Who was King Pekah in the Bible?

Son of Remaliah and captain to Pekahiah, king of Israel, whom he murdered, and then seized the throne: he reigned 20 years, B.C. 759-739. He invaded Judah, and slew 120,000 in one day, and carried away 200,000 'women, sons and daughters.' It was on this occasion that the prophet Oded, with others, protested against their brethren, the children of Judah, being made slaves; the captives were thereupon released, clothed out of the spoils, and sent back to their homes. Pekah afterwards formed an alliance with Rezin, king of Damascus, against Judah; but Ahaz, king of Judah, called to his aid Tiglath-pileser, who killed Rezin and destroyed Damascus, and then attacked Pekah, and carried away captive the two and a half tribes on the east of the Jordan, B.C. 740. 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. 2 Kings 15:25-37; 2 Kings 16:1, 5; 2 Chr. 28:6-15; Isa. 7:1.

Son and successor of Menahem king of Israel. His two years' reign, B.C. 761-759, was uneventful; he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; and was slain by Pekah, who succeeded him. 2 Kings 15:22-26.

Pekah, the son of Remaliah, assisted in his conspiracy by men of Gilead, kills Pekahiah as well as two of his companions. He reigns twenty years in Samaria and follows, with regard to the Lord, the way of the kings of Israel. The results of his reign are summarized in verse 29. The Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser comes up against him and carries away captive the Reubenites, the Gadites, and that half tribe of Manasseh, all the people settled beyond the Jordan, "and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan — unto this day" (1 Chr. 5:26). 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.

It is always so. Christians who do not enter resolutely and without a backward glance upon the ground where, like the Jordan, the death of Christ an insurmountable barrier between them and the world, such Christians are the first to be exposed to the attacks of the enemy and become the poor captives of the world, with which, despite their real faith, they have not consented to break completely. Thus the dismembering of the kingdom of Israel begins to take place. This would be completed under the reign of Hoshea. We shall return to Pekah in the next chapter, but before this we find mention made of the reign of Jotham.

"Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, for twenty years.In [his] days Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took [5 northern cities], and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.Then Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to battle; and they besieged Ahaz, but were unable to conquer him."

In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah (Uzziah) king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." How painfully this oft-recurring testimony, like a sad refrain, falls upon the ear! But this is the last time. Under Hoshea, Pekah's slayer and successor, God made "to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel" (Hosea 1:4). And he, though he wrought iniquity, did it "not as the kings of Israel that were before him" (2 Kings 17:2).

"In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, 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." This occurred after Pekah's unprovoked and dastardly attack on Jerusalem, in concert with Rezin king of Damascus. See AHAZ. And the king of Assyria's invasion and devastation of his land 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. See Isa. 7:4-6.

Just at the end of Azariah's reign in Judah, Pekah began to reign in Israel, continuing his reign for 20 years (v.27). His life too was evil, for he clung to the idolatrous worship of Jereboam the son of Nebat. who made Israel sin (v.28). He was not able to resist the attack of Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, who captured the inhabitants of many Israelite cities and took them to Assyria. Thus Israel was gradually being tom from their land, and Chapter 17:5-6 shows their complete captivity.

Though Pekah was unable to resist Assyria, he did have the more dubious distinction of killing 123,000 men of Judah in one day! (2 Chron.27:6). How often it seems we do more damage to our own brethren than we do to the power of our enemies! Thus there was nothing in the reign of Pekah that relieved the picture of dark ignoring of the God of Israel. As he had conspired against Pekahiah, so his servant Hoshea conspired against him and killed him. How sad and tragic is the history of the kings of Israel! Hoshea took the throne of Israel then, and as we shall find in Chapter 17:1, he reigned only nine years before Israel was taken captive by Assyria.

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 were allies and sought to overthrow the house of David in Judah, for Ahaz, the wicked king of Judah, had become tributary to Assyria and was leaning upon its king for help against these enemies.

In 2 Chronicles 28 we learn that the Lord allowed Pekah to win a great victory over Judah. Several of the highest ranking men of Judah plus 120,000 valiant men were slain in one day and 200,000 women and children plus much spoil were taken captive. The Lord sent the prophet Oded to rebuke the men of Israel and to tell them to send back their captives. We do not read of any response on the part of Pekah, but four of the heads of the children of Ephraim openly acknowledged their nation's guilt before the Lord. They then fed, clothed, shod, and anointed their captives from the plunder, put the weak on donkeys, and returned them to their brethren. It is good to see, even at this low point in Israel's history, a remnant responding to the word of the Lord.

It is very striking the way in which these points are brought out in Isaiah 7. The circumstances are given in verses 1-2. The apostate Pekah, king of Israel had formed an alliance with the king of Syria against Jerusalem, filling the hearts of Ahaz and his people with terror. "His heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind." They had no power to contend with such powerful foes, and God was not in all their thoughts (contrast 2 Chron. 20)

But Jehovah took the matter up. The plot was of a very determined character. Nothing less was in the minds of those kings than the blotting out of the house of David, and the setting up of a personage called "the son of Tabeal." However little they intended it, this was really a blow at the promised Messiah. If they did not mean this, Satan did, he was the real author of the movement unquestionably. This became at once a case for Jehovah to deal with. It touched the accomplishment of His purposes. True, the house of David was in a deplorable state. David's heir was an evil man, one of the worst that ever sat upon the throne of Judah (2 Chron. 28:1-5, 22-25). There was no reason, as far as he was concerned, for Jehovah to interfere. Ahaz and Judah deserved the worst that their enemies could inflict upon them.

But God takes care of His own purposes; no power on earth or in hell can frustrate them. He intends David's son and heir to have universal dominion in the coming day; He would therefore preserve the line until the end. "If we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). Accordingly, the prophet was sent to Ahaz to assure him concerning the evil counsel of his enemies that "it shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass." Ephraim should be broken within 65 years, spite of the alliance with heathen Syria.

The occasion was the offensive and profane alliance of Rezin, king of Syria, with Pekah, Remaliah's son and king of Israel, against Judah and Ahaz. "And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, [that] Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart shook, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind" (vv. 1, 2). There were they in great fear, where no fear was, and this, alas! in Jerusalem and David's house; and no wonder, for the heir of David's throne walked not like David his father, but in the ways of the kings of Israel or worse, and drew Judah with him into sore transgression against Jehovah. Panic-stricken, yet in no way driven by his distress to God, on the self-same spot where Rabshakeh uttered his blasphemies against Jehovah at a later day, "the aqueduct of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field," Ahaz is met by the prophet. "And Jehovah said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller's field. And thou shalt say to him, Take heed and be quiet; fear not, and let not thy heart faint before these two ends (tails) of smoking firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Inasmuch as Syria has taken evil counsel against thee, Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and harass it, and make a breach therein for us, and set up a king therein, the son of Tabeal" (vv 3-6)

How foolish, as well as base, is unbelief! It is joyous and confident when a labouring volcano is about to burst; it is filled with anguish, when God is going to deal with the evils it dreads. In this case, how could He behold in peace a compact between apostate Israel and heathen Syria? It was not merely that their enterprise, if successful, must vex Judah, but set aside David's line. It was a blow at the Messiah, little as they might have thought of this; and the oath and honour of God were thus at stake. But "thus says the Lord Jehovah, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria [is] Damascus, and the head of Damascus [is] Rezin; and within sixty-five years shall Ephraim be broken, so as to be not a people. And the head of Ephraim [is] Samaria, and the head of Samaria [is] Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established" (vv. 7-9).

Also the judgment which was prepared for the people under Jotham now overtakes Ahaz on account of his unfaithfulness. We are told, "Then Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to battle; and they besieged Ahaz, but were unable to conquer him" (v. 5). Although we must, to limit ourselves, postpone the mention of the prophets of Judah till we study 2 Chronicles, we are obliged here and there to depart from this rule and to refer here to Isaiah, the more so as Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, plays an important role there. The king of Israel, once at war with Syria, is now its ally, no doubt in order to free himself on the one side from the yoke to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, who, as we have seen previously, had stripped him of a large part of his territory, but also to regain, while serving the designs of his ally, that which Judah had taken from him.

These two kings, then, went up against Jerusalem and "besieged Ahaz, but were unable to conquer him." The hearts of Ahaz and his people are agitated "as the trees of the forest are shaken with the wind" (Isa. 7:2). The Lord sends Isaiah to meet the king. The prophet is accompanied by his son Shear-jashub, whose name signifies "the remnant shall return" (cf. Isa. 10:21). He speaks in grace to this wicked king. It is true that whatever may happen, God remains faithful to His promises, and He will renew His relationships with Israel and Judah in the persons of Christ and of the remnant. But how touching is the patient grace God has toward this evil king! He reassures him instead of crushing him; He announces deliverance to him; He says to him, "Take heed and be quiet" let Me act. He says, "Fear not" to him who on his part had everything to fear. He gives him the date when Ephraim "shall … be broken, so as to be no more a people." Evil is decreed for a fixed and irrevocable time, and in spite of everything, if he would believe, then Judah would yet continue to exist for a little while (Isa. 7:9). The Spirit of God, through the prophet, says to Ahaz: "Ask for thee a sign from Jehovah thy God." Ahaz answered, "I will not ask, and will not tempt Jehovah" (Isa. 7:10-12), coloring his unbelief and his disobedience with an appearance of piety. To tempt the Lord was to distrust Him, but in fact, Ahaz did much more than distrust Him: he did not believe the word of the Lord. Then God announced a sign to him: Judah, that is to say, the house of David represented by Ahaz, had wearied the patience of God, who would replace him by Immanuel, the Seed of the woman (v. 14). But before the second son who to be born to the prophet would know "to refuse the evil, and to choose the good, the land whose two kings thou fearest shall be forsaken" (v. 16). Before this Maher-shalal-hash-baz (haste ye, haste ye to the spoil) should know "to cry, My father! and, My mother!" the lands of Pekah and of Rezin should be forsaken. This prophecy was literally accomplished, and the design of these kings to establish "the son of Tabeal" over Judah was brought to naught.

Ahaz prefers to confide in the king of Assyria against Pekah and Rezin than to confide in the Lord and to obey Him. This explains his answer to Isaiah. He had "sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying: "I am thy servant and they son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria hearkened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried it captive to Kir, and put Rezin to death" (2 Kings 16:7-9). Also God declares to Him: "Jehovah will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days which have not come since the day when Ephraim turned away from Judah — even the king of Assyria" (Isa. 7:17); and against Israel and Syria: "The riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria" (Isa. 8:4). Thus, that which the Lord had pronounced against Israel which had sought the support of Assyria (Hosea 5:13-14), He now pronounces against Judah, who sought this same alliance. The first result of this trust in Assyria seemed to be favorable for Judah. Tiglath-pileser seized Damascus, carried away its inhabitants, and slew Rezin. The prophecy pronounced long before by Amos (Amos 1:3-5) is now fulfilled.

But whoever, or whatever, Ahaz' mother may have been, he was himself responsible for his idolatrous deeds, and God punished him accordingly. "Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter." These statements in no way clash with what is recorded in 2 Kings 16:5 — that these confederate kings "could not overcome him." They could not get into the city, nor reach the king personally, though they entered the land. "God delivered him," and "they smote him," means his people and kingdom. Elath was also lost to Judah at this time (2 Kings 16:5). It was the purpose of "the two tails of these smoking firebrands" to dethrone king Ahaz, and set up in his stead "the son of Tabeal" (a Syrian, probably; it is not a Hebrew name). It was doubtless Satan's plot, if not man's, to destroy the Davidic dynasty; and God, for this reason, did not deliver Jerusalem into their hands. But the slaughter and slavery of the people at large throughout the kingdom was something almost unparalleled. See 2 Chron. 28:6. This is why Isaiah took with him his son Shear-jashub (the remnant shall return), when he went forth to meet king Ahaz. There should be a remnant left to return to the land; and the virgin should bear a son, so there should not fail a king upon the throne of David. The dynasty could never be destroyed, for of Immanuel's kingdom there shall be no end. See Isa. 7.

"Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men" — the flower of Ahaz' army — "because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers." And though the king himself escaped, God's rod reached him through his son: "And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king's son." He also slew the "governor of the house," and "Elkanah that was next to the king." How, or where, we know not. God can find the guilty where and when He will.