And Menahem slept with his fathers; and Pekahiah his son reigned in his stead.
Menahem dies in his bed, not by the sword, and his son takes the throne. So a king who seized power by murder died in peace. What does that say about how God governs?
One writer reads "slept with his fathers" as the mark of a peaceful death, even in a man who likely held power by force:
Though he probably reigned as nothing more than a military dictator, he clearly died in peace, as the expression "slept with his fathers" implies. "His fathers" also implies that he was an Israelite, even though his name Menahem does not sound like Hebrew.
That peaceful end is not a verdict of innocence. Another writer draws a wider lesson from it:
Menahem did not die a violent death, so his son Pekahiah reigned in his place. God does not bring His punishing government against Menahem. His case, like many others in this history, teaches us something. God's government on earth is not the measure of His righteousness. Nor is it His full repayment of the ways of men. This was the error of Job's friends, and Elihu was angry with them.
Silver secured the kingdom Pekahiah inherited, and it was not the king's own silver. Menahem bought off the Assyrian king, then sent the bill to his people:
The Assyrian king threatened him with even greater might, so Menahem bought him off with a huge amount of silver. He also intended this to strengthen his own hold on the kingdom. Yet, just as with politicians today, the money did not come out of his own pocket. Scripture points out that he "exacted" the money from Israel, forcing every wealthy man in Israel to contribute. What a contrast to the One of whom the psalmist prophesied, "I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread" (Ps. 132:15). When we read of such callous, cruel treatment of his subjects, we are not surprised to read that Menahem did evil in the LORD's sight, and that he never turned away from the sins of Jeroboam as long as he lived.
Israel's kings kept looking for protection from the great powers around them. One writer asks what all of it achieved:
In the end, what was the use of all the politics and the search for alliances and protection, turning now toward Assyria, then toward Egypt? Did they delay God's decreed judgment for one moment? And it is the same in our own day, is it not? Nations look for guarantees from one another. All of them will vanish like chaff blown away by the wind. For "the Lamb who was slain" will step forward, take the book of God's plans and dealings with the world, and carry them out.
Menahem had come to power by killing Shallum. He was never punished for it in his lifetime. But the son who follows him here dies violently, and his very name speaks to that unpaid debt:
Pekahiah's killer was his own officer Pekah, with two of his followers and a company of fifty men from Gilead. They killed the king in his very palace, so bold were they. His name, Jah has observed, implies that God had looked upon the murder of Shallum by his father Menahem, and in the death of Pekahiah his son requited it (2 Chron. 24:22). His name, like his father's and grandfather's, does not occur anywhere else in Scripture.
Pekahiah received more than a crown. His father's sins had already dragged the nation down with him, and the record's refrain has a sting in it:
Notice here what the earlier chapters repeat so often: the sins of their kings made Israel sin. One person's sin becomes far more serious when it trips up others. Its consequences are charged to those who drag the ignorant and the unsettled into the path of their own disobedience.
- Unpunished. A violent king dying quietly proves nothing about God's approval. His government on earth is not the measure of His righteousness, or His full repayment of human ways.
- Observed. The son's name means Jah has observed. God saw the murder Menahem was never charged with, and He settled the account in the next reign.
- Purchased. Menahem bought his hold on the throne with silver squeezed out of Israel's wealthy. The people paid for the king's security.
- Worthless. The alliances did not delay God's judgment by a moment. The world's treaties today will scatter like chaff just the same.
- Inherited. A crown was not all that passed from father to son. The sins of Jeroboam passed too, and sin weighs heaviest when it drags others down with it.
In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria, for two years.
The verse gives a date, a son taking his father's throne in Samaria, and two short years. Behind that bare record lie two questions: why Menahem died in peace after a violent rise, and why the north kept losing kings while Judah held steady.
Menahem had taken power by killing Shallum, yet he died in his bed and passed the throne to his son. One writer warns us not to read God's judgment from what happens in this life.
Menahem did not die a violent death, so his son Pekahiah reigned in his place. God's government did not repay Menahem for what he did. His case, like many others in this history, teaches us that God's government on earth is not the measure of His righteousness. It is not His full repayment of the ways of men either. This was the error of Job's friends, and Elihu rose up against them in anger.
Menahem had murdered Shallum to take the throne. One writer finds a message in the name his son carried.
His name means "Jah has observed." It implies that God had looked on the murder of Shallum by his father Menahem, and that He repaid it in the death of Pekahiah his son. His name, like his father's and grandfather's, does not occur anywhere else in Scripture.
The verse dates Pekahiah by a king of Judah. Azariah — also called Uzziah — held that throne while king after king rose and fell in the north.
Azariah (Uzziah) reigned for more than half a century. In that time he saw five of Israel's kings die, three of them murdered. He also saw a gap of anarchy that lasted at least eleven years. This marked contrast is probably what the prophet meant when he wrote, "Ephraim surrounds Me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit, but Judah still walks with God, and with the holy things of truth" (Hosea 11:13, in an older translation). This does not mean that everything Judah did pleased the Lord. It means that, unlike Israel who had abandoned Him, they still held to the truth of the Lord as a nation. That truth was given in the law and pictured in the temple's worship and service.
Pekahiah carried the same charge as every king before him: he kept the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat. Jeroboam's sin was a religion he built himself, to stop his people going south to worship.
Judging by human wisdom and forgetting the fear of the Lord, he made two golden calves. He wanted to break the strong links of a shared worship, so that his subjects would no longer be tied to Judah and Jerusalem. He had to set up a new priesthood. He invented everything to do with worship out of his own heart. Israel's sin became a fixed rule, and the phrase "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," became the sad title of their first king.
The charge against these kings is not only that they sinned. They made Israel sin with them, and one writer weighs what that adds.
During the two years of his reign, Pekahiah, like all his predecessors, kept on in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Notice here what is repeated so often in the earlier chapters: by the sins of their kings, Israel was made to sin. One person's sin becomes far more serious when it turns into a stumbling block for others. Its consequences are charged to those who carry away the ignorant and the poorly grounded into the path of their own disobedience.
Pekahiah's murder was not unusual. One writer counted how the kings of the north died, from the split of the kingdom to the deportation.
Nineteen kings reigned from the great split to the deportation to Assyria. Only seven died natural deaths (Baasha, Omri, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, and Menahem). Seven were murdered (Nadab, Elah, Joram, Zachariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, and Pekah). One killed himself (Zimri). One died of wounds received in battle (Ahab)... To this telling list of facts we must add two long periods of anarchy, when "there was no king in Israel."
- Observed. Pekahiah's name means "Jah has observed." God saw the murder his father committed, and repaid it in the son's death.
- Inherited. He took the throne in peace. He also took over Jeroboam's invented worship, and kept it for both of his years.
- Spread. These kings did not only sin. They made Israel sin, and guilt grows through those who lead others astray.
- Delayed. Menahem rose by violence and died in his bed. God's dealings in this life are not the full measure of His righteousness.
- Ended. Judah kept one king for fifty years while Israel buried five. In the north the crown kept changing hands, until there was nothing left to hand on.
And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.
Pekahiah took the throne of Israel from his father Menahem and held it for two years. He left behind no recorded act — only God's verdict on him. Why does Scripture repeat the same sentence over king after king? And what was the sin of Jeroboam that none of them would give up?
The list of evil kings is long by now. A reader might expect God to grow used to it. One writer draws the opposite conclusion:
Although we are now at the seventeenth king of Israel, all of them evil in varying degrees, we see that God has not changed His standards. Sometimes we feel that age and long use can turn what God calls bad into something good and acceptable. The standards of society change, and with them even the rulings of our court systems. But God does not change. Nor will He ever alter His standards to accommodate our ever-changing ideas. He is absolutely holy and righteous.
The charge is not that Pekahiah invented a new evil. He left an old one exactly where he found it:
Pekahiah did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam. In presenting His divine assessment in these words, God shows that He was looking for Israel's kings to actively turn away from the sins of their predecessor, Jeroboam. "Cease to do evil, learn to do good" (Isa. 1:17) is the divine principle by which He expects us to act. The New Testament says the same to us. Each of us must withdraw from iniquity and purify ourselves from vessels that dishonour our Lord (2 Tim. 2:19-21 margin). We must do this if we want to be vessels for honour, useful to the Master, ready for every good work. Non-participation in evil is not enough. God demands clear-cut separation from it.
King after king, Jeroboam's name is still the label for Israel's guilt. One writer explains what made his sin so grave:
Jeroboam stands out in the Old Testament as the great division maker. Under him the great mass of God's people, ten of the twelve tribes, broke away from God's centre at that time. The Spirit marks this man out with sad words that come again and again, like a death knell: "Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin." One chapter alone solemnly repeats it four times (2 Kings 15:9, 18, 24, 28). There is something appalling about it. This special way of speaking shows how terrible the man's sin was in God's sight. It strikes every true heart with a sense of how awful it is. Personal sins are bad enough, but to turn away God's people from the centre which He has set up — what could be worse?
Israel's history says what that sin actually was, and where it ended:
Almost as soon as Jeroboam took the throne of Israel he turned to idolatry. He made two golden calves and set them up at Bethel and Dan... Jeroboam's idolatry stayed with Israel until they went into captivity. It was an outstanding cause of that captivity, just as Scripture says: "Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them sin a great sin... they did not depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He had spoken by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day" (2 Kings 17:21-23).
Pekahiah's sin did not stay with Pekahiah. One writer weighs what that adds to a man's guilt:
During the two years of his reign, Pekahiah, like all his predecessors, persisted in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Let us notice here what is repeated so often in the earlier chapters: that by the sins of their kings, Israel was made to sin. One person's sin becomes far more serious when it turns into a stumbling-block for others. Its consequences are charged to those who pull the ignorant and the unsettled into the path of their own disobedience.
Pekahiah's own name carries a warning. One writer reads God's dealing with this family in it:
His name, Jah has observed, implies that God had observed the murder of Shallum by his father Menahem. Then, in the death of Pekahiah his son, God repaid it (2 Chron. 24:22).
- Unchanged. Seventeen kings in, God's standard has not moved. Long use never turns what He calls evil into something acceptable.
- Unmoved. He did not invent the evil; he simply left it in place. God looks for clear separation from evil, not just staying out of it.
- Inherited. The sin he kept was Jeroboam's — two golden calves that pulled God's people away from the centre God had set up.
- Transmitted. Sin that trips others up is charged to the one who led them. Israel held on to those calves, and it ended in exile to Assyria.
- Observed. His name means "Jah has observed." God had seen the blood by which his father took the throne, and He repaid it.
And Pekah the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him, and smote him in Samaria, in the fortress of the king's house, with Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men of the Gileadites; and he slew him, and reigned in his stead.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And the rest of the acts of Pekahiah, and all that he did, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
Pekahiah ruled the northern kingdom of Israel for two years. His reign closes with the same short formula used for king after king, and it raises two questions: what was that record book, and why did God keep so little of a king's life?
The closing formula points to a fuller record. But Scripture has already given its verdict on Pekahiah, and nothing in it is good.
Pekahiah continued the wearying list of godless kings in Israel. He reigned only two years and kept up the idolatry that Jeroboam the son of Nebat had introduced. The record holds nothing to his credit. One of his officers, Pekah the son of Remaliah, conspired with others to kill him.
His murder did not only end a life. It ended a family line on the throne.
His death ended the seventh dynasty of the kings of Israel.
Readers naturally reach for the biblical books of Chronicles. That is not what is meant.
Verse 26 tells us that the rest of the acts of Pekahiah are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. But again, this is not the scriptural Book of Chronicles. Pekahiah is not even mentioned there.
These were the state annals of the kingdom, and their loss costs the believer nothing.
These chronicles were written 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; perhaps someone will one day find some fragments of them. The believer has no need for any of them; he has God's Word. In God's account he finds everything he needs, along with God's own evaluation of people, events, and things.
What Scripture keeps is God's own verdict: Pekahiah did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam. Those few words carry a standard that reaches past Israel's kings.
Pekahiah did evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam. God gives His verdict in these words, and it shows what He was looking for. He wanted Israel's kings to make a real break from the sins of Jeroboam, the king before them. "Cease to do evil, learn to do good" (Isa. 1:17) is the divine principle by which He expects us to act. The New Testament calls each of us to do the same. We are to turn away from wrongdoing, and to separate ourselves from vessels that dishonour our Lord. Only then are we vessels for honour, useful to the Master, ready for every good work. Non-participation in evil is not enough. God demands clear-cut separation from it.
The same writer looks back over the whole line of kings and finds the reason the verdict never changes.
We are now at the seventeenth king of Israel, and all of them were evil in varying degrees. Yet God has not changed His standards. The norms of society change, and with them even the rulings of our court systems. But God does not change. He will never alter His standards to fit our ever-changing ideas. He is absolutely holy and righteous.
Pekahiah's own name carries a quiet comment on how he died.
The man who killed Pekahiah was his own captain, Pekah, helped by two of his followers and a company of fifty Gileadites. These Gileadites seem to have been a rough, wild class, something like Hebrew highlanders, ready in Pekahiah's day for any kind of crime. They were so bold that they killed the king in his own palace. His name means Jah has observed. It implies that God had seen the murder of Shallum by his father Menahem, and that He repaid it in the death of Menahem's son Pekahiah. His name, like his father's and grandfather's, does not occur anywhere else in Scripture.
The same closing formula appears elsewhere in Kings. There one writer points to a second set of books.
"Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?" Yes, they are. And they, along with the wicked acts recorded here, are written in God's books above. Those books are not merely chronicles of the kings of Israel. They hold the deeds and doings of every life, whether good or evil. Solemn facts for us all!
- Recorded — the closing line points to the state annals of Israel's kings. It is not the biblical books of Chronicles, which never mention Pekahiah.
- Lost — those annals have disappeared, and nothing is missing. God's Word holds all the believer needs, including His own evaluation of people and events.
- Kept — what God chose to keep is the moral verdict: he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam. Refusing to join evil is not enough; God looks for a clear break from it.
- Observed — his name means Jah has observed. God had seen Menahem murder Shallum, and He repaid it in the death of Menahem's son.
- Read — the earthly book is gone. Every life stands written in God's books above, good or evil alike, and that is the record that will be read.
In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, for twenty years.
Pekah took Israel's throne by murder, and twenty years later he lost it the same way. Scripture gives him one line of character — he did evil and clung to the sins of Jeroboam — and his long reign is the stretch in which the northern kingdom starts to come apart.
Pekah did not act alone. One commentator traces his reign from the conspiracy that began it to the deportations that marked it:
Pekah, the son of Remaliah, helped in his conspiracy by men of Gilead, kills Pekahiah along with two of his companions. He reigns twenty years in Samaria, and toward the Lord he follows the way of the kings of Israel. Verse 29 sums up the results of his reign. Tiglath-Pileser the Assyrian comes up against him. He carries away captive the Reubenites, the Gadites, and that half tribe of Manasseh — all the people settled beyond the Jordan.
A reference work adds the detail that his death came at the hands of Hoshea, and notes how his dates are reckoned:
Pekah was killed by Hoshea, in what is called the 20th year of Jotham, that is, the 4th year of Ahaz, which would have been the 20th of Jotham.
The same charge follows king after king through these chapters — he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam. One writer marks the last time it appears:
How painfully this often-repeated testimony, like a sad refrain, falls upon the ear! But this is the last time. Under Hoshea, Pekah's killer and successor, God "put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel" (Hosea 1:4). And he, though he did wrong, did it "not as the kings of Israel who were before him" (2 Kings 17:2).
The verse gives a length of reign but no events. Another writer fills in those twenty years: land lost, and an alliance born of fear:
During the twenty years Pekah reigned there were major changes in Israel's situation. Assyria's mighty warrior kings conquered the northern and eastern parts of the land and deported their people to Assyria. Threatened by Assyria, Israel and Syria became allies and sought to overthrow the house of David in Judah. They did so because Ahaz, the wicked king of Judah, had become a payer of tribute to Assyria and was leaning on its king for help against these enemies.
One commentator weighs Assyria's invasion against what Pekah had aimed at Judah's royal house:
Pekah joined Rezin king of Damascus in an unprovoked and cowardly attack on Jerusalem. Then the king of Assyria invaded and devastated his land. That was his just reward for his "fierce anger" and "evil counsel" against the house of David, which he sought to overthrow by conspiracy and revolution.
The same writer finds a bitter irony in what the man's name means:
His name means watch. It comes from a root meaning "to open" (as the eyes), and by extension, to be observant. But watch as he might, the very friend he trusted became his killer, in God's ordering. It is impossible for the wicked to escape the punishment they deserve from the hand of Him who has said, "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay."
One writer draws a lesson from which tribes fell first:
The breaking up of the kingdom of Ephraim begins with the tribes that had chosen their portion on the other side of the Jordan for their own convenience. It is always so. Some Christians never take their stand firmly, and without a backward glance, on the ground where the death of Christ stands between them and the world like the Jordan — a barrier they cannot cross. Those Christians are the first the enemy attacks. They become the poor captives of the world, because, for all their real faith, they have not agreed to break with it completely.
- Seized. Pekah took the throne by conspiracy and murder, with help from men of Gilead.
- Same sin. His reign repeats the old charge: he clung to the sins of Jeroboam. This is the last time Scripture brings that charge against a king of Israel.
- Shrinking. While he reigned, Assyria stripped away the north and the east and deported the people. The kingdom came apart piece by piece.
- Struck down. His war on the house of David killed 120,000 in one day; Assyria's invasion of his own land repaid it. The man whose name means watch died at the hand of the friend he trusted. No one escapes the God who says, "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay."
- Separate. The tribes that chose their land for convenience fell first. Believers who will not break with the world completely are the first it takes captive.
And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.
Pekah killed the king he served, seized Israel's throne, and reigned twenty years — yet God's verdict on him is the same one already passed on the kings before him. Why does a sin committed generations earlier still name every king who follows?
The wording here is not new. This one chapter passes the same sentence four times. One writer draws out why that repetition is so striking:
Jeroboam stands out in the Old Testament as the great division maker. Under him the great mass of God's people, ten of the twelve tribes, broke away from God's centre at that time. The Spirit marks out this man with sad words that come back again and again, like a death knell: "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." This single chapter alone repeats it solemnly four times (2 Kings 15:9, 18, 24, 28). There is something appalling about it. Personal sins are bad enough. But to turn God's people away from the centre He has set up — what could be worse?
Jeroboam was Israel's first king after the nation split in two. His sin was a religion built to keep his people away from Jerusalem:
Judging by human wisdom and forgetting the fear of Jehovah, he made two golden calves. He wanted to break the strong links of a shared worship, so that they would no longer hold his subjects to Judah and Jerusalem. He had to set up a new priesthood. He devised everything to do with worship out of his own heart. Israel's sin became an established rule, and the phrase "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin" became the sad description of their first king.
The charge is not only that Pekah sinned, but that the sin he kept was one that spread. One writer explains why that raises the stakes:
Notice here what the earlier chapters repeat so often: the sins of their kings made Israel sin. A person's sin becomes far more serious when it trips others up. Its consequences count against those who drag the ignorant and the unsteady into the path of their own disobedience.
Pekah is the last king to receive this sentence. What follows explains why:
How painfully this often-repeated testimony, like a sad refrain, falls on the ear! But this is the last time. Under Hoshea, Pekah's killer and successor, God made "to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel" (Hosea 1:4). And he, though he did wrong, did not do it "as the kings of Israel that were before him" (2 Kings 17:2).
The verses that follow show Assyria arriving in Pekah's own reign. The first tribes taken are the ones who had settled on the far side of the Jordan:
The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser comes up against him. He carries away captive the Reubenites, the Gadites, and that half tribe of Manasseh, all the people settled beyond the Jordan… The breaking up of the kingdom of Ephraim begins with these tribes. For their own convenience, they had chosen their portion on the other side of the Jordan.
Pekah lost his throne to the very man he trusted. One writer notes the irony in his name:
His name, meaning watch, comes from a root meaning "to open" (as the eyes); figuratively, to be observant. But watch as he might, his very friend, the man he trusted, became his killer in God's ordering. It is impossible for the wicked to escape the punishment they deserve. It comes from the hand of Him who has said, "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay."
- Did not depart — the charge. The verdict on Pekah is not that he invented a new evil, but that he refused to leave an old one. Continuing in inherited sin is itself the guilt.
- Did not depart — the root. He clung to Jeroboam's invented religion: golden calves, a new priesthood, and worship devised out of his own heart. Its aim was to keep people away from Jerusalem.
- Did not depart — the reach. A sin grows far worse when it trips up others. The consequences count against those who lead the weak into their own disobedience.
- Did not depart — the ruin. In Pekah's own reign Assyria starts to break up the kingdom. The first tribes taken are the ones who had chosen land beyond the Jordan for their own convenience.
- Did not depart — the last time. This is the last time the refrain appears. After Pekah, God brings the kingdom of Israel to an end, and Pekah dies at the hand of the friend he trusted.
In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, and Abel-Beth-Maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.
In Pekah's reign Assyria broke into the northern kingdom and carried whole regions away. The list of captured towns raises two questions: why did judgment begin there, and what did God later do with the emptied land?
The places named map out the loss. One survey of the captivities works through the geography:
In 2 Kings 15:29 there is another reference to Israel. Tiglath-pileser took Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor, which are all in the north on the west of the Jordan. But then comes Gilead, which is on the east, and this may be meant to include the two and a half tribes. Then Galilee with all the land of Naphtali follows, again in the north on the west. So this may be a summary of everything this king carried away captive to Assyria.
Assyria had its own reasons for striking now. One writer weighs them against what Scripture tells us:
It seems Pekah had not followed this rule of submission to Assyria, as Menahem had. That would explain the political reasons for carrying these tribes away. The Word does not give us those political reasons, but Chronicles points to the divine reason in a word: "And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser … and he carried them away."
Assyria's attack also answered something Pekah had done first:
This happened after Pekah's unprovoked and cowardly attack on Jerusalem, together with Rezin king of Damascus. The king of Assyria invaded and devastated his land. That was his just reward for his "fierce anger" and "evil counsel" against the house of David, which he tried to overthrow by conspiracy and revolution.
Gilead lay east of the Jordan. That was the side the two and a half tribes had chosen for themselves, and it is where the losses start:
The dismemberment of the kingdom of Ephraim begins with the tribes which, for their own convenience, had chosen their portion on the other side of the Jordan.
The same writer turns that old choice into a warning for believers now:
It is always so. Some Christians never step firmly, and without a backward glance, onto the ground where the death of Christ stands like the Jordan — a barrier between them and the world that cannot be crossed. Those Christians are the first to face the attacks of the enemy. They become the poor captives of the world, which, despite their real faith, they have not been willing to break with completely.
This was not the final captivity, only the first bite:
The cities of the north, and some of those on the other side of Jordan, are the first to be led captive by the king of Assyria.
Another writer sums up what this first loss meant:
This marks the beginning of the end.
Emptying Naphtali had a long consequence:
About B.C. 740 Tiglath-pileser carried away captive all the inhabitants of Naphtali. No doubt foreigners then settled the district. When the captivity of Israel was complete, they would be able to spread southward. So we get the term 'Galilee of the Gentiles,' or nations, which does not appear until Isaiah 9:1. Matthew 4:15 quotes the prophecy.
That despised corner is where God chose to shine:
Let the hand of oppression press on them harder than ever. There would still be this difference — and our Lord's first coming among them proved it! — that a great light would spring up among the darkest and most despised in the land. It was in Galilee, not Jerusalem, that the grace of Jesus shone.
- Choice. The first land taken was the land chosen for convenience — Gilead, east of the Jordan.
- Cause. Pekah's attack on Jerusalem came back on him. Chronicles names God as the One who stirred Assyria up.
- Creep. Judgment came by stages: the border towns first, then the whole captivity of Israel.
- Caution. Christians who keep one foot outside the death of Christ are the first the enemy attacks, and the first the world takes captive.
- Comfort. The stripped and overrun region became "Galilee of the Gentiles" — and there, not in Jerusalem, the grace of Jesus shone.
And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him and slew him; and he reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.
For the last time, the throne of the northern kingdom changes hands by murder. The verse dates it by "the twentieth year of Jotham," a note that has long puzzled readers. It also introduces the last man ever to rule the northern kingdom.
One writer weighs Pekah's death against the blood he had already spilled:
He killed in his "fierce anger" one hundred thousand Jews in one day (2 Chronicles 28:6); and God repaid him in kind. He had shed man's blood by treachery, so by treachery a man shed his blood too.
The killer was no stranger. The same writer also looks at what Pekah's name meant:
Josephus says Hoshea was "a friend" of Pekah's. In his death the prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 7:16) was fulfilled. His name, meaning watch, comes from a root meaning "to open" (as the eyes); figuratively, to be observant. But watch as he might, his very friend in whom he trusted became, in God's ordering, his slayer. It is impossible for the wicked to escape the punishment they deserve from the hand of Him who has said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay."
Isaiah had spoken to Ahaz, king of Judah, when two kings threatened him: Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria. The sign God gave was a child:
The prophetic announcement that such a child would be born was present evidence to faith. Whatever schemes men might make, the remnant could count on God... "For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted" ... And before this child could have grown up, Hoshea had killed Pekah, and the king of Assyria had taken Damascus and killed Rezin.
Scripture dates Hoshea's reign twice: here by Jotham's twentieth year, and later by the twelfth year of Ahaz. One writer works at the numbers and then stops:
The margin has explained the gap as a time with no king at all. That is substantially right, because Scripture says Hoshea reigned nine years. Yet he begins to reign in the twelfth year of Ahaz, while Pekah was killed in the third year of Ahaz. That is because Ahaz began in the seventeenth year of Pekah, and Pekah reigned twenty years... What Hoshea's position was, this man said to reign in place of the Pekah he killed, I do not know. That is why I say "substantially."
Another writer notes what Scripture leaves out of that gap, and what it does record:
We have no way of knowing why there was this gap with no king, or how the time was spent... But God's word has recorded Hoshea's wickedness like this: "he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him."
"Reigned in his place" sounds like a victory. It was nothing of the kind:
Hoshea was the nineteenth and final king of the northern kingdom, Israel. Scripture tells us that he reigned in Pekah's place, but gives us two different dates for when his reign began. Apparently he had trouble securing his hold on the fast-sinking kingdom, or perhaps he had to have his right to rule approved by the powerful Assyrians. At any rate, his rule was only that of a vassal to the Assyrian king.
Hoshea's name carries a hint that outlives the kingdom he lost:
Scripture does not reveal what finally became of Hoshea. He may be the king meant in the prophet's poetic words, "Samaria's king shall perish like a twig on the face of the waters" (Hosea 10:7). His name means deliverer, and may have a prophetic meaning. It would be a gracious reminder to the now long-scattered nation of that great "Deliverer" who "will come from Zion" (God's grace) and will "banish ungodliness from Jacob." And then, and so, "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26).
The kingdom was falling apart. One writer says that is exactly when God speaks:
Prophecy always comes at a time of ruin... A time of evil is not necessarily a time of evil for the people of God. It is evil for those who are false; it is evil for those who would take advantage. But a time of evil is a time when God works especially for the blessing of those who may have failed. So let no one use the ruin around them as an excuse.
- Blood. Pekah shed blood on a huge scale, and his own friend shed his — treachery repaid by treachery, under the God who says vengeance belongs to Him.
- Word. The murder fulfilled Isaiah's sign to Ahaz: the two kings he dreaded would be gone before a child could grow up.
- Silence. Two dates point to a gap between Pekah's death and Hoshea's real reign. Commentators call it a time with no king, and admit they know no more.
- Vassal. Hoshea "reigned in his place," but held a sinking kingdom as a servant of Assyria — the last of nineteen kings.
- Deliverer. Hoshea's name means deliverer, yet he delivered no one. The name points past him to the Deliverer who will come from Zion — God's answer in the hour of ruin.