The Reign Of Pekah King Of Israel c. 739-732/31 BC (2 Kings 15:27-31).
The appeasement party having been defeated, and their king overthrown, Israel became mainly anti-appeasment, and as such would unite with others in order to be ready to oppose Assyria. One of the main parties in the conspiracy along with Pekah was Rezin king of Aram. Other interested parties included Philistia and Edom, and they had (false) hopes of assistance from Egypt. How were they to know that Egypt, which had always appeared to them a mighty power, were too weak at the time to be able to do anything against a power like Assyria? Assyria contemptuously called Egypt, ‘that broken reed of a staff which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it' (2 Kings 18:21), and they were mainly right. They were strong enough to be able to protect themselves, but not to be able to help others.
Meanwhile there was a breathing space, presumably because Tiglath-pileser was busy elsewhere containing Urartu and Babylon, both of which he would later destroy. So one of the things that Pekah did, along with Rezin king of Aram who was ruling from Damascus, was try to persuade Judah to join the conspiracy (see Isaiah 7). When Jotham and then Ahaz refused, Pekah and Rezin invaded Israel (2 Kings 16:5), with the assistance of Philistia from the west and Edom from the south (2 Kings 16:6). Judah consequently appeared to be in desperate straits, but rather than yield, and against the advice of Isaiah, Ahaz appealed to Assyria (probably unnecessarily as Tiglath-pileser had probably already set out with a view to dealing with the conspiracy). Certainly the action of the invaders, while devastating parts of Judah, did suddenly cease, and that could only be because they were called on to face the might of Assyria. As a result Israel would only survive in part, (with a huge chunk of Israel becoming a province of Assyria), and that due to the assassination of Pekah and his replacement with Hoshea who immediately submitted to Assyria, while this was followed by Rezin and Damascus being destroyed and Aram became a province of Assyria ruled over by an Assyrian governor. However, as YHWH was not directly involved, the prophetic author of Kings covers the whole action in a few verses.
Analysis.
a In the fifty second year of Azariah king of Judah Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years. And he did what was evil in the sight of YHWH. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, by which he made Israel to sin (2 Kings 15:27-28).
b In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali (2 Kings 15:29 a).
c And he carried them captive to Assyria (2 Kings 15:29 b).
b And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned instead of him, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah (2 Kings 15:29).
a Now the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel (2 Kings 15:30).
Note that in ‘a' we have the introduction to Pekah's reign and a description of his behaviour, and in the parallel we are referred for the remainder of his acts to the official annals of the kings of Israel. In ‘b' we have described the invasion of Tiglath-pileser, and in the parallel Pekah's assassination by Hoshea. Centrally in ‘c' we have described the exiling of large numbers of Israelites to Assyria.
‘In the fifty second year of Azariah king of Judah Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years.'
Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria towards the end of Uzziah's life, and he reigned for twenty years, but the twenty years included the period when he was deputy ruler to Menahem and Pekahiah in Gilead. As sole ruler he ruled for about seven years. He may well have taken over Pekahiah's name, either in order to deceive parts of Israel into thinking that there had been no change in ruler, or in order to confuse the king of Assyria.
Alternatively Pekah the son of Remaliah might have set up a separate state in Gilead in rebellion against Menahem and Pekahiah with his reign being counted from the day of the setting up of that state.
‘And he did what was evil in the sight of YHWH. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, by which he made Israel to sin.'
However, he continued to encourage the cult of Jeroboam, which Jeroboam had introduced into Israel, so that the covenant of YHWH was largely ignored and people behaved in a similar way to their neighbours in a selfish, callous and violent world, a subject constantly taken up by Hosea, Amos, Micah and Isaiah.
‘In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali.'
Pekah's reward for his attitude towards Assyria was to see Israel's armies driven back by the Assyrians with great slaughter and with city after city taken by the Assyrians in north Israel These cities in the land of Naphtali would never again be part of Israel but would be incorporated into Assyrian provinces. Naphtali would cease to exist.
Compare here 1 Kings 15:20 where Ijon, Dan and Abel-beth-maacah were border cities taken by the king of Aram in response to Asa's plea for their assistance against Israel. Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor would be a line of border fortress cities, Hazor being well known from Joshua 11:1-15. For Hazor and Kedesh see Joshua 19:36-37. Janoah is Yanuh, north east of Acco. Gilead (Gal'za) and Galilee represented the larger districts around Naphtali. Galilee, and probably Gilead, were incorporated into the Assyrian province of Megiddo. The archaeological digs at Hazor have confirmed that it was destroyed by fire around this time, and a potsherd was discovered in the ruins containing Pekah's name. All that was now left to Israel west of Jordan was the hill country of Ephraim around Samaria.
‘And he carried them captive to Assyria.'
Furthermore the Assyrians carried out their policy of transporting in chains, in the cruellest possible way, the cream of the inhabitants of northern Israel to Assyria and other areas (compare Isaiah 11:11, which, however, included other movements and transportations), replacing them with transportees from other such areas. The aim was to destroy nationalistic tendencies and divide up the opposition. The Nimrud tablet reads, ‘Israel (bit Humria) ---the total of its inhabitants I led off to Assyria. Peqaha (Pekah) their king they deposed, and I set Ausi (Hoshea) over them. I received from them as their tribute ten talents of gold and --- talents of silver and brought them to Assyria.' This was a huge sum for a reduced and impoverished Israel to find. It was the price of rebellion.
‘And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned instead of him, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.'
With Israel in process of being systematically destroyed by Assyria Hoshea the son of Elah took part in a conspiracy and assassinated Pekah, taking his throne and immediately seeking peace terms from Assyria. As we saw above Assyria claimed that it was on their initiative, but that was probably typical misrepresentation. This took place in the twentieth year of Jotham of Judah. The period was calculated from when Jotham became co-regent as a result of Uzziah's illness in c. 750 BC, and is probably to be seen as a generalisation (he reigned from c. 750-731 BC). The Israel over which Hoshea ruled was a greatly reduced Israel.
‘Now the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.'
The remaining acts of Pekah could be found in the official annals of the kings of Israel.