means repayment, or retribution. He paid back the king before him, and Menahem, the king who followed him, paid him back the same way. It is the old principle of just retribution in kind. The murder of two rulers, Zechariah and Shallum, within half a year speaks loudly of the state of anarchy in the kingdom at that time. It was, as the prophet said, "bloodshed follows bloodshed" (Hosea 4:2).
Behind the murders lies a simple motive, repeated by one king after another.
Here we touch the reason for all these acts of violence: each man wants to seize power for his own gain. When conscience no longer speaks up, sinners are handed over to every instinct of their evil nature.
Another writer traces the chaos back one step further, and then draws it forward.
The murderer occupied the throne only one month. Shallum means "requital." As he did to Zechariah, so Menahem did to him. Israel had abandoned God, and everything was now lawlessness. Turning away from God and from true worship came first. That opened the way for moral corruption and lawlessness. The same is true of this present Christian age.
Another writer points to what prosperity under the previous king, Jeroboam II, had done to the people.
The great prosperity and expansion under Jeroboam II seems to have corrupted the people and led them to give free rein to their evil desires and violence. Those in authority, instead of holding back this spirit of lawlessness, took pleasure in it.
The record God left of Shallum is bare.
He seems to have been very busy gaining the throne, and then trying to defend himself against his cruel successor. That is why God does not mention him walking in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Perhaps he had no time for matters of religion. At any rate, God, who notices even a cup of cold water given for the Lord's sake, has nothing good to record about him!
God misses nothing worth remembering. That He found nothing here is the sharpest thing said about Shallum. The Bible's other record of the kings passes over him too.
The Book of Chronicles does not even mention the reign of Shallum, nor in fact the reign of Zechariah in Israel.
The same writer sets this line of kings against the only life that reversed the pattern.
Our Lord Jesus stated the principle that "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled" (Luke 14:11). This principle is well illustrated in the lives of these kings. The opposite, "he who humbles himself will be exalted," is most beautifully seen in the life of our Lord Jesus. Philippians 2:5-11 shows us how deeply He humbled Himself and how highly God has exalted Him.
Shallum climbed and fell in a month. Christ went down, and God raised Him to the highest place.
- Departure — Turning from God came first, and prosperity fed the rot. The murders and coups grew out of it, and the same pattern marks this present age.
- Silence — When conscience stopped speaking, each man grabbed at power for himself. Nothing held him back.
- Requital — Shallum's name means recompense; he took a throne by blood and lost it by blood within four weeks.
- Record — God notices even a cup of cold water given for His sake, yet He has nothing good to say of this king at all.
- Reversal — Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. Christ humbled Himself, and God exalted Him — the road Shallum never took.
And Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirzah, and came to Samaria, and smote Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria, and slew him, and reigned in his stead.
Menahem comes up from Tirzah to Samaria and ends a four-week reign the same way it began — with murder. Commentators read the chapter as a picture of a nation where conscience has gone quiet and no one asks God anything.
Shallum had killed Zechariah to take the crown. One writer notes how quickly he lost it.
If Zechariah's reign was short (six months), that of Shallum was much shorter — only one month! Those who grasp after power are very soon left powerless. Menahem, the son of Gadi, decided to show Shallum that two could play the game of murdering a king… Notice that in both of these cases the elders of Israel had no spiritual power. They could not choose a capable and faithful man to be king, so a man of violence could seize power for himself. Israel was so disobedient to God that they would not even think of asking Him who should be king.
Shallum's name means repayment. One writer sees that meaning worked out on the man who bore it.
This assassin was not left long in his stolen power — only four weeks. Then he met the just reward of his crime. His name (a very common one in Israel) means recompense, or retribution. He paid back the king before him, and Menahem, the king after him, paid him back in turn. It is the old principle of God's government — just retribution in kind. Two rulers, Zechariah and Shallum, were murdered within half a year. That says much about the lawless state of the kingdom at the time. It was, as the prophet testified, "bloodshed follows bloodshed" (Hosea 4:2).
Behind two murders in six months lies a single motive. One commentator names it.
Shallum conspired against Zechariah, killed him, and reigned in his place. His crime gained him little, for at the end of a month he fell beneath the blows of Menahem. Here we touch the reason for all this violence: each man wants to seize power for his own gain. When conscience no longer speaks, sinners are handed over to every instinct of their evil nature.
These murders did not catch God by surprise. The same writer traces them back to an old account, left unsettled for years.
Zechariah, the last king descended from Jehu, reigned only six months at Samaria… Here begins the last stretch of stolen thrones and murders before the ten tribes were carried away. Hosea, the prophet of Israel, had spoken of this time: "All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me" (Hosea 7:7)… The Lord had kept silent about the blood Jehu shed at Jezreel. He had not spoken of it to anyone, not even to guilty Jehu. Instead God had said to him, "You have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes" (2 Kings 10:30). So it might have seemed to Jehu that God approved everything he had done. Far from it!
The verse names the place Menahem came from and the father he came from. One writer finds meaning in both.
Menahem, Josephus asserts, and not without reason, was general of the Israelite forces. He came up from Tirzah to kill Shallum. Later he set out "from Tirzah" again — where the main army was most likely posted — on his campaign of slaughter against the city of Tiphsah. Both facts imply as much… His name is found nowhere else in Scripture, and neither is his father's (Gadi, meaning fortunate) — a peculiar and somewhat remarkable circumstance, if not a significant one.
These kings climbed by force and fell by force. Set against them, one commentator points to the only Man who went the other way.
Our Lord Jesus stated the principle that "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled" (Luke 14:11). This principle is well illustrated in the lives of these kings. The opposite, "he who humbles himself will be exalted," is most beautifully seen in the life of our Lord Jesus. Philippians 2:5-11 shows us how deeply He humbled Himself and how highly God has exalted Him.
- Grasp — Shallum seized a throne by murder and held it four weeks. Those who snatch at power are soon left with none.
- Payback — Shallum's own name meant repayment, and Menahem paid him back. God's government repays in kind.
- Silence — Two killings in six months, one cause: conscience had gone quiet, so each man took what he wanted.
- Reckoning — God said nothing for years about the blood Jehu shed at Jezreel. His silence was not approval. The account came due on Jehu's last descendant.
- Reverse — Every king here lifted himself up and fell. Christ humbled Himself, and God exalted Him — the one throne no one can steal.
And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
Shallum's whole reign takes three verses. The last one sends everything else about him to a record now lost, and names his conspiracy as the one act worth listing. Two questions follow: what book is that, and why is a plot the only thing attached to a king's name?
Shallum took the throne of Israel's northern kingdom by murdering Zechariah. One month later Menahem did the same to him. Even the charge of following the sins of Jeroboam is missing from his record.
He seems to have been so busy seizing the throne, and then defending himself against his cruel successor, that God does not mention him walking in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Perhaps he had no time for religion. At any rate, God, who notes even a cup of cold water given for the Lord's sake, has nothing good to record about him!
Shallum's month was even shorter than Zechariah's six. One writer draws the lesson from it, names the nation's condition behind it, and says which book verse 15 means.
Zechariah's reign was short (6 months), but Shallum's was much shorter — only one month! Those who grasp after power are very soon left powerless… Notice that in both cases there was no spiritual power among the elders of Israel. They could not choose a king who might be a capable and faithful ruler, so a man of violence could seize power for himself… The Book of Chronicles does not even mention the reign of Shallum, nor the reign of Zechariah in Israel. So verse 15 does not refer to the Book of Chronicles in the Bible, but to another book that is not Scripture.
If these chronicles are not part of the Bible, what were they? And does their loss cost us anything?
Men wrote these chronicles during the reigns of all the rulers of those times, whether Jewish or Gentile. They have nothing to do with the Word of God. They hold what the Lord did not choose to record or explain. These chronicles have been lost… The believer needs none of them; he has God's Word. In God's account he finds everything he needs, along with God's own assessment of people, events, and things. Writings that are not inspired may record certain deeds, and even record them very exactly. But nothing more than human judgment ever goes with those deeds.
Shallum's name itself carries the sense of what happened to him.
This assassin did not live long in the power he had stolen — only four short weeks — and then he met the just reward of his crime. His name (a very common one in Israel) means recompense, or payback. As he paid back the king before him, so Menahem, the king after him, paid him back. This is the old principle of God's government: repayment in kind.
The same pattern holds beyond these kings. Another writer ties it to a word of Jesus and turns it into a warning for the reader.
Another principle the Lord laid down is that "all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Mt. 26:52). We see this in these kings too. How sad that God's records mark out a Shallum only for the conspiracy he made! He killed the king before him in the open, took his place on the throne, and a month later met the same violent end himself. Let it warn us, and let us turn from this king's example!
The quick run of murders here has one root, and it lies inside the men.
We are touching the reason for all these acts of violence: each is wanting to usurp power for his own gain. When conscience no longer speaks up, sinners give themselves over to every instinct of their evil nature.
Proverbs says, "An evil man seeks only rebellion, and a cruel messenger will be sent against him." One writer explains why a spirit of revolt appeals to a man, and why it does not go unanswered.
It is an evil man who gives in to a spirit of revolt. Rebellion is hateful to God, and His Word never excuses it. Life on earth offers a constant supply of chances, so such a man "seeks only rebellion." It gives him an unhappy sense of importance, and vanity cannot resist that. But God is not mocked… and a "cruel messenger" will surely be "sent against him." Even now there is moral government.
- Grasp — Shallum seized the throne by murder, and the grab is the one deed his name is remembered for.
- Grip — His hold lasted a single month; those who grasp after power are very soon left powerless.
- Repaid — His name means recompense. Menahem repaid him just as he had repaid Zechariah. Those who take the sword perish by the sword.
- Record — Two records existed. The lost national one held the bare facts. Scripture holds God's assessment, and the believer needs nothing more.
- Root — Behind the violence lay a silent conscience and naked self-interest. No one in Israel was spiritual enough to choose a faithful ruler.